Update: Read General Motors response here.
Thanks usa1.
JALOPNIK.com
The Chevy Volt has been hailed as General Motors’ electric savior. Now, as GM officially rolls out the Volt this week for public consumption, we’re told the much-touted fuel economy was misstated and GM “lied” about the car being all-electric.
In the past, and based on GM’s claims, we’ve gone so far as to call the Volt GM’s “Jesus Car.” And why wouldn’t we call it that? We were told the Volt would achieve 230 MPG fuel economy and would always use the electric drivetrain to motivate the wheels — only using the onboard gasoline engine as a “range extender” for charging the batteries. It now turns out that not only were those fuel economy claims misleading, but the gasoline engine is actually used to motivate the wheels — making the Volt potentially nothing more than a very advanced hybrid car and pushing some automotive journalists like Scott Oldham at Edmunds.com to claim “GM lied to the world” about it.
#59
If my region were in trouble specifically because of a problem we knew existed for decades, for which we got massive Federal funding to fix that problem with which we squandered that assistance because of a regular pattern of corruption and thus little was done to prepare for the problem, then yes we shouldn’t expect help from the Federal government. In fact, in general, people should not expect Federal financial help; it should be considered a bonus. Help should first come from the local community, the State and neighboring States. The Federal government is not a nanny. It should be the case that Federal government is not afforded enough money to make a significant difference in the first place. If they have that much money lying around, it shouldn’t have been taken from the States/people in the first place.
Rationalize it any way you like, Thomas.
Hope you paid your $75 to the fire department.
Well, after disagreeing with Thomas for the last 3 issues, he’s right on this one.
Olo–I agree communities need/deserve/we all benefit “help” when they are in “trouble” as with Katrina and any other form of “natural disaster” but that does not mean the Feds should provide the basic infrastructure and maintenance for communities that want to build on the coast below sea level, or on barrier island in the path of hurricanes, or on top of known divisions of tectonic plates and all the other unavoidalbe and known consequences of suicidal lack of local planning.
Lots of bad thinking when quite dissimilar issues are lumped together.
To that end, in my opinion, NO was greatly dis-served by local, state, and fed response to Katrina BUT only the state and local money should be spent to “rebuild it” if they are so foolish to think it should be done. The feds should give a hard look at what southern LA needs regarding shipping, oil, commerce, fishing, estuary health/nurseries, natural flow of the Mississippi and more I assume and probably have Baton Rouge as the most southern city? We aren’t Denmark, cheaper to build on land above sea level.
We should let reality be our friend.
#63
I’m more than happy to pay my local city and county fire department. In fact, I’d much rather give my tax dollars to the local city and county than to the Federal government especially for disaster preparation and recovery. What you want is ignore the moral hazard of someone that does little to prepare for a disaster (but takes plenty of handouts for that supposed preparation) and then have everyone else fork over more money to help them rebuild when a disaster hits and they are caught unprepared. Indeed, the clear failing in NO was that the local and State infrastructure (police, fire etc) were completely unprepared and likely unfunded. Perhaps if more people had paid their fee to the local fire department, they might have turned out better.
Compare the situation in NO to Palmdale, CA which is built right on top of the San Andreas. Palmdale and CA have expended significant resources in earthquake preparation through building codes, inspections, early detection research, disaster preparation by local fire and police and so on. Still, one day Palmdale might go *poof* when a 8+ hits the San Andreas and should that happen I absolutely think that Federal funds should not be used to rebuild it. If the people of LA and NO want to spend their money to rebuild NO, more power to them. Any future work on the levees or anything else to make a city 20 feet below water viable should come out of the pockets of the people of LA and NO not the rest of the nation.
>> # 45 laxdude said, on October 11th, 2010 at 11:07 pm
>> Anyone who believes that all electric cars are the future should be investing in heated seat companies and seriously consider creating electrically heated driving jackets or vests.
If Laxdude was alive in 1910, he’d probably be investing heavily on buggy whip companies.
If he was alive in 1950, he’d be heavily investing in radio dramas.
If he was alive in 1990, he’d be heavily investing in vinyl record manufacturing.
Of course electric cars are the future! You don’t need to a crystal ball to see this one coming.
>> Thomas said, on October 13th, 2010 at 3:06 pm
#63
>> I’d much rather give my tax dollars to the local city and county than to the Federal government especially for disaster preparation and recovery.
When a really big disaster hits your community, only the Federal government can effectively respond. The local governments will be drowning, just like you.
Just pray that the Democrats are in power, not the Republicans.
Ok, I’ll give you the rebuilding aspect of NO, Palmdale, Haiti, and even swaths of Florida when the big hurricanes hit a decade ago. I can only agree that those fools (in some of the places) shouldn’t have built there. You make a good argument. That really wasn’t my issue anyway.
Disasters, as GregA writes, are tigers of a different stripe. The GM bailout was indeed a gamble, but a wise one as they gov’t will be repaid with interest and 300k+ people kept their jobs. So long as the bailouts work in that manner, there’s no good reason not to offer them.
The associated job losses with the failure of GM would have been over 500k and still counting. The GOP would have gone nuts ripping Obama for unemployment had he NOT offered the bailout, and now they’re going nuts because he DID.
It’s fairly obvious they take Limbaugh’s “I hope he fails” edict seriously. Failure brings them power. It’s the side effects–that Limbaugh’s followers don’t seem to care about–that bothers me.
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