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Comment by NotSammyHagar | Hacker News Reader

You should be downvoted for your last comment too! Or at least someone could explain the world we live in. Is it confiscatory to have public schools, funded by your taxes, fsck guy (you do have a great handle...)? How about publicly funded (by our taxes too) police and fire protection? Uh, govt funding to help pay for hospitals? Food inspection, are you crazy you might say, the perfectly working markets of our paradise make this not a necessity. People will self report when the water has contaminants - maybe?

Now let's add significantly reducing your own greenhouse gas impact for 20 or 30 years after you buy the demon solar panels (made from dead babies, some right thinking american might say), then putting your own excess electricity on the grid, further reducing fossil fuel generation. So in all thoses cases, that dastardly helpful socialism is for the public good.

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you need to read up on the economics of "public goods", other people have thought this through before you. In a nutshell, police and fire protection benefit everyone, because if your neighbor has low crime or low chance of fire spreading, that also benefits you, so it makes sense to include everyone in the plan. But while the $7500 was paid for by everybody else, the only person with the $0 electric bill is GP, which does not have any fairness property.

The socialist mantra "from those with the ability" includes GP who has the ability to pay for this so that other people's needs can be met.

The police force in the next city doesn't really benefit me, so F them, right? Reducing greenhouse gases and the price of electricity (such as from super cheap customer provided solar power on the grid during the day) actually does benefit me and every other electricity consumer.

Some conservatives are really stuck on the $7500 rebate, they are so excited to maintain our existing industrial base. They are in extreme denial about the public subsidies of the oil industry industrial complex, when we offer something visible for an EV they lose all reason. All those other public goods were paid by everyone who pays taxes but many people don't benefit from them. Say an elderly retired person doesn't benefit from educating kids, because they are kicking the bucket in the next few years, burn it all down behind them, they might say, reduce my taxes now.

you're just angry, and anger makes people incoherent. You do benefit from the police in the next town, and turns out, you don't pay for it, so I have no idea what you are talking about.

liberals should be stuck on the $7500 rebate, read my separate response about achieving even more climate benefit.

I've never. Like elon musk, i already got my 7500 rebates. Pull the ladder up behind me, just like him and you too i guess

Its not up to a single individual to fix monetary policy. Maybe you should work on your social skills before calling someone greedy for merely making money.

we are all greedy, it's human nature, and greed is good, it makes us strive and human striving is what brings us all benefits.

So when I use greed, it's not meant as an insult. Only people who use it as an insult (frequently socialists), as if they themselves are not greedy, need to hear it hurled at them, simply as a proof of "hey, you're a human too, stop thinking you're better than other people".

and we're talking about fiscal policy here, not monetary.

> greed is good

My dude, Gordon Gekko was not the protagonist.

another stock character in Aristotelian drama is nature; nature is capricious, or expresses the will of the gods, and can never be bested. Greed is a force of nature.

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.

Calling greed a virtue is certainly a thing a person has said.

The subsidy was to incentivize adoption of technology to fight climate change. As a result, he took actions that reduced CO2 emissions, which everyone benefits from.

"we" overpaid for the climate benefit you want, can't you see that? We could have got the climate benefit cheaper, which would give us a bigger budget for more climate benefits.

Instead of him saying "for net zero cost, I've reduced my carbon footprint, which is great!" he's crowing about "I don't pay anything any more!" That is a private benefit that he loves, that we paid for, and we do not benefit from.

If you had even the slightest clue about what you're pretending to know about, you would realize this $7500 is about the farthest thing possible from the only time the government pays for a benefit that doesn't benefit everyone.

It's just straight up amusing how much you lose your mind over like absolute economic trivialities, because evil renewable energy is a symbol of the liberals.

>amusing how much you lose your mind over like absolute economic trivialities... If you had even the slightest clue about what you're pretending to know about

i didn't lose my mind, all of you have. i just "pointed out"

in terms of "the slightest clue about what you're pretending to know about", i was raised from the crib as a good liberal and socialist, i understand the perspective intimately, then I studied economics at MIT and realized I didn't need to change my morals/sensibilities at all, the free market achieves what socialism is trying to achieve, and then I studied more economics in grad school at MIT... please, tell me your background, and like you suggest, no "pretending to know about"...

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