[TheFuture]

RIM bailout? That one I would believe.

Open government? Wow, I remember that one from 4 years ago.

Skilled immigration? They don't vote for Dems. Unskilled immigration is all he cares about.

Pour more money into failing "green" tech. Yes, let's build more Chevy Volts filled with toxic batteries.

Seriously, there is no tech agenda from this pres.

[incision]

Your snarky, unqualified dismissal reeks of sour grapes drawn from a sad place [1][2].

1: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4515939

2: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4515897

[TheFuture]

Reality is a sad place right now. People are so scared of it, they're willing to believe anything just to not have to think about what's going to happen when the music stops.

[potatolicious]

So, you write a vague and make large claims without substantiation. You get called out for not substantiating the points you're making.

And your reply to that is a post that's entirely devoid of any content whatsoever, and is literally 100% scare-mongering without even a single argument or claim (false or otherwise)?

[potatolicious]

> "Skilled immigration? They don't vote for Dems. Unskilled immigration is all he cares about."

Uh...

Democrats own the minority vote, which constitute a huge portion of the skilled immigration this country sees - the two largest contributors are China and India after all.

Okay, so excluding minority immigrants, lets look at skilled, white immigrants - the bulk of whom are coming from openly socialist countries - UK, France, Germany, etc.

So skilled immigration is pretty guaranteed to increase the base for left-leaning folks and minorities, both of which are traditional strongholds for Democrats. Why wouldn't they do this?

Not to mention Democrats have, in this election at least, demonstrated that they are able to rally a substantial base of educated, working professionals to their side. So even with non-immigrants, "skilled labor" is hardly synonymous with Republicans.

[rayiner]

Here is the thing with investments into Green Tech. The economically proper thing to do would be to have Pigovian taxes on pollution, and let the market sort out how to achieve the lowest pollution levels. I think > $1 trillion in new taxes, even if they were offset by reductions in income tax, etc, wouldn't really go over well. But that's the Right Solution (TM).

So we're stuck with things like subsidizing Green Tech.

[TheFuture]

Why can't we just build new, safer nuclear power like India, China, Japan, and basically everyone else are building right now? Whoops, the left has demonized nuclear power so much in this country that people fear it more than coal!

It always sounds great to be "investing" in infrastructure or energy or whatever. But pols don't invest, they cater to voting blocks. Politics can't solve these problems.

[rayiner]

The right has been just as much of an impediment. All the places it makes sense to store nuclear waste are red states who don't want it in their back yard. And their going apoplectic at any country trying to develop nuclear technology doesn't help the public perception.

The reality is that the market left alone won't solve these problems, and politics can't solve them perfectly. What you're left with is the state of human existance: muddling along.

[gte910h]

Taxes are dodge-able, additionally, they have a long lead time (accountants have to establish that YUP THIS IS PERMANENT and make recommendations to the business departments) then and only then do prices definitely stay in the place that makes green tech cheaper.

Additionally, if no green tech change occurs, then you're stuck with the job losses by lower consumption of the good you're taking, but don't get the job gains of the good you're hopping will spring up to replace it.

So from a economics perspective, seems like it might be the pure way to go. From a policy perspective, it's iffy.

[rayiner]

OT: What year at GT? I'm C/O 2007.

[gte910h]

03

[krzyk]

Subsidizing never, ever created a good solution. It always makes poor solutions, that cost more than they are worth. Compare to subsidizing medicaments. When they are subsidized then they cost more then when government lifts the subsidy.

If you want a good solution then make it fight for life in the current market, eventually it might win - in this case you will really get a good solution.

[rayiner]

Ideological handwaving never results in a good argument.

Here is the basic problem with the market for energy. Say I give you the choice of two candy bars: one costs you $1.00, the other costs you $0.75 and also costs some random third party $0.75. Which do you pick? The latter, of course. Everyone always picks the latter, and the end result is economically inefficient.

This is the same choice when it comes to energy. A Harvard study found that the externalized costs of coal range from $350-500 billion: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/16/us-usa-coal-study-.... Fully half the true cost of coal power is externalized to people outside the transaction of power producers/power users. The market doesn't yield efficient results when costs can be externalized like this. That's Econ 101 level knowledge. There are only two ways to fix this market failure: either tax coal power to reflect the externalized costs, or subsidize green tech to compensate. In our political system new taxes are pretty much impossible, hence we adopt the latter solution.

[gte910h]

Gasoline prices are already subsidized. We spend megabucks on aid to the middle east, wars, etc there that isn't paid for by the users of the oil pumped from there.

[patrickgzill]

You forgot to mention Solyndra : http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-10-17/taxpayers-recover-0...

[rayiner]

I worked for a DARPA contractor for years. Nerds all wank over how awesome DARPA is, and how great they are for putting money into all these blue-sky projects that may not pan out, etc. Yet the administration puts some money into technology that doesn't have an immediate benefit in killing people, and people flip their shit.

For context: DARPA has a budget of almost $3 billion. The risk-weighted investment into Solyndra was probably on the order of the low tens of millions.

[fr0sty]

"The risk-weighted investment into Solyndra was probably on the order of the low tens of millions."

What do you mean by "risk-weighted investment"?

The loan to Solyndra was for $535 million dollars of which practically none was returned [1].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solyndra#Shutdown_and_investiga...

[rayiner]

You have to compare apples to apples. DARPA gives out grants. Solyndra was a loan guarantee. The subsidy represented by a loan guarantee is the value of the loan multiplied by the probability of default.

[Evbn]

Is their justification for the low risk of default? Such as an overall portfolio where other loan guarantees did not flop?

[thetabyte]

So you're telling me risky investments in possibly revolutionary startups can fail? If we go back to writing by PG, failures like this are proof we are making risky a enough investments to actually make a big difference.

[Prophasi]

Strategic conduct on the part of businesses isn't the same thing as smart (or ethical, or legal) conduct when it's done by governments. Everything has a context.

[thetabyte]

I agree. Which is why government making the risky investments that more conservative businesses won't in order to create the empowering innovations that will save our environment and improve our economy is a major positive for me.

[patrickgzill]

And if it just happens to benefit major contributors and bundlers to the party of the President that is in power, well, that is entirely a coincidence!

[kbutler]

Your "proof" logic is backwards.

PG's point was not that failing means you're doing it right, but rather that never failing means you're not pushing hard enough.

[thetabyte]

I understand that. But not everything the government funds fails. I am instead disproving the case presented to me—the failure of Solyndra is not evidence of a failing government effort.

[guscost]

If I trusted the government-approved definition of "clean" I'd be a bit more enthusiastic about those subsidies.

[Evbn]

What better definition is there? BP's?

[bravoyankee]

To paraphrase Chris Hedges, we don't need more advances in technology, we need advances in morality.

[sixothree]

Wahhhh Wahhh Wahhh much?