Meanwhile, I love the idea of us selling electric power trains to the Japanese, rather than them selling them to Detroit. Makes me feel like we're doing something right.
I am proud to support Toyota, and the sooner the Big Three are forced to sell out out to "the japanese" the better.
It may be different for line employees, the people I knew worked skilled trades, electrician, hvac, etc.
And it isn't "us," the Germans and Toyota are equity stakeholders in Tesla.
Good for Germany and Toyota. The tech will be here, they'll be playing catchup, or explicitly neglecting their own tech because they have cheap access to ours.
Taxpayer funded subsidies are like taking money out of your wallet and setting it on fire, most of the time.
Gov't - down money Recipient - up money
Does the mechanism really matter?
EDIT: Hypothetically, let's say the government gave one company a direct subsidy, another a tax rebate, and a third a targetted one-company-only tax break, all for X dollars. You're saying these are substantially different from a macroeconomic perspective? And different enough that a few million in one method is egregious while 50 billion via another method is just how things should be?
To add to this, looking at the upside of the risk:
If the company is successful with a subsidy or a loan, they've first got to make up the raw dollar value of the subsidy (in extra taxes) or loan (in repayments) before additional taxes become an ROI.
If the company is successful with a tax break, they can start reaping rewards right away as (assuming there is some limited taxation involved), tax revenues increase with volume.
However, with either option you're still gambling with public funds and policy and there are many ways to screw the public fiscally. I'm personally against using the tax code for social engineering purposes (punitive, stimulative, or otherwise), and doubly against subsidies in nearly all cases.
like coke and hookers and yachts