The “Jobs Creator”

Guest Post by Eric Peters

The Russians never got to the Moon – because their Moon Rocket, the N1, had trouble getting off the launch pad in one piece. It’s the same problem Elon Musk’s Falcon 9 Space X rocket has been having.

It blew up on the pad back in September – taking a lot of taxpayer dollars with it.

And before it.

Space X is a money-loser. Tesla Motors is a money loser. Both are gaping black holes that suck up resources and spit out things that don’t work or cost too much.

Usually, both

Yet the government continues to hand over money to Musk. Our money. Lots of it. Space X has burned through a reported $900 million, almost all of it insider-deal government contracts, including $400 million to develop the “next generation of U.S. human spaceflight capabilities.”

Maybe focus on achieving flight capabilities first.

Better yet, focus on keeping his hands out of our pockets.

That’s the real problem with Space X – with all of Musk’s operations: They live off the taxpayers’ dime. Could not live without the umbilical cord of taxpayer support. Which, apparently, is bottomless – regardless of Musk’s failures (plural) to deliver on his hocus pocus promises.

At least the Soviet Moon program was not a crony capitalist operation. There were surely cost over-runs and inefficiencies, but no Soviet pseudo Tony Stark/Iron Man was milking the Soviet people, as Elon Musk is doing to the American people.

He gets away with it, in part, because the media fawns over Musk as if he were Tony Stark (whose big screen creations, unlike Elon’s, at least work).

The New York Times – a once-respectable publication – recently published another fanboi gushy but economically illiterate opus about Musk, characterizing him as a jobs creator whom President-elect Trump ought to “consult” about “reinvigorating the manufacturing sector.”

This would be a pants-pisser were it not so sad.

And, expensive.

Trump builds things. Musk steals things.

No one was forced to “help” Trump build Trump Tower – and taxpayers don’t have to pay taxes to “help” people stay there, either.

Unlike Tesla’s electric cars – which are “sold” at a net loss each, even with massive subsidies propping up their manufacture.     

Trump creates jobs. Defined as a net plus to the economy. The people who work for him are employed doing productive tasks that people are willing to part with their money to pay for – from the bell hop to the guy piloting Trump’s 757.

Which he also paid for using his money – not yours and mine.

And Musk?

Every job he “creates” is in fact a wealth transfer from an unwilling tax victim, forced to subsidize the job “created.” All the money sucked from the pockets of taxpayers could have been used by them to create real jobs in the real economy, as opposed to make-work jobs in the Musk Economy.

The Times’ writer is a mark. People familiar with backroom card games will recognize the term.

The Times’ writer – like most of the media – fell for Musk’s carny barker shtick. It’s understandable. Electric cars sound like a great idea – until you do the math. Until you discover that they are not cost-effective alternatives to conventional cars. Which is why Tesla sells them as luxury and performance cars, soft-selling the economics of the things. Is there anything more ridiculous than spending $70,000 (the base price of a Tesla S) to “save gas”? Is there anything more obnoxious than mugging ordinary working people to “help” rich rent-seekers drive around in $70,000 cars – electric or otherwise?

His Solar City thing sounded good, too. Who wouldn’t like the  promise of free or nearly free energy? Then you find out about the cost of the panels – about the decades it will take to recoup your up-front costs. Which you may never recoup. Musk had to resort to financial flim-flams such as transferring money from Space X to provide operating capital for his Solar City sinkhole. One hand washes the other – only it’s us who’s paying for the soap.

His network of “supercharger” electric chargers – wonderful! Until you read the fine print and find out that it takes at least 30-45 minutes for each electric car to juice up. The lines that will form begin to make your teeth ache.

And this SpaceX stuff.

Musk is using the taxing power of government to finance his “vision” of tripping people into orbit – and then to Mars – at a hefty per diem each, Why is it the obligation of American taxpayers to underwrite this venture?

Why can’t musk – a billionaire – underwrite his own grandiose schemes?

Could it possibly be due to the fact that they’re not economically viable on their own? That without an IV line to the lifeblood of taxpayers, Musk’s entire Crony Capitalist empire would topple like a rickety Jenga tower?

If he really is Tony Stark, if his engineering ideas are sound, if their economics make sense, then why can’t they stand on their own two feet?

The idea that this guy – arguably the greatest con man since PT Barnum and almost cartoonish archetype of crony capitalism – is someone President-elect Trump ought to be getting economic advice from is as risible as seeking out the Pope for tips on how to pick up girls at bars.

23
Leave a Reply

avatar
  Subscribe  
Notify of
Wip
Wip

Yes, the umbilical cord of taxpayer support is bottomless.

Who is it on TBP (Indentured Servant?) who keeps saying the FED is the sole reason for just about all evil?

TPC
TPC

We currently do not have the technological capacity to make his dreams into reality. Of course in our modern regressive society, dreams trump reality, so he gets funding.

Anonymous
Anonymous

If not Musk, then someone else.

As long as the government is willing to give somebody will be willing to take it.

TampaRed
TampaRed

How about me?I’ll bend my ethics if you schmucks,er,taxpayers want to give me a billion or two.

NickelthroweR
NickelthroweR

Greetings,

It is difficult living around people that have no education in or understanding of basic physics or of manufacturing. Because of that, the klowns around here worship Musk. When I explain to people that we are not going build our brave new world on top of solar panels and laptop batteries they look at me as if I had crucified their messiah.

It doesn’t matter that 1lb of diesel fuel holds as much energy as 400lbs of lead acid batteries or that you can lift a skyscraper to space (Saturn 5) on kerosene, these people believe that some sunshine and a gentle breeze will erase our dependence on fossil fuels and that we’ll all live happily ever after in our clean green economy.

They are in for a rude awakening.

Jason Calley
Jason Calley

As someone who has wired an off-grid home for solar power, I agree with you. There are absolutely some places where wind and/or solar are great sources for energy — but most cities or industries are not in that class. Long term, large scale? Go nuclear or coal for electric power, save the petroleum (when practical) for plastics and for planes, ships, trucks and cars. When someone finally gets really good and cheap battery technology, then maybe we can reconsider.

Shinmen Takezo
Shinmen Takezo

Right down the street from my house is a Falcon 9 rocket that successfully re-landed after launch. It stands in front of the Space X facility at Hawthorn airport. This article is full of half-truths about Musk. Yes, he takes a hefty dose of taxpayer subsidies with his rocket program… but if this program was left to NASA and the DC bureaucracy to develop–they/them would be spending ten times the amount of money that Musk has spent, and have taken twice the time.

Look back at how many times NASA rockets failed upon launch. Space X is developing and has successfully built a reusable booster that lands itself after use. NASA could have never developed such a thing–not with 50 times the amount of money and ten times the time it took Musk.

NASA is a bloated, overblown, corrupt, slow thing of the past.

FYI–at some point, the subsidies to Musk is going to stop–but he will be ready to begin private space exploration (as in asteroid mining) and start reaping the benefits. And by then NASA will be a long forgotten thing of the past.
comment image

Not Sure

Your NASA estimates seem a debit outlandish, given that both Musk and NASA operate under the same source of supply, government handouts, with the same expectation of more government largesse regardless of the success or failure of the project. Your argument about NASA being irrelevant may have some validity however, given that it’s prime directive was listed as the education of the world of Muslim achievements.

Shinmen Takezo
Shinmen Takezo

Yes both Space X and NASA operate with government handouts–the difference between NASA and Space X is that Space X is not staffed by fat, lazy, incompetent government employees who do not have any accountability, nor reason to succeed. The worst of the worst now work for NASA–Musk only hires the best and the brightest. Few of these old fossils who work for NASA would manage to make the transition into the Space X environment.

As for Musk’s Tesla car division–yes he gets a shit-load of money from the California government to produce these cars. And this guy is the smartest fucker on the planet. Not only are there charging stations now everywhere you look to juice up these Tesla cars… Musk has positioned himself to be the next Henry Ford when (not if) the next break-through in battery technology is made–not to mention solar panel technology breakthroughs.

Musk will completely own the electric car market whenever you can get 300 miles or more on a single charge. The electric car is the future BTW, and not cars powered by fossil fuels.

Unanon
Unanon

Yeah, 300 miles/charge and 12 plus hours.
Or, a five minute stop at a gas station.

starfcker
starfcker

Tesla model S P100D gets 315 miles on a charge. Porsche is introducing their all electric for the 2018 model year. 80% charge in 15 minutes. Teslas already have cordless charging. Don’t think this is real, Eric? You’re embarrassing yourself.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Our electric grid couldn’t withstand the demand of widespread domination of the motor vehicle markets by electric vehicles.

Even top end highs and lows in temperature strain and sometimes collapse it as it is now, you think millions of electrics won’t have an effect on that?

The only solution to that would be building more coal and natural gas fired power plants, but the same people demanding electrics would be blocking that. Solar and wind generation won’t cut it and is very expensive in the overall cycle of using it.

Develop fuel cells and you have electrics dominating transportation on every level in a decade or less, maybe Musk should be concentrating on that instead of those ridiculous batteries that have never worked out since the days of the Baker Electric (except for golf carts, they seem to work well there).

Lostokie
Lostokie

I always find it funny when someone talks about “electric” cars. They aren’t. They’re primarily coal powered cars, but also use nuclear, natural gas or hydoelectricity.

Maybe someone here can answer the question I always have about “electric” cars, how many miles per pound of coal does one of Tesla’s cars get?

James the Wanderer

Couple of things going on here – in our polluted cities, electric cars (and public transportation) are a GOOD idea, although de-centralizing cities would be a BETTER one.
A large part of the electrical GENERATION capacity must run 24/7 to run efficiently. The baseload demand (a measurement of average electricity consumed daily) should be coal, nuclear or natural gas fired; these plants (especially nuclear) cannot start / stop on a dime (quickly), so enough capacity should be built / run to hold the baseload demand plus 10% or so; this will keep the lights on normally. It is also known that there is other demand, higher during the day, that must be satisfied to keep the wheels of commerce turning; day-shift in manufacturing, etc. needs more power during the day than during the night. And the baseload demand must be supplied reliably; coal-nuclear-natural gas is reliable, solar is not (weather, seasons, night-and-day) nor is wind. Hydroelectric is reliable, but nearly totally developed in America (see: TVA).
Typically, one has excess demand (supplied from solar, wind, whatever works and is easily started) during the day and excess capacity (ability to generate but unneeded) during the night. Charging electric cars at night would help balance the grid and actually promote some efficiency.
Also, building-sized batteries (look up Zebra batteries, known in Japan) are a partial solution that charge at night, power building HVAC / etc. during the day.
If you want to learn, there’s lots on the Web about electrical grids, generation, power factors, etc. that to me are a fascinating glimpse into what makes big cities possible.

Gator
Gator

While I certainly agree that the subsidies going to Musk are bullshit, SpaceX actually does save the govt money. You can debate whether or not the government should be launching all the things it launches in another thread, but going off the present, they ARE going launch a ton of shit into space, and SpaceX is actually a hell of a lot cheaper than the ULA’s Atlas Vs, which was the sole source of supply for many years, which meant they could pretty much charge whatever the hell they want and get away with it. These spacex launches are usually less than half what we the taxpayers were forced to fork over to the ULA in the past.

General
General

Off topic, but the Federal Reserve is an evil entity.

End the Fed.

Wip
Wip

I don’t think it is off topic to talk about ending the FED. The FED is the only reason why government has endless money to throw down ratholes. Plus the article mentioned taxpayer support is endless.

TampaRed
TampaRed

Agree.W/o the Fed printing presses we would be forced to either pony up current money,aka tax increases,to pay for govt services or we would have to cut the size of our govt.
Down with multiple govt agencies.Down with the FSA.

Kill Bill
Kill Bill

Please not let us confuse Musk with Nikola Tesla

Hoboken411

They had energy efficient cars long ago – which were killed off because they hurt (insert industry name here).

One of the key things to note as you traverse the info-scope, is “who’s racket are you interfering with?” And they will pay the information peddlers (“news”) enough to try to shoot it down.

From what I’ve read about Tesla – he had incredible advancements that would have helped humanity – but some said, “how do we bill them?” Which is why he was destroyed and his “secrets” locked away. Luckily there are enterprising people trying to replicate his work. An uphill battle – but you never know what might come of it… Until the ICANN takeover shows its true colors…

But one thing I wish would just “go away” is this “clean energy” shit. Our so-called “pollution” problem is not a problem whatsoever (from what I’ve determined). They just use stock photos of seagulls with six-pack plastic and other garbage as their emotional hook. The earth always wins. It self-regulates. It’s a big orb. It can handle itself.

According to documents I’ve read – humans have detonated well over 2,000 nuclear blasts on this orb (mostly tests, some war, etc.) why haven’t we melted away? And they bitch about 0.001% emissions? When just one of those blasts probably account for 100,000x worse results?

I just want to sit in a hammock on a nice tropical island with a cold drink. Screw all this nonsense.

Hoboken411

I have to add – that it puzzles me that “brilliant” people like Tesla, did NOT keep “parachute” backups of their work just in case they were compromised. Is that something that just came about in the 20th and 21st centuries? If all his work was “seized” without backup, that would suck.

I guess maybe he was just too trusting of the world.

Jason Calley
Jason Calley

In a world without xerox, without thumb drives, and even without carbon paper, backups were more difficult.

James the Wanderer

As a scientist trying to improve the world, Tesla probably wasn’t informed / cynical enough to see the need for “parachute” backups. You have to realize just how deep the corruption goes before you see the need for them.

Discover more from The Burning Platform

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading