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Comment by chiefalchemist | Hacker News Reader

Let say you're correct, then it's all the more reason __not__ to over-subsidize something. It's one thing for a gov to toss some money at something to encourage R&D, the growth of a technology and/or market, etc. That makes at least some sense in some cases.

The problem is these "temporary" gov programs never end. And then eventually they live long past their prime.

Furthermore, as the become the new normal they tend to create unintended consequence. For example, farm subsidies for corn drove down the price of high fructose corn syrup. That made the sweetener ubiquitous.

Similar can be said for home loans and student loans. Once these programs take on a life of their own, the market becomes distorted and eventually bad - unforeseen - things happen.

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In my state (Utah). The government is attempting to roll back solar subsidies because "that industry should stand on it's own two feet". Conveniently neglecting to mention the massive tax breaks to fossil fuels.

I wish everyone competed in a free market (for the most part), but the energy market is not that.

This comment is conveniently forgetting that Utah taxes gas. In fact, one of the ballot items was the increase this tax.

And your comment conveniently omits that ballot item was a non-binding opinion question on using a gas tax increase to fund education and public roads. And that it was defeated. And that a tax != a subsidy.

A tax != a aubsidy. But tax can be, and oftwn is, a means to make taxed-thing-X less appealing.

For example, you can make electric cars more appealing by increaing the tax on gas.

Where things get ugly is when the incentives are in conflict. Again, oil is subsidized and then taxed. Big Oil wins. Gov wins. Consumers - who pay the subsidy and the tax - lose.

Taxing the use of something is different from subsidizing the production of that thing and are meant to encourage far different behaviors.

No, the tax would end up eventually hurting their profit margins while the subsidies increase those margins.

They encourage different short term effects but they're both contributing to the same effect.

All that said, the subsidies in this case far outweighed the effect the tax would have had.

Or they support the entire economy in positive ways. Reliable availability and pricing of corn has a tremdous positive impact on the economy as a whole.

Without a strong hand in regulation, dominant companies get fat and lazy, destroying anything in their path. Imagine the potential that would have been lost had the original AT&T not been under the yoke of regulation. The internet and the immense wealth it has created would never had existed. You’d be paying $300/mo for some ISDN style Western Electric modem to access AT&T’s version of AOL.

Look no further than the shitshow that is Facebook and Twitter for what happens when you let the free market run. We’ve brought back white supremacy and god knows what else in pursuit of user engagement.

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