Lutz pegs first generation Chevy Volt price tag at $40,000
Posted Jun 19th 2008 at 9:14AM by Sam Abuelsamid
http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/06/19/lutz-pegs-first-generation-chevy-volt-price-tag-at-40-000/
MSNBC reporter ...said that's the set price so the company can make a 'profit.'
She said there may well be a revolt about the price tag of the Volt!
Well, we're not against innovation nor are we against getting a fair market price that generates humongous profits for 'private' companies.
We're not against profits for private companies.
But the United States is in the midst of tinkering with the free-market system upon which our nation was founded. To the point where we don't recognize that foundation as a republic based on both federalism of government and the free-market capitalist economic system.
The string of recent 'bailouts' of banks and now car manufacturing companies which in most instances have received already tax breaks and tax credits and so forth in the states where they are located is nothing less than government intervening in private affairs of business! While our legislators who voted for these bailouts have steered far clear of calling this socialistic - not even the naysayers have embraced the term for treasury's printing more money and borrowing from it - all to turn over the fake money to wholly private industries of banking and car manufacturing - this is socialistic.
all before President-Elect Barack Obama is sworn in as our next President of the U.S.
Revolt by the people? We;'re not holding our breath.
Earlier, MJ guests and co-hosts were discussing how non-transparent the billions to banks has been, and requests for information from the Treasury have been denied to the point of absurdity.
While we've published informational material about the Volt, we're not for any taxpayers funding for that or any other innovation in the private car manufacturing industry. Nobody should receive tax credits, tax swaps for 'creating' jobs or inventing new products, etc.
We've all seen exactly what happens when the tax-break game is played. It isn't just the so-called needy who get the breaks. soon enough Fortune 500 companies lined up for tax exemptions in tax-free zones in Michigan and for the past nearly 10 years in Pennsylvania.
After the tax-exemptions and/or tax breaks are received for some amount of years, as soon as the breaks/exemptions legally run their course, the company moves its operations elsewhere.
The situation of states giving tax-breaks for new companies will soon go the way of the dinosaur since many states are having funding problems for their own services!
Pennsylvania is a key example. Our Governor, Ed Rendell is seeking federal monies for whatever he can to forstall state deficits. Bond issue after bond issue in referendums have been floated during this administration for so many reasons it's difficult to keep track. All hide the true "debt" of the state with such gimmicks as bond referendums, moving monies around from one state coffer to another, and tappig into hidden accounts nobody but a few are in the know of just how much in debt Pennsylvania is under Rendell and a Democrat-controlled state House of Representatives and Republican-majority state Senate.
Meanwhile, state aide to Fortune 500s and car manufacturers isn't enough for some. Manufacturer after manufacturer and industry after industry has moved operations out of our country.
this game has happened pre-NAFTA too, but since Bill Clinton signed the act back in the early 90s our trade deficit with Mexico is ongoing! Recall when NAFTA was presented to the public it was billed as a "win-win" situation. The idea was to import some goods from Mexico, and as equally as possible export goods to Mexico to a base of workers whose incomes would rise enough to "afford" our products.
Trade Deficit Continues to Show U.S. Competitiveness Problems
Alan Tonelson
Monday, August 18, 2008
U.S. TRADE DEFICIT SHRINKS IN JUNE LED BY DECLINE IN NON-OIL BALANCE YET MANUFACTURING AND HIGH TECH GAPS WIDEN;The U.S. goods and services trade deficit shrunk narrowed by 4.10 percent in June, from $59.20 billion to $56.77 billion, as a steep 15.17 percent drop in the nation’s non-oil trade gap more than offset a 14.65 percent jump in oil imports to record levels and a 10.69 percent increase in the U.S. oil deficit to another record.
Yet the parts of the economy that generate the best-paying jobs and the greatest productivity gains – the manufacturing and high tech goods sectors – both saw their deficits expand in May, indicating that the sectors most critical to U.S. competitiveness continue underperforming on the trade front.. In addition, the bloated and chronic U.S. goods trade deficit with manufacturing-heavy China continued to expand, from $21.05 billion to $21.43 billion, or 1.81 percent.
These trends show up most strikingly the six-month year-to-date 2007-2008 comparisons made possible by this morning’s release of the June trade data. During this period, the overall U.S. Trade deficit declined by 1.94 percent, from $358.36 billion to $351.39 billion. Record and rapidly rising oil prices pushed the Jan.-June oil trade deficit up a stunning 52.10 percent, to $201.60 billion for the first six months of this year. The non-oil deficit, meanwhile, plummeted by 19.27 percent during this period, to $213.14 billion.
Yet the manufacturing deficit decreased by only 7 percent from Jan.-June, 2007-Jan.-June, 2008, to $272.23 billion, while the deficit in high tech goods actually increased by 9.30 percent, to $3.88 billion. Similarly, non-oil goods exports during this period increased 15.84 percent, significantly outpacing the manufacturing increase of 11.49 percent and the 7.14 percent rise in high tech goods exports.
Said Alan Tonelson, Research Fellow at the U.S. Business and Industry Council, “The economy’s ongoing export improvement continues to be driven primarily by much higher prices in agricultural products and other raw materials. This development may be encouraging for a third world country, but for an advanced industrialized nation like the United States it’s a formula for falling living standards and broader economic decline.”
http://www.americaneconomicalert.org/view_art.asp?Prod_ID=3048
The job losses continue. Sony Corp has pulled its operations from Westmoreland County after at least a decade of state aide for job creation, etc. Where is Sony going? Mexico.
Any federal legislator who voted for NAFTA should have been booted back when. Most were not not even Bill Clinton was booted in 1998, though he supported NAFTA and the First Lady, Hillary Clinton touted its benefits back then.
Offended unions? They acquiesced and wanted assurances for built-in educational retraining benefits when jobs were lost due to NAFTA. But the federal government couldn't keep up with the losses.
We are a sick nation to continue to allow these games.
The latest, bailing out or saving companies that want the federal cash to keep going but still want all the perks of a private company and still want to sell the product at a 'huge' profit - is a slap in the face to us all.
But it appears the people aren't in the mood to revolt just yet.
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