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Detroit Auto Show: Media Sticks Up for One Percenters

Cobo Center, Detroit — “Washington has to make bets on energy. Some bets will win, others will lose,” an earnest auto reporter with one of America’s big dailies told me at this week’s Detroit auto show.

Journalists like to claim that they are in the business to look out for the little guy. Thus, this theory goes, the MSM’s embrace of the Occupy movement.

The floor of Cobo Center belies that claim. There some of the biggest corporations on the planet showcase “green cars” paid for with millions of dollars of taxpayer money. This is welfare for the One Percent. Tesla, Ford, and Nissan are all on the dole with tax dollars subsidizing everything from mainstream Ford Explorer production in Chicago to multi-millionaire Elon Musk’s dream of a $50,000 electric sports sedan (pictured above) for the super-rich.

And most of the MSM here doesn’t bat an eye.

Indeed, they applaud this trickle-up economics. Watching out for the little guy? Carrying water for Big Government industrial policy is more like it.

New on Planet Gore. . .


COMMENTS   5

EXPAND  

   01/14/12 11:50

Once commmitted to an ideology in print and in person, climbing back off the limb doesn't look like an option. Viewing them as the ideologues they are, their words and actions are crystal. “Washington has to make bets on energy. Some bets will win, others will lose,” is ideologically identical to saying "The media has to make bets on energy. Some companies we support will win, everybody else should lose."

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   01/14/12 16:56

The reporter is dead wrong on the "some will win, others will lose". They will ALL lose. Unless you take the meaning a totally different way, in a way the reporter isn't going too. Connected crony win, taxpayers lose.

Today's reporting is downright terrible and lying to boot.

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richard barnes
   01/16/12 14:08

That is "one beautiful car". Government subsidy or not, I can't wait to own one.

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   01/17/12 08:18

Buy one of these and you'll wish you waited for the subsidized Bugatti. It would be a feature for these expensive electric sports cars with government subsidy if the the venting system would automatically close so the owner could smell his or her own flatulence. (Southpark Smug Converter System)

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   01/19/12 22:30

This is crass yahoo-ism. New technology is expensive. The tax credits electric cars get make them less so, expanding their market and accelerating the process of bringing the price down through economies of scale. Conservatives should SUPPORT tax cuts and other incentives to help us break free of jihad juice.

Yes the Model S is on the expensive side at $50,000, but a full size, 7 passenger 4 door family sedan for $50K is progress compared to its first car, the Roadster, which was a small, 2 seat, $100,000 sports super car. And Tesla is well into planning its next car, which will be a $20-30,000 vehicle. This is a GOOD thing. Stop the jeering, naysaying, and envy-baiting.

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