Comment by enraged_camel | Hacker News Reader

Comment by enraged_camel | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

>>I will state a view that (sadly) may very well be heresy on both sides of the political aisle: the success of Tesla is not a blanket validation of government intervention in green industry any more than the failure of, say, Solyndra is a blanket indictment of it.

I don't know why you think it would be heretical to say this.

Government intervention in and of itself is neither good nor bad. It can be used well, and it can be used badly. But at the end of the day, it is just a tool.

In the case of emerging technology players going up against incumbents, the government should absolutely intervene and help the newcomers.

In the case of established markets such as agriculture, the government should stay the fuck away and refuse to subsidize anything.

I mean, seriously... when it comes to spending taxpayer money, the thought process should be purely pragmatic. We should think about the result we want to achieve, and then determine whether we need government intervention to achieve it.

Agriculture is an interesting problem because the government has to ensure that, during a future crisis (both natural disaster and national defense), there is enough food production to supply the population and control prices. So, you can consider some agricultural subsidies as a form of defense spending.

"the government should absolutely intervene and help the newcomers"

Where do you draw the line on this? Should all newcomers be subsidized? Every YC startup that wants to enter the automobile sector should be federally subsidized? What about newcomers in other industries like healthcare, banking, and mining? Should those be subsidized too?

> Where do you draw the line on this?

In the right place.

EDIT: HN really can't take a joke. Sigh

i just got a flash of genius. what if instead of just up and down vote arrows, there were also left and right vote arrows, where each vote would move the post one pixel to the left/right (you would no longer be able to vote up/down). this would lead to awesome positioning wars, or even races to see which post could first cross the right edge of a 1080p monitor

> Where do you draw the line on this?

Wherever the elected officials want to. Generally it is a big hammer and is applied to sectors, so there is an expectation of low success rates. That is why the government is doing it, and not private investors. This time they supported the "green" technology sector through allowing companies to apply for low interest loans, and giving consumers tax credits for those items. The next elected administration / congress might try to encourage the airline industry with fewer fuel taxes, the clothing industry with import tariffs, or support USPS by taxing the internet. You never quite know what they might do, you just hope they don't do it for very long.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com