Champion Crony Capitalist?
Elon Musk may be the ultimate crony capitalist – the PT Barnum of our time.
But to give PT his due, he was an honest con man.
He never used the government to make his marks hand over their money. People stepped right up without a bayonet in their backs.
Elon, on the other hand, depends entirely on the coercive power of government to line his pockets. Take that away and Musk goes away.
Unfortunately, he’s not going away. He’s going deeper.
Automotive News reports that Musk is not only fleecing taxpayers via multi-tiered subsidies for his electric turduckens. That’s old news.
Here’s the latest news:
The Michigan Department of Treasury has bought (with funds fleeced from taxpayers) 339,623 shares of Tesla stock – the proceeds of this “investment” (if there ever are any) to be used to fund the pensions of retired state workers.
Priceless.
The small termites helping feed the queen – so to speak.
The stock buy amounts to another $72 million in a wealth transfer from the taxpayers to Tesla. That’s how one becomes a billionaire in crony capitalist America.
But the small termites – the retired government workers – might not like the return on this particular “investment.”
Tesla takes in lots of money but doesn’t make very much of it. The operation depends entirely on the IV drip of wealth transfer via multi-level mulcting of the American taxpayer.
Tesla doesn’t sell cars, for instance. It gives those away.
It sells primarily carbon credits – a little-known scam the media rarely (if ever) mentions during Fan Boy coverage of Musk and his economically preposterous, functionally ridiculous but very politically correct electric cars.
What’s a “carbon credit”?
It’s a chit “sold” to a real car company – one that makes cars that don’t need multi-tiered subsidies to attract buyers. The credits are used to offset the Zero Emissions Vehicle (ZEV) mandates in states like California, where the automaker is legally obliged to sell a certain number of “zero emissions” vehicles each year in order to be allowed to sell any vehicles that year. (This could rise to 15 percent of all new cars sold; see here.)
Only electric vehicles – which produce their emissions elsewhere – meet this ZEV mandate.
The problem is electric vehicles don’t sell.
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