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NYT opinion piece includes Musk criticism

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anticitizen13.7

anticitizen13.7

Not posting at TMC after 9/17/2018
Dec 22, 2012
3,638
5,870
United States
#1
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/31/opinion/sunday/sundown-in-america.html?ref=opinion&ref=opinion

The opinion piece by David Stockman is largely focused on Mr. Stockman's fatalistic view of the U.S. financial system. Mr. Stockman is a fiscal conservative and a proponent of the Gold Standard. He attacks many parties and institutions in every part of the political and economic spectrum, and throws a punch at Elon Musk too:

Instead, the White House, Congress and the Fed, under Mr. Bush and then President Obama, made a series of desperate, reckless maneuvers that were not only unnecessary but ruinous. The auto bailouts, for example, simply shifted jobs around — particularly to the aging, electorally vital Rust Belt — rather than saving them. The “green energy” component of Mr. Obama’s stimulus was mainly a nearly $1 billion giveaway to crony capitalists, like the venture capitalist John Doerr and the self-proclaimed outer-space visionary Elon Musk, to make new toys for the affluent.
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Is it just me, or does Elon Musk draw a lot of fire from the people who should be celebrating his success the most?

Isn't the archetypal American story the tale of the immigrant who comes to America, gets an education, and then works hard at starting a business which becomes successful? I don't get it.
 
#3
I saw this as well. I loved David Stockman's definitive book on the Reagan years, The Triumph of Politics. However, he's turned into a very grumpy old man and this op-Ed has been widely ridiculed by economists and others. See for example Paul Krugman's takedown of Stockman in his blog today:

Paul Krugman

He references others who had the same WTF reaction to Stockman today. I still agree with Stockman on a lot of stuff, but his super-doom scenario is off the rocker, and more of an incoherent rant than a reasoned argument. All of which is to say, his needless and ridiculous and superfluous attack on Elon and Tesla has a lot less resonance within such a bizarrely incoherent argument.
 
#4
It's really bad that Mr. Stockman says that Elon is making new toys.

Model S and Model X, because of their advanced design, are revolutionary cars and shouldn't be considered toys. I think that when Tesla will produce 200.000 cars per year (maybe that this will happen when Gen III will be launched) Mr. Stockman will change his mind.
 
#5
Conservatives don't mind Elon being rich, but they hate the way he's doing it - by upsetting the status quo in industries that haven't had their boats rocked in decades.

By definition, conservatives don't like change. Tesla and SpaceX are all about change.

Guess which side I'm on? :cool:
 
#6
Raffy.Rome said:
Mr. Stockman will change his mind.
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Stockman will be dead by then, his "mind" will not be changed.

The auto industry needs a good shaking up/wakeup call, and Elon and Tesla are just the right medicine at the right time. We can't keep building things designed to breakdown and become obsolete so quickly, there just aren't enough resources left.

With battery technology advancements, it won't take very long for other manufacturers to look for the best EV platform to license, guess who will be there when they come calling?
 
#8
sp4rk said:
Millions of Americans are xenophobes.
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I don't think David Stockman is a xenophobe. He's a radical who has grown increasingly frustrated by politics since the early 80s when he worked in the Reagan administration. He doesn't like government doing anything but the very basics of safety and security. Believe me, Tesla could be making 100,000+ EVs at $30k or less and he'd still find a reason to criticize the government loan Tesla received. He's a true ideologue, but doesn't fit neatly into any traditional liberal/conservative construct that anyone would recognize from today's debates. He's generally more critical of Republicans than Democrats because he hates that they both expand government, but hates the hypocrisy of the GOP much more (and mentioned this in his op-Ed today). Tesla was just an unfortunate collateral victim today of his general anti-everything bias that has grown more widespread with age.
 
#10
We find the term 'toy' offensive, and they know it. Offensive to all the owners for whom these cars are their daily drivers.

A toy is a plaything. My roadster is a workhorse that I drive every day, fulfills my transportation needs and allows me to drive with zero tailpipe emissions. It is a joy, not a toy.
 
#14
dbullard said:
Conservatives don't mind Elon being rich, but they hate the way he's doing it - by upsetting the status quo in industries that haven't had their boats rocked in decades.

By definition, conservatives don't like change. Tesla and SpaceX are all about change.

Guess which side I'm on? :cool:
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Silly generalization.

Conservatives believe in capitalism and capitalism is all constant creative destruction. Capitalism sparks entrepreneurship.

You clearly don't understand conservatives not capitalism.
 
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#15
Kaivball said:
Silly generalization.

Especial considering that it was republicans and conservatives that ended slavery and brought about civil rights.
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Well you are correct about republicans. But conservatives by definition don't advocate for change. One can be a republican without being a conservative, and one can be a conservative without being a republican. And one can be both. They are separate boxes.

Conservatism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Conservative - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Conservative | Define Conservative at Dictionary.com
 
#16
markwj said:
A toy is a plaything. My roadster is a workhorse that I drive every day, fulfills my transportation needs and allows me to drive with zero tailpipe emissions. It is a joy, not a toy.
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IT IS A JOY, NOT A TOY.......VERY well said. This past weekend on Saturday we drove over 200 miles and still had over 50 miles left in charge. A very useful joy to have indeed.
 
#17
Arnold Panz said:
I don't think David Stockman is a xenophobe. He's a radical who has grown increasingly frustrated by politics since the early 80s when he worked in the Reagan administration. He doesn't like government doing anything but the very basics of safety and security. Believe me, Tesla could be making 100,000+ EVs at $30k or less and he'd still find a reason to criticize the government loan Tesla received. He's a true ideologue, but doesn't fit neatly into any traditional liberal/conservative construct that anyone would recognize from today's debates. He's generally more critical of Republicans than Democrats because he hates that they both expand government, but hates the hypocrisy of the GOP much more (and mentioned this in his op-Ed today). Tesla was just an unfortunate collateral victim today of his general anti-everything bias that has grown more widespread with age.
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Some of the comments following the opinion piece suggested that Stockman was still smarting from "being taken out to the woodshed" by Ronald Reagan back in the 1980's, and that this was why he was writing nasty comments about everyone and everything.

I don't think any of these ideologues or political hacks have the faintest clue how difficult it is to design, mass produce, and sell an automobile from scratch. Well, they can be miserable. Meanwhile, thousands of people have jobs because of Elon's entrepreneurship, and thousands of Tesla drivers are enjoying a lot of torque!

:smile:

- - - Updated - - -

tlo said:
Got scared for a moment when I read "Elon Musk attacked in New York".
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Frack, I didn't realize that the thread preview would only show a misleading half of the post subject.

Mods: Please change thread title to "New York Times opinion piece criticizes Elon Musk" or something similar...
 
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