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Comment by mmooss | Hacker News Reader

As I wrote elsewhere, the US government and economy are now essentially a private equity takeover for a large segment of wealthy business: Squeeze out as much money as possible short term - including by issuing debt againts its assets, slashing and burning any costs regardless of ROI and with no regard for the future, and leave the bankrupt husk for someone else to deal with.

The treatment of fossil fuels and renewables fits: Block the obviously more economical and better long-term solution in order to shovel money toward the entrenched wealthy. That it sabotages the future due to climate change and economic inefficiency doesn't seem to be a significant factor to them.

I forgot, one of the entrenched corporate wealthy told us that climate change isn't a big deal, and we should send money to his and his friends for solutions.

I'm not anti-business; in fact, quite the opposite: These policies block a free market and the brilliant new businesses that can thrive and deliver solutions to everyone.

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Don't forget the frequent bump and dump and insider trading schemes.

It's an old strategy https://www.milwaukeeindependent.com/thom-hartmann/two-santa...

> This produces three results: it stimulates the economy thus making people think that the GOP can produce a good economy; it raises the debt dramatically; and it makes people think that Republicans are the "tax-cut Santa Clauses."

I don't disagree but it seems this time the good economy part only exists in their rhetoric.

It's a "good economy" because the numbers are going up. That's all that matters.

The fact that the numbers are going up because of a bubble and a lot of questionable deals is not relevant. That's a problem for someone else to handle later.

The numbers also go up when the dollar deflates.

The people who get burned there are the ones unwilling / unable to track inflation.

> The numbers also go up when the dollar deflates

Uh, if it deflates, the numbers go down? Isn't that the definition? The same numerical value of currency represents more value as compared to assets etc - hence things get "cheaper", with the side effect of money getting harder to get

You forgot using your digital infrastructure for extractive rent from your partners, driving them to build their own sovereign digital infrastructure.

"driving them to build their own sovereign digital infrastructure".

Is that happening though?

Yes. https://www.bmi.bund.de/SharedDocs/pressemitteilungen/EN/202...

> I'm not anti-business; in fact, quite the opposite: These policies block a free market and the brilliant new businesses that can thrive and deliver solutions to everyone.

Lets hope PG&Es price gouging kicks-off people to look for off-grid solution. EVs have humongous batteries, home batteries are getting pretty cheap. With solar + EV + home battery there is a strong economic case for a large number of people in CA to switch to off grid. Which makes PGE raise rates, driving more people to go off grid. California is a big enough market, which can create this new demand for off grid, new companies and economies of scale.

The green tech is completely under the control of governement even after it is installed and operational:

- Tax imports of panels and batteries

- Tax and oppose new installations.

- Only offer disincetive grid prices to those having panels on their houses. Low pay or negative pay to push to grid, higher cost to consume from the grid.

- Tax installed panels, even off-grid ones.

- Introduce new onerous "safety" requirements.

That's where a free market should come in.

"The treatment of fossil fuels and renewables fits: Block the obviously more economical and better long-term solution in order to shovel money toward the entrenched wealthy."

This is also voter/public appeasement. There are many rural communities that depend on fossil fuel related jobs and will vote to protect them.

"These policies block a free market and the brilliant new businesses that can thrive and deliver solutions to everyone."

I'd be more inclined to share this view if the manufacturing were done in the US. But we can't really compete on manufacturing costs. Remove the policies and the money still goes to the rich and we lose jobs too.

> There are many rural communities that depend on fossil fuel related jobs and will vote to protect them.

It's true to an extent, but technological transitions happen regularly. Everything we have now is a product of a prior transition.

> Remove the policies and the money still goes to the rich and we lose jobs too.

Prices drop, and also the money goes to those who can innovate in the real economy. Manufacturing isn't the only sector of the economy, and we want to build the new sectors and industries, not the ones that were successful 75 years ago.

"but technological transitions happen regularly"

Yes, and that doesn't refute that people will vote to protect their jobs. If they were offered alternatives, then maybe it would gain more traction in those areas. Eg you can't mine coal anymore but we'll start up a solar panel plant here.

"and we want to build the new sectors and industries"

And what are those? Most of the economy is shit for job seekers right now. We continue to automate and outsource. Right now it looks like nursing and the trades are some of the few things actually growing.

> And what are those?

The challenge of being on the leading edge economically (i.e., not being a middle-income country following the road blazed by others), is you don't always know.

Certainly IT, non-GHG energy, ...

If only Musk didn't turn out to be such a twitt, Tesla was really supposed to be part of the solution but somehow Musk managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

The future is pretty much in China now as far as green energy tech and consumption goes. Two bad elections and the US has basically lost world leader status in just over a decade.

Musk chronically over-promised and terminally under-delivered. There was no world where he didn't end up being a twit, just one where we aren't stupid enough to fall for his lies.

Tesla, in particular, boils down to how Americans respond to marketing. We love the idea of buying organic, environmentally-friendly technology that makes us part of the solution. It doesn't matter if Congolese children are dying in the cobalt mines to make EV-grade lithium ion batteries, us Americans need to virtue signal with our wallet. Buy the latest iPhone, save up for a Tesla, it's all part of the new-age jewelry we wear to make ourselves feel worth something.

It was damn good marketing.

> Musk chronically over-promised and terminally under-delivered

To be fair, most CEOs does that, but I think his downfall was really everything that he did besides just over-promising and under-delivering. He could have continued as-is, without all the political stunts and activities, and I'm sure Europeans would still have bought Teslas sometimes. Now the brand is poisoned pretty much world-wide, which wouldn't have happened just because of "over-promise and under-deliver", it takes a lot more for stuff like that to happen.

How many CEO promise full self driving, robo taxis, humanoid robots that are only 6 months away for 10+ years?

The equivocation here is quiet something.

Toyota has been promising solid state batteries in 2-3 years for the last 15.

They weren't promising they'd be in the car you already bought though.

The CEO of fusion startups have always said fusion is 10 years away. While 10 years != 6 months, it's the same thing

I really like EVs, and the Congolese kids dying to make EV-grade lithium has always been FUD made up by the anti boomer crowd (77% of the world's lithium comes from Australia and Chile, and I know they aren't importing Congo kids to mine it, and then China, Argentina, and Bolivia, again, completely Congo kid free). You probably meant Cobolt, and they are transitioning to LFP chemistries because it is impossible to force the Congolese to use industrial mining rather than small holder artisanal mining (where parents are likely to make their kids mine without supervision).

> us Americans need to virtue signal how much we love green energy and saving the planet.

Again, more FUD made up by the anti-EV crowd. Most people who buy EVs buy them because they are just better cars. In China, EVs are more of a national security concern: they have to import oil, which exposes them to international conflict. Importing less oil = less exposure, which is a big win for the country. The US has a lot of oil-entrenched interests.

The cobalt goes in the NCM lithium batteries.

It also goes in lots of other stuff, and is basically a byproduct of Congolese copper production.

The kids are doing artisinal mining because when capitalism doesn't need you to make money, you are pretty fucked. The big mines can make plenty of money with very few workers, leaving no need to build a decent civil society. Something to bear in mind for when our glorious AI future arrives.

Every chance that some countries become the Norway of AI and everyone is rich while others become the resource cursed Congo of AI and a tiny minority become rich and others are left to rot.

congo is also a classical example of the resource curse.

Congo is so resource rich, that the state can sustain itself easily with simple, low skilled extraction of resources, without the need to invest in its populace to increase economic output through other, more difficult means.

That first paragraph would send the average liberal running for the bus stop. It's no wonder conservatives are the only one willing to chart out a path for the EV industry...

As for the second paragraph, I mostly agree but nothing you said obviates the virtue signalling that people endlessly associated Tesla with pre-2015. I say this not because I think EVs are bad, but because so much of America's congestive dissonance is rooted in the "Tesla good" aphorism burned into their brain for no reason besides feel-good marketing.

> nothing you said obviates the virtue signalling that people endlessly associated Tesla with pre-2015.

Pre-2015 the best selling EV in America was the Nissan Leaf. Source: https://afdc.energy.gov/data/10567

> Americans need to virtue signal with our wallet

The only realistic alternative - not "virtue signalling" and instead buying polluting ICE vehicles - is far worse. I'm ok with virtue signalling. It's not like America is going to get walkable cities and world-class public transit anytime before 2060.

> It's not like America is going to get walkable cities and world-class public transit anytime before 2060

I wouldn't be so pessimistic! The inevitable swing towards authoritarianism in the US happened much sooner than I expected, which also means it'll swing back again much sooner too, likely to be way before 2060. I'll throw out a prediction and say that the soon-to-be-authoritarian state that is under construction right now might fall as soon as 2035-2040, and it'll be a wild swing the other way once it happens.

what makes you so sure it'll fall? plenty of autocracies last for decades, or generations

Incompetence, our "leaders" are woefully incompetent. MAGA, GOP and the right are filled with idiots. The Liberal and Neoliberal Democrats at least were a little better at stealing everything from us and delaying progress. They would bury people in culture wars and keep their followers busy with DEI rules. They used legitimate racist issues and then said everything was caused by racism and not that the 1% was just stealing everything.

> what makes you so sure it'll fall? plenty of autocracies last for decades, or generations

Because you didn't end your sentence with "Plenty of autocracies last forever" but instead you gave them a duration. Maybe that duration sounds long, but it ends eventually, which is exactly my point.

Meh, I feel we’re entering an era where only the elite will be able to realistically check authoritarians, and they will just be lesser

Think more of the earlier end of medieval era, where the peasant class was mostly incapable against feudal armies, even in many cases with massive numbers on their side.

There’s an entire surveillance state, eyes everywhere, gait recognition, massive intelligence networks all at a scale unimaginable by kings and dictators of the past.

The elites are not checking the authoritarians, they're fueling them.

For now, those alliances are always tentative through.

They are them.

That scenario assumes that history will work the same way it did in the aftermath of WWII. There is no guarantee of that. America could become another Russia, where the collapse of the Soviet Union led to secession of several republics. The new democratic government was too weak to face the challenges of successive financial crises and active civil wars. Eventually power falls back into the hands of s strongman who scales back democratic reforms to maintain power.

Hand Maid's Tale doesn't seem so fictional after all of this in how the divisions would reshape the country

Once you “swing” to authoritarianism the authoritarian doesn’t let you swing back.

Yet the people always prevail, but sometimes it does take longer time than others, yea.

No, they don't.

There are decades and centuries where authoritarians and dictators prevail. There is no timeline for guaranteeing democracy and human rights will prevail.

It takes action, diligence, and sacrifice to preserve those things. And even more to regain them once lost.

Ok, name one authoritarian state that never fell, besides the authoritarian states we have today?

Of course it eventually falls down, everything does. I'm not saying it won't be difficult, nor many people will ultimately die, and the country will be very different. But it will happen, if not sooner, then later, like in every other place in the world.

> Ok, name one authoritarian state that never fell, besides the authoritarian states we have today?

By defintion, if it “never fell”, it would be one of the authoritarian states we have today, so the obvious lack of any example fulfilling that criteria doesn't demonstrate anything one way or the other.

Now, if you could say something like “point to any authoritarian regime existing after <year> that had existed for longer than <span in years>”, that might tend to support the claim that, at least after a certain point in time, authoritarian regimes tended to have a particular finite lifespan (of course, you can never prove that currently-existing regimes aren’t exceptions to that withot access to future knowledge.)

At one point I had a hypothesis based on a few notable examples that with certain definitional bounds this might work with some point in the 20th century and about 80 years (even had a bit of process explanation, though not a strong theory on why it didn't apply earlier beyond the general spread of democratic ideals) but I never rigourously checked if there might be exceptions.

(Of course, plenty of authoritarian regimes fall only to be replaced by different authoritarian regimes, too.)

I bet the blow back will be sooner than that. I don't expect Trump to serve out his term; he looks and sounds terrible. And Vance doesn't have the mojo that Trump does. Once Trump is gone the Republicans will start eating their own.

Authoritarian states and walkable cities are orthogonal problems. You can have car centric city planning in democratic states (see for example the USA).

I wouldn't be so pessimistic. Here in Oregon we're working pretty hard at doing that, for instance.

I'm definitely ok with 'virtue signalling' though. It's a lot better than vice signalling.

which part of Oregon is that though? The part that is on fire and suffering from massive insurrection, or the part that wants to secede from the state and become part of Montana? Either way, your optimism seems very out of place. Even if one city makes changes, that doesn't define it as a trend. The rest of the country is not following

edit the embarrassing

> that wants to succeed [sic] from the state and become part of Montana

If joining Montana is "success" you've set your sights too low

/s (no offence to Montanans, it's a beautiful state. I just couldn't resist)

They want to 'succeed' in Idaho in any case, not Montana, which does not share a border with Oregon.

I'm also curious about the 'massive insurrection'. Is that like the guy in the frog costume?

Could be that they want to be an exclave like their Kaliningrad friends.

"I'm also curious about the 'massive insurrection'. Is that like the guy in the frog costume?"

That's the guy.

> The part that is on fire and suffering from massive insurrection

I assume you’re talking about Portland. Speaking as someone who lives in Portland, you’re grossly misinformed. It’s time to change your filter bubble.

hey, i'm getting my info from the leader of the country. you're saying we can trust our dear leader?

i really wish /s wasn't so damn necessary

My bad. In my defense, Poe’s Law.

> I'm definitely ok with 'virtue signalling' though. It's a lot better than vice signalling.

Both inflate the ego.

Musk's over promising and under delivering was fine when it was still above and beyond what anyone else was doing. It's all the other crazy stuff he started doing that was the problem.

> We love the idea of buying organic, environmentally-friendly technology that makes us part of the solution

Telsa sells a huge number of vehicles to Americans who couldn't care less about the environment but do care about buying a car that can rip through 0-60 in under 3 seconds.

ICE vehicles are simply inferior for most use cases now. They're only holding on because a huge number of people would be out of work if we abandoned obsolete transportation technology. Continuing ICE mass production is an actual socialist make-work scheme at the end of the day.

I don't think people are deciding what car to buy based on how much labor market churn they'd feel responsible for.

They do look at prices though. Notice you can't buy a cheap Chinese EV in the US. That's the government propping up the existing auto manufacturers.

During Tesla’s ascent, who was delivering better all electric cars than them?

Everything was lining up perfectly, then they lost the plot by creating the cybertruck, humanoid robots, and it's been all downhill since then. This jumping of the shark coincides with Musk's mental decline.

The car is pretty good to drive and it genuinely changes my life. No more gas stations unless I want to go there to buy snacks and drinks.

However, I won't be buying a Tesla again. I would also not buy another car if I can help it, but I need a car to see family and do relatively long distance tasks.

> It doesn't matter if Congolese children are dying in the cobalt mines to make EV-grade lithium ion batteries, us Americans need to virtue signal with our wallet.

Love how you were able to take Musk's missteps, layer marketing, and blend in the emotional heart wrenching, think of the (Congolese) children!

Of course, fossil fuels are the ONLY solutions, otherwise you are a victim of marketing or a horrible person for not thinking of (Congolese) children!

If you really care about children at all or any life, first thing would be get off fossil fuels. The right metric is Deaths/TWH: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-p...

Musk is a nogo poisoned brand in Europe... that damage his needless psychotic attacks have done won't be forgotten anytime soon. I'd happily buy chinese car instead of tesla just because of above, if prices were same. But they are far from same, and seeing their progress they may soon be better products overall.

> Musk is a nogo poisoned brand in Europe... that damage his needless psychotic attacks have done won't be forgotten anytime soon. I'd happily buy chinese car instead of tesla just because of above, if prices were same. But they are far from same, and seeing their progress they may soon be better products overall.

This more-or-less summarizes American geopolitical and economic attitudes towards China from 1970 until 2016.

"Sure, they're problematic, but so are we, and their product is cheaper, so..."

"The product is cheaper" is why combustion engines were dominant over batteries and renewables for so long, and also why they're now being displaced so rapidly by them.

Batteries were not a viable technology for a variety of reasons until recently. Cost is only one of a number of show-stopping problems with battery technology before circa 20 years ago.

Electric cars were quite popular in the early history of automobiles. It wasn’t until internal combustion development proceeded (mechanical, and resource discovery) that the economics and value proposition flipped.

All the show-stopping problems you mentioned applied to internal combustion before.

Unless electrical generation gets less efficient somehow, the economics are trending back.

> This more-or-less summarizes American geopolitical and economic attitudes towards China from 1970 until 2016.

That is misleading. First, China wasn't economically productive in 1970, during the Cultural Revolution. It wasn't until the 1990s that things began to subtantially improve, and then take off in the 2000s.

Also, they weren't so problematic - they were a good trading partner, and they were democratizing slowly: They had with a major setback in 1989, but were improving until Xi took over.

Under Xi, it took a few years to see what would happen, which trends were temporary and which were long-term problems; which could be reversed and which would only get worse. I think the problem calcified, in large part, because the US abandoned universal human rights in large part. If the US doesn't advocate that, who will? How can people in China say that freedom is a right and democracy superior if the US doesn't.

Same, if it was a choice between American and Chinese - then Chinese but realistically we also have other options as well.

I wouldn't drive a Tesla if it was free, I'd just sell it for whatever - that brand is torched for me.

No shit, but he didn’t have to do those things. He had Tesla in a great position and decided to eradicate any goodwill they had accumulated.

If anyone is the public embodiment of the damage social media can do, it's Musk.

Dealer getting hooked on his own supply.

> If only Musk didn't turn out to be such a twitt, Tesla was really supposed to be part of the solution but somehow Musk managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

this was never going to happen. the capitalist class are never going to be the ones to get us out of debt; they cause and benefit from it. it's his entire business model.

Debt isn't what's wrong with Musk.

Not that his own debt isn't going to cause him problems when the TSLA share price stops defying gravity like Wile E. Coyote, it's just that his problems are shaped more like "being a cult leader".

I have to agree with you. I've heard competing claims that Musk is doing, with Tesla, something similar to what he did with Hyperloop: Promise a futuristic but ultimately impractical solution to forestall those trying to proceed with proven solutions (i.e. bullet trains) that might compete with his own business.

However, it's becoming increasingly apparent that the above paragraph ascribes genius to what is more simply explained by incompetence. It's more likely Musk believed he could make Hyperloop work, but couldn't. Similarly...

- Musk thought he could buy an election and gain the inside track for his companies, but was too witless to maintain good relations with the politician he bought.

- He bought Twitter seemingly on a lark and proceeded to rapidly run it into the ground.

- He put a bunch of script-kiddies in charge of DOGE, which promptly made a mess of an entire government and created a historically massive deficit while gutting government services.

- He alienated the core customer demographics that had formerly been one of Tesla's mains sources of income. (The other being government grants and subsidies which... whoops.)

Now, Tesla's shareholders are weighing whether or not a man with Musk's recent track record is worth a trillion dollar pay package[1]. It's gobsmacking that they even need to think about this.

So, no, Musk is not some evil genius undoing green energy by deliberately creating a false solution that fails to deliver. He's just a garden variety mediocrity who has been promoted far past his capabilities or character and has been utterly undone by the resulting ego trip. He's an object lesson in just how much damage the wrong person in the right place and time can do to the world.

[1]https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/musk-could-leave...

>worth a trillion dollar pay package. It's gobsmacking that they even need to think about this.

I think you mischaracterize that deal. It's more if he can hype the stock from $1.3t to $8.5t he gets a 15% cut, in stock. It wouldn't be a bad deal for TSLA speculators.

As long as they get out before Elon gets his chunk and is no longer incentivized to keep the lie going.

He will still be incentivized given all the stock he will have

The rich haven't been about a free market in quite a long time.

I don't know if you noticed, but the discourse in right-wing politics that's absolutely nothing to do with Chicago school anymore. They don't even bring up free markets.

It's an acknowledgment that the entire economy in the US is cartel or Monopoly

> The rich haven't been about a free market in quite a long time.

I think that's just the Trump version of the GOP, and the Dems followed along, dismissing economics - an attempt at truth - for shallow partisanship. For example, the New York Times fired their economist columnists, such as Paul Krugman.

Americans get what they vote for - it's not like any of this is a surprise, Trump is a well understood entity.

Much less well understood by folks who get their news from Fox News, News Max, or bro podcasts.

Everyone understands Trump is the racist president who will screw over "those people" for you. Even rural Mongolians get it. It was clear from day 1 when he came down the stairs calling Mexicans rapists, almost 10 years ago. They just like to cheer tariffs and govt firings and grants cancellations, then smirk and pretend they don't understand it.

Well as we see in the article, this world is very interconnected and you can't hurt your neighbor without hurting yourself.

Most everyone. Rural Mongolians arent getting their news from US propaganda. Oh, and how could I forget the most racist propaganda spewing one of all, X. People who get info from these sources have been manipulated to shut down their own critical thinking and just react for decades. Half of them probably don't even realize how racist-fascist their views have gotten.

Really wish we could push this discourse off HN and back to bsky

That irritation you feel is your conscience/soul. Try saying hi.

Welcome to the other side of your propaganda bubble.

I mean... sort of.

But let's look at the structure for a bit...

- Citizens United has allowed unfettered amounts of dark money to flow into our elections, disproportionately benefiting the uber wealthy

- The Senate greatly favors rural states, sometimes 60 - 1 by vote weight

- The House is pretty much a race to the bottom in terms of gerrymandering, where many districts are pretty much unloseable

- Many states purge rolls and make it harder to vote by closing polling places, restricting early access, adding id requirements, and restricting mail in voting. Combined with the fact that election day is on a random Tuesday which we don't take off as a nation to go vote

- Education is... not in a great place. Many many people have _no idea_ how the system works at all, or what's happening within it day to day. But they are getting inundated with 7 second flashes of information and misinformation on infinite feeds which bubble their users, lead them to increasingly extreme content, and make it hard to distinguish between fact and fiction

So yea, he's well understood in that half the country has no idea he's all over Epstein's list and think the felonies he's been charged with are bogus while cheering on the prosecution of Letitia James for renting out an apartment that said she could rent it out in the contract she signed

And we voted for him in the sense that only 7 states seem to matter in our presidential elections, and we're constantly inundated with information about how our votes barely matter cause of all the imbalances in elections at every level

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