Chevy Volt a Failure - GM to Layoff 1,300

Where can I find one of them? A balance sheet that shows more debt (close to $800 million) than actual tangible assets (including the bulk of that debt being owned to U.S. taxpayers), the company JUST celebrated producing its 1,000th car the other day.

Even if they knew how to actually produce cars, rather than promising cars with ridiculous production estimates that they have never come close to meeting. ... at the $80,000 price tag (and why we need to give tax CREDITS — robbing U.S. taxpayers even more on top of it — of $7,500 to subsidize people buying $80,000 cars) -- it is also way more expensive than your truck.

Watching you try to sell the unsellable is entertaining, though.

 

You really want to compare the buying off of labor unions and wealthy foreign political donors to what was behind the rise of our space program -- which was beefed up under the guise of an acute national security threat when the Russians sent up a rocket before us?

The first thing to note there is that NASA, regardless of how I've ever felt about it, was a governmental agency. It is not a private enterprise handed money by our Federal government without any governmental oversight. Or really any targeted strategy or goal, such as the one that we had to put a man on the moon. It was also not a company that would have, or could have, existed without government pork.

Tesla motors has been in existence since 2003. If electric cars have any potential, here was a team ready to invest in it and try to commercialize it. Of course electric cars have been around for more than a hundred years anyhow. It's not like there haven't been "investments" by people trying to create something commercially viable that would make themselves a fortune.

So we could stop the conversation right there.

But of course, regardless of that... or how I feel about the space program. ... aren't you forgetting that you are talking about the president who has dismantled the space program and talks about all he has been doing to promote PRIVATELY funded exploration of space (which is a real possibility)? Free markets make perfect sense there according to him, but not when it comes to the types of businesses populated by his political allies. Not coincidentally, NASA wasn't owned privately by a wealthy donor (such as the donors whose companies have been given billions of dollars of energy department money), nor was it an industry filled with unionized workforces that have been a strong source of support for a particular political party.

So naturally, there is no "worthy investment" to be had anymore at NASA. It doesn't pay political rewards. And that is forgetting that that "investment" in NASA over the years was never just money given to hand-chosen people (government picking people to reward over others) to spend (or piss away) privately however they choose.

 

Low-interest loan?

That would mean they actually have been paying it back under the terms they agreed to, and we know that they didn't have the money to meet an interest payment (let alone pay back any of the principal) in September. Of course with an estimated working capital balance of only $26 million out of the hundreds of millions they have raised, when they reported the second quarter, and the fact that they had to mine the equity markets again recently to keep their heads above water (what you called being cash flow positive, others called raising $193 in the secondary equity market -- likely with the help of a few well-placed phone calls from D.C. implicitly guaranteeing that the government is committed to propping up the company).

Bottom line: I don't need you, or anyone else, putting our country into greater and greater debt based on what you randomly have decided "aligns with our national interests." Particularly when your brilliant idea is to give away public money to private enterprises that make you feel warm and fuzzy.

If we are going to play that game, where is my $465 million? At least I am an actual American, unlike Elon Musk. If you want to give away money that gets pissed away, shouldn't I be ahead of him in the line?

 

A default is a failure to pay back a loan under the terms you agreed to. That happened in September. You want me to let you know when something that already happened happens?

Perhaps you meant, "Let me know when they are insolvent"?

They can probably stave that off for a while. Government patronage buys a lot of time.