Chevy Volt a Failure - GM to Layoff 1,300

You're being ridiculous. Solyndra didn't default on their loans, either. The Federal government just decided to forgive the loan. But it wasn't a default. They worked it out between them. It had nothing to do with the company not being able to meet their borrowing terms. They just "restructured" it all so Solyndra didn't have to pay it back. But not a default. A restructuring.

In the case of Tesla, nope, they didn't default on their loan either (which by definition means, you didn't make a scheduled payment on a loan. ... EXCEPT in this case). They weren't able to make that payment, but you'll insist on telling me they didn't default on their loan, because they "restructured the loan right before they were going to miss the payment," got several months of grace time to hopefully raise equity so they could start making payments again, and they were moved from fixed payments to metrics-based payments.

But they didn't default dammit! The Federal government just decided for shits and giggles (but not because the company couldn't pay back its debt) that it would be in all of our benefit to allow them to not make good on the terms they had agreed to, and the DOE decided that rather than getting fixed payments, it would be preferable for the U.S. taxpayer to have to get paid back on a schedule that fits Tesla's floundering business execution.

But it wasn't a default! Don't use that word.

Yup, reality is a bitch.

 

1,000 Roadster S cars produced since the U.S. started giving the company $465 million in 2009. A fraction of those sold. In fact, since 2003, the company has produced only about 3,000 cars, and the majority of those were $100K + cars marketed to rich European playboys.

The company employees 900 people. Not all of them are U.S. based. It's Palo Alto facility employees 350 people. Let's say generously, the company has 500 U.S.-based employees. For $465 million, we could have gotten just as much bang for the buck by picking 500 people randomly from the phone book and mailing them each a check for $930,000.

If you care about workers, the way you constantly tell me, you'd tell your Federal government to stop hampering our economy and allow DEMAND-DRIVEN enterprises to flourish, rather than funneling money out of the economy in this way for wasteful political patronage reasons. You'd get a hell of a lot more people than that employed that way. And our GDP would benefit, too, making the average consumer better off, too -- because 1,000 $70,000 electric cars produced in more than two years for that $465 million loan has not helped a soul.

And it's offensive when you sit there and tell me you are the most caring person in the world and characterize me that way. It's bullshit. I don't care if Tesla succeeds or doesn't. That's the point. I would have never invested in something based on hype, but no executable business plan. What offends me is that my Federal government gave a private enterprise (not me, not hundreds of thousands of other businesses who would have loved the Federal government to hand them half a billion dollars in unsecured loans) a huge loan -- and tacked it onto our national debt, making it MY problem. That money is now being squandered.

And you not only don't acknowledge that, you then try to turn it on me and tell me you are the most caring person in the world and I am a heel, because we hand-picked a political donor, gave him half a billion dollars on the public dole to create a couple of hundred bullshit jobs that aren't producing anything? Yup. I'm a real bastard for pointing that one out. And you are Saint Cranberry.

 

They didn't forget to put a stamp on the envelope. They blew through everything they have raised (including drawing down the entire Federal loan), had less than $30 million in working capital left, and couldn't make a scheduled interest payment. With that basic set of facts, you see this as a nitpick?

 

Do you understand the distinction between "rooting for fail," and being monumentally upset that our Federal government has gotten into the business since TARP of giving out public money to private enterprises -- which amounts to hand-picking some private enterprises that you (and others who support that kind of corrupt practice) are "rooting for to succeed" at the cost of everyone else who is out here trying to make it on their own?

In the case of Tesla (and a handful of other companies, such as A123, Fisker, Solyndra), it is especially infuriating, because it was obvious political patronage, and that money was quickly squandered. Two of those companies went bankrupt and a third has been cut off by the Federal government. And Tesla has not met ONE promised goal and was on the brink of insolvency until the Federal government, not wanting the political backlash of another Solyndra, helped them arrange another $193 million public equity offering so they could keep making loan payments -- even as they keep missing production goals and showing that they have no idea how to execute. Do you understand that including the money owed to you and I, the company has put itself into close to $800 million of debt, had actual tangible assets worth less than that. ... and for that gross mismanagement has produced 1,000 cars?

Your ideas about how we should put ourselves into debt to give away money to some people, at the expense of others, has no place in our system of governance. I don't need you, or anyone else, deciding what businesses deserve that kind of outrageous advantage, which comes as part of a zero sum game. The billions we have put ourselves into debt wasting that money comes at a cost -- it could have been left to demand-driven enterprises, which is how successful businesses are actually created.

When people talk about job creators it is bullshit. What creates jobs is building successful businesses. Our government bailing out failed businesses, and giving away our money to business it WANTS to succeed -- even when the demand isn't there -- does not accomplish that.

93Devil, in one of his stupid posts, threw out the nonsequitor that Apple creates expensive products that sell (as if that explains a thing about Tesla, which hasn't sold anything). Apple products sell because there is demand. And the company has demonstrated the ability to supply that demand. The trillions of dollars our Federal government diverts from those kinds of enterprises works to all of our detriments.

If your goal in life is some vague missive about "the American worker," you'd point out these corrupt practices for what they are, acknowledge the wasteful spending and what is costing us in added national debt, and say enough is enough. Let people figure out the products they want -- I know demand is a crazy notion -- and stop diverting money from the economy that could fuel businesses that meet that demand to dog businesses that not only aren't doing that, but are chosen for politicized reasons that amount to cronyism.