Month: July 2011

Patrick Michaels is a senior fellow in Environmental Studies at the Cato Institute and the editor of the forthcoming Climate Coup: Global Warming’s Invasion of our Government and our Lives, as well as the author of several other books on global warming.

His Forbes column on the Chevy VOLT is a case study in the nexus between big government corruption and big business rent-seeking.

Michaels briefly recaps the well-known consumer fraud in which GM has touted the VOLT as an all-electric mass production vehicle on the supposed basis of which its sales receive a $7, 500 taxpayer subsidy, which still renders it overpriced and unmarketable.

Michaels notes that “sales are anemic: 326 in December, 321 in January, and 281 in February.” There seems to be a trend here . . . Michaels adds that GM has announced a production run of 100, 000 in the first two years and asks what appears to be a rhetorical question: “Who is going to buy all these cars?” But wait! Keep hope alive! There is a positive answer to the question.

Jeffrey Immelt’s GE will buy a boatload of those uneconomic GM cars. Here the case study opens onto the inevitable political angle: Recently, President Obama selected General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt to chair his Economic Advisory Board.

GE is also awash in windmills waiting to be subsidized so they can provide unreliable, expensive power. Consequently, and soon after his appointment, Immelt announced that GE will buy 50, 000 VOLTs in the next two years, or half the total produced. Assuming the corporation qualifies for the same tax credit, we (you and
me) just shelled out $375,000,000 to a company to buy cars that no one else wants, so that GM will not tank and produce even more cars that no one wants. And this guy is the chair of Obama’s Economic Advisory Board?

But of course. Michaels includes this hilarious detail in his case study: In a telling attempt to preserve battery power, the heater is exceedingly weak. Consumer Reports their tests averaged a paltry 25 miles of electric-only running, in part because it was testing in cold Connecticut. (The [GM] engineer at the Auto Show said cold weather would have little effect.) It will be interesting to see what the range is on a hot, traffic-jammed summer day, when the air conditioner will really tax the batteries. When the gas engine came on, Consumer Reports got about 30 miles to the gallon of premium fuel; which, in terms of additional cost of high-test gas, drives the effective mileage closer to 27 mpg. A conventional Honda Accord, which seats 5 (instead of the VOLT’s 4), gets 34 mpg on the highway, and costs less than half of what CR paid, even with the tax break.

The story of the GM VOLT deserves a place in the Harvard Business School curriculum….but of course, it won’t. It’s a classic tale of the
GOVERNMENT deciding what the public needs, not the marketplace.

– What is one of the reasons for this? Why, to keep the UAW in business, because Obama owes them for his election. Starting to make sense yet?

If any other of our presidents
Had doubled the National Debt, which
Had taken more than two centuries
To accumulate, in one year,
Would You have Approved?

If any other of our presidents
Had then proposed to double
The debt again within 10 years,
Would you have approved?

If any other of our presidents
Had criticized a State Law that
He admitted he never even read,
Would you think that he is
Just an ignorant hot head?

If any other of our presidents
Joined the country of Mexico and sued a
State in the United States to force that State
To continue to allow Illegal Immigration,
Would you question his patriotism
And wonder who’s side he was on?

If any other of our presidents
Had pronounced the Marine Corps
As if it were the Marine Corpse,
Would you think him an Idiot?

If any other of our presidents
Had put 87,000 workers out of work
By arbitrarily placing a moratorium on
Offshore oil drilling on companies that have
One of the best safety records of any industry
Because one foreign company had an accident,
Would you have agreed?

If any other of our presidents
Had used a forged document as the
Basis of the moratorium that would render
87000 American workers unemployed,
Would you support him?

If any other of our presidents
Had been the first President to need a
Teleprompter installed to be able to get through
A press conference, would you have laughed and said
This is more proof of how inept he is on his own and is
Really controlled by smarter men behind the scenes?

If any other of our presidents
Had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars
To take his First Lady to a play in NYC,
Would you have approved?

If any other of our presidents
Had reduced your retirement plan holdings
Of GM stock by 90% and given the
Unions a majority stake in GM,
Would you have approved?

If any other of our presidents
Had made a joke at the expense
Of the Special Olympics,
Would you have approved?

If any other of our presidents
Had given Gordon Brown a set of inexpensive
And incorrectly formatted DVDs, when Gordon Brown
Had given him a thoughtful and historically significant gift,
Would you have approved?

If any other of our presidents
Had given the Queen of England an
IPod containing videos of his speeches,
Would you have thought it to be a
Proud moment for America ?

If any other of our presidents
Had bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia ,
Would you have approved?

If any other of our presidents
Had visited Austria and made reference
To the nonexistent “Austrian language,”
Would you have brushed it off
As a minor slip?

If any other of our presidents
Had filled his Cabinet and circle of
Advisers with people who cannot seem
To keep current on their Income Taxes,
Would you have approved?

If any other of our presidents
Had stated that there were 57 states in
The United States, wouldn’t you have had
Second thoughts about his capabilities?

If any other of our presidents
Would have flown all the way to Denmark
To make a five minute speech about how the Olympics
Would benefit him walking out his front door in his
Home town, would you not have thought he was
A self-important, conceited, egotistical jerk?

If any other of our presidents
Had been so Spanish illiterate as to refer to
“Cinco de Cuatro” in front of the Mexican ambassador
When it was “The 5th of May” (Cinco de Mayo),
And then continue to flub it when he tried again,
Wouldn’t you have winced in embarrassment?

If any other of our presidents
Had burned 9,000 gallons of jet fuel
To go plant a single tree on Earth Day,
Would you have concluded he’s a Hypocrite?

If any other of our presidents’
Administrations had okayed Air Force One
Flying low over millions of people followed by
A jet fighter in downtown Manhattan causing
Widespread panic, would you have wondered
Whether they actually get what happened on 9-11?

If any other of our presidents
Had failed to send relief aid to flood victims
Throughout the Midwest, with more people killed
Or made homeless than in New Orleans, would you
Want it made into a major ongoing Political issue
With claims of racism and incompetence?

If any other of our presidents
had created the positions of 32 Czars
who report directly to him, bypassing
the House and Senate on much of
what is happening in America ,
would you have approved?

If any other of our presidents
had ordered the firing of the CEO
of a major corporation, even though he
had no constitutional authority to do so,
would you have approved?

So, tell me again,
what is it about Obama that
makes him so brilliant and impressive?

Can’t think of anything?
Then you’d better start worrying.
He’s done all these things in 28 months —
and you have less than 19 months
to come up with an answer.

Every statement and action in this email
is factual and correctly attributable
to Barrack Hussein Obama.
Every bumble is a matter of record
and completely verifiable.