Over a Dozen Government Subsidized Fisker $100,000 Cars Catch Fire and Explode in NJ Port

Let's start with the fact that the federal government has agreed to subsidize Fisker Automotive to the tune of $529 million for the purpose of building luxury sport cars for the rich.

Why Is the Government Subsidizing a $104,000 Car?

Fisker Automotive suspended efforts in Delaware last week to retool an abandoned GM production plant into a manufacturing facility for its new electric hybrid NINA, derived from the $104,000 luxury Karma.

Fisker's problem is that it is the recipient of a $529 million loan from the Department of Energy. Having already pocketed $193 million to help push the $104,000 Karma onto the market...

Fisker Automotive is an Al Gore project because, well, forcing American taxpayers to subsidize sport cars for the rich is sooo Al Gore - a typical Al Gore calling card. Even worse is that these taxpayer funded luxury sport cars for the rich are being built in Finland and not the US.

OBAMA ADMIN GAVE HALF-BILLION-DOLLAR LOAN TO GORE-CONNECTED ELECTRIC CAR COMPANY TO BUILD CARS IN… FINLAND?

An electric car company that received more than a half-billion-dollar Obama administration-approved loan is reportedly now assembling its first line of cars in rural Finland, rather than in the United States. What’s more, the car company, Fisker Automotive, is funded by a venture capital firm whose partners include former Vice President Al Gore.

As if the Fisker Automotive story isn't bad enough already, it gets worse. It's being reported that over a dozen Fiskers caught fire and literally blew up in a New Jersey port right after Hurricane Sandy hit.

More Than A Dozen Fisker Karma Hybrids Caught Fire And Exploded In New Jersey Port After Sandy

Approximately 16 of the $100,000+ Fisker Karma extended-range luxury hybrids were parked in Port Newark, New Jersey last night when water from Hurricane Sandy’s storm surge apparently breached the port and submerged the vehicles. As Jalopnik has exclusively learned, the cars then caught fire and burned to the ground.

Our source tells us they were “first submerged in a storm surge and then caught fire, exploded.” This wouldn’t be the first time the vehicles, which use a small gasoline engine to charge batteries that provide energy to two electric motors, had an issue with sudden combustion.

The vehicle, despite only being in limited production, has already experienced numerous fires due to equipment failures and electrical shorts. How, exactly, they caught fire after being submerged in sea water is unclear. It’s possible the salt water caused a short that led to a fire.

As far as we know, no other vehicles caught fire and exploded as a result of Hurricane Sandy. Business Insider and Wired  have also reported on the Fisker cars that caught fire.  Zero Hedge especially had some fun with its headline:

Fisker Karma Is First Car To Burn Underwater  Zero Hedge

16 Fisker Karmas Caught Fire During The Hurricane  Business Insider

At Least 16 Fisker Karmas Drown, Catch Fire at New Jersey Port  Wired

Furthermore, the taxpayer subsidized Fisker has a long and problematic history.

Fisker Looking Into Another Karma Fire

Fisker Automotive has another fire to put out.

Fisker, the Anaheim, Calif.-based maker of luxury plug-in hybrid sports cars, says it is investigating why one of its Karma models caught fire Friday in a parking lot in Woodside, Calif.

For Fisker, images of one of its $100,000 cars mysteriously going up in flames represent another detour for the company’s efforts to regain momentum....

The Woodside fire comes as Fisker is fighting to rebut charges in the German magazine Autobild that the Karma’s design presents a high risk of fire. The company and federal and state officials also are investigating a May incident in which a Fisker Karma was one of three cars destroyed in a garage fire near Houston, Texas.

Late last year, Fisker recalled about 260 Karmas to fix potentially defective hose clamps that could lead to battery coolant leaks.

Meanwhile, Fisker’s been reshuffling its top management, and looking for new funding to replace a $529 million U.S. Energy Department loan that was frozen earlier this year after the company fell behind schedule in developing a new plug-in hybrid model, the Atlantic. Fisker has stopped work equipping a former General Motors Co. assembly plant in Delaware that had been targeted to build the car.

It appears clearly evident that Fisker's Karma has some really bad taxpayer funded karma and may end up being the worst vehicle ever manufactured.  But what the heck, it's only taxpayer cash!

How Sweet It Is! American Sugar Barons are Finally Being Challenged.

I'm thrilled that another component of the corporate welfare state is finally on the table for a real debate. The American sugar barons are a crime syndicate with heavy ties to Congress Critters but there may finally be a real fight brewing to dislodge the the power of the sugar barons and the fight is long overdue.

Big Candy Revives Sugar Fight On Halloween

The sugar industry wants the federal government's sugar program -- which places tariffs on most foreign sugar -- to continue as it is in the current farm bill. The candy industry wants it repealed or reformed.

The Coalition for Sugar Reform, which includes the National Confectioners Association, sent Congress a Halloween-themed message today. "The U.S. Sugar Program" is scrawled across the top in blood-dripping font and below are "four scary reasons" why the coalition wants Congress should reform the program, including manufacturing job losses and high costs to consumers.

An accompanying release from the coalition also quotes Reps. Joe Pitts, R-Penn., and Danny Davis, D-Ill., who call on Congress to reform the sugar program.

"Halloween reminds us that while the sugar program is a treat for wealthy farmers who benefit from the sugar subsidies, it's nothing but a trick for the millions of American families who pay a hidden tax on sugar every time they go to the grocery store," Pitts said in the release.

On the other end of the fight is the American Sugar Alliance, which casts the candy industry's release as being in poor taste...

Not only have the sugar barons been ripping off American consumers for decades, sugar subsidies have also cost America thousands of  candy manufacturing jobs as candy producers flee to nations with much lower sugar prices because sugar is a major ingredient of candy. Sugarreform.org, which is an excellent source of information on sugar and government subsidy programs, has posted some documented facts on what the thieving sugar barons have imposed on us.

Think Tanks

“Last month, Americans paid 49 percent more for raw sugar than if they were allowed to freely import it. Clearly the sugar program is not a ‘no-cost’ policy, as sugar producers assert, since it increases prices for everyone who buys sugar or products that contain sugar.”

—The Heritage Foundation, “End the U.S. Sugar Program,” blog post, June 6, 2012

“Under this central planning scheme, the federal government restricts the sugar supply, fixes the domestic price at high levels and keeps out competition. Despite record world prices for sugar, the program continues to impose unnecessary price supports, strict production and marketing controls and outdated import quotas. The program is counterproductive, antithetical to a free market economy and has long outlived its usefulness.”

—Fran Smith, Board Member and Adjunct Fellow, Competitive Enterprise Institute, “Sugar Program Isn’t Sweet for Consumers or the Economy,”

Op-ed in The Daily Caller, April 19, 2012

“Government interference in the sugar market hurts consumers and food manufacturers by driving up the price of sugar, threatening competitive farmers and ranchers by jeopardizing export growth, and weakening the U.S. economy by diverting resources from more competitive uses. This Depression-era program, which was supposed to end in 1940, has outlived its intended lifespan by 72 years. It should be abolished.”

—The Heritage Foundation,“The U.S. Sugar Program: Bad for Consumers, Bad for Agriculture, and Bad for America,” Policy Brief, April 18, 2012

“The sugar program is a central planning system that makes consumers pay more for many foods and beverages, means real jobs lost in sugar-using companies, and shuts developing countries out of important markets.”

—Christine Hall, Competitive Enterprise Institute, March 30, 2011

“The federal government has been meddling with sugar production since 1934. Today’s convoluted system of supply controls, price supports, and trade restrictions benefits domestic sugar producers at the expense of consumers and utilizing industries. In other words, sugar producers “win” and the rest of the country ‘loses.’… The federal government engages in a lot of activities that are difficult to defend. But when it comes to sugar, the government’s protections are clearly indefensible.”

—Tad DeHaven, Cato@Liberty, Blog Post, March 30, 2011

“The sugar program diverts billions of dollars from American consumers to the “Big Sugar” cartel and would understandably make sense to the members of the American Sugar Alliance. But that very costly program certainly doesn’t make any sense at all for the millions of American consumers and thousands of U.S. businesses who were burdened last year alone with $4.5 billion in higher sugar costs.”

—Mark Perry, American Enterprise Institute, “Sugar Policy: Sweet Deal forProducers, Sour for Consumers,” Blog Post, January 24, 2011

“These policies impose a burden on consumers through higher prices. In recent years, USDA data show that U.S. sugar prices have been more than twice world market prices.”

—Cato Institute, June 2009

“A ripe target for reform is the sugar program, which protects sugar growers and inflates domestic sugar to twice the world price. This racket costs U.S. families about $2 billion annually, hitting them whenever they buy chocolates, breakfast cereal and the like.”

 —Chris Edwards, Director of Tax Policy, Cato Institute,

 “Why Congress Should Repeal Sugar Subsidy,”

Op-ed in Investor’s Business Daily, June 20, 2007

Since US sugar prices are about double the global free market sugar price, US candy manufacturers are relocating, primarily, to Canada and Mexico. The exit of US candy manufacturers includes Brach's, Hershey, Fanny May, Kraft and more. Thousands of jobs in the US have been shed because of protectionist sugar pricing.  Chicago was once America's leading candy manufacturer but those candy producers have fled the US.

The free market think tank, Cato.org. summed up the sugar racket splendidly "The sugar program is essentially a producer cartel run out of Washington. The Agriculture Department operates a complex loan program to guarantee sugar growers certain prices, which it enforces with import barriers and domestic production controls.", here.

One think tank exposed the government's logic for sugar subsidies.  According to the government, sugar subsidies create US sugar manufacturing jobs.  However, for every sugar producing job that is created through sugar baron subsidies, at least 3 more jobs are lost.  That's government math in action!

Will consumers and free market capitalism win the sugar baron battle?  When it comes to dethroning America's corporate welfare queens it's always an uphill battle.  However, public awareness is growing and that translates to political pressure.  Congress isn't listening.

Sour vote on sugar

June 16,2012

THE U.S. SENATE this week narrowly missed an opportunity to make progress in restoring fiscal sanity to Washington.

By a 50-46 vote Wednesday, the Senate defeated an amendment to the farm bill that would have phased out price supports and quotes to the sugar industry.

The sugar barons remain a very wealthy and powerful lobby that lavishly fills campaign coffers and the buying of politicians is what the subsidy game is all about. At the core of the DC Wheel of Fortune's Pay to Play game lies a big pot of fascist gold - monopolies and taxpayer cash.

Political corruption is not without profound geo-political consequences. When the sugar barons successfully lobbied Congress to embargo Cuban sugar to avoid competition and strengthen their own cartel power, Cuba lost vital revenues from its critically important sugar crop. This drove Castro straight into the orbit of the Soviets who bought Cuban sugar. Moreover, the US decision NOT to peacefully trade with Cuba on any level resulted in human suffering and a vastly strengthened Cuba-Soviet alliance. We got the Cuban Missile Crisis and a botched CIA engineered invasion of Cuba.

Isn't American crony capitalism just great!!

NASCAR and Formula One are Welfare Queens

Sports in general are highly subsidized by the taxpayers. If one ponders the outsized compensation of sports celebrities, there usually is a taxpayer subsidy and that translates to the poor and middle class funding welfare for the wealthy.  Most of the subsidies come in the form of taxpayer funded stadiums for baseball and football, here.  Even NPR wrote a devastating critique of sport stadium welfare.

The Nation: Stop The Subsidy-Sucking Sports Stadiums

It's as if sports are the bread and circuses of the state so providing the folks with entertainment is a politically potent aphrodisiac to keep the people happy and content even if the people get royally shafted.

However, baseball and football aren't the only sports welfare queens. Republicans have been subsidizing NASCAR for many years and typically through the Department of Defense. The House recently voted to continue NASCAR subsidies, probably because Republicans control the House of Representatives and NASCAR fans tend to be warmongering neocon statist socialists.

NASCAR wins fight to keep taxpayer funding

A deeply divided House voted late Wednesday to continue letting the Pentagon use taxpayer money to sponsor sports leagues and teams — a victory chiefly for NASCAR, which had fought feverishly to maintain tens of millions of dollars that go to some of its teams every year.

A liberal-conservative coalition had fought to ax the spending, arguing that at a time of trillion-dollar deficits the military shouldn't be exempt from cuts. The coalition also argued that there's no hard evidence the spending helps with recruiting young men and women for the armed forces, which is the given purpose for the funding, including $21 million from the National Guard.

But their amendment was defeated 216-202, with 60 Democrats and 156 Republicans voting to preserve the money, estimated to be $72 million in 2013. The money goes to everything from mixed martial arts to motor racing.

NASCAR isn't the only car racing welfare queen. In Austin, Texas, Formula One, another car racing giant, is the subject of a financial scandal over hundreds of millions in taxpayer subsidies. The local newspaper, the Austin-American Statesman, filed a request for financial disclosure on a transaction that is nothing but a gargantuan taxpayer ripoff.

Statesman seeks court records on taxpayer-subsidized Formula One racing track

The Austin American-Statesman this week filed a request with a Travis County district judge to release financial information about the $300 million F1 track included in a lawsuit filed by the former head of the project against several of the investors. Texas Watchdog has for two years tracked the Statesman’s noble effort to make public the involvement of state and local governments and the use of tax money in the deal....

The public has a right to know everything in the lawsuit because taxpayers are heavily invested in the project, John Bridges, the newspaper’s managing editor, said in the story.

Travis County taxpayers, whether they liked it or not, signed on to fund two road expansions made necessary by the track. Investors could also be eligible for $250 million in state taxpayer money over 10 years if the track meets certain state sales tax goals.

What makes the Formula One scandal so outrageous is that the owner of Formula One is one of the richest men in the world. Bernard Ecclestone qualified for the Forbes list of billionaires, here.

The 22 year old daughter of Formula One's owner recently purchased the 56,500 square foot $150 million mansion of Candy Spelling, widow of TV mogul Aaron Spelling.

Petra Ecclestone Buys $150 Million Candy Spelling Manor

The Fabulous Life Of Billionaire Heiress Petra Ecclestone 

To what extent the Ecclestone fortune was acquired through public subsidies and graft, I don't know. In any event, it's insane that Texan taxpayers should be forced to provide this dude with hundreds of millions in subsidies and welfare, more than enough to pay for daughter Petra's little A pied-à-terre.

How Apple Sticks It to High-Tax States

The apple of the taxpayers eye? Apple Computer is notoriously good at legal tax avoidance which is a sound business strategy. But Apple also shakes down states and cities for taxpayer dollars and that's corporate welfare.  Gary North at The Tea Party Economist has the highest praise for Apple's ability to avoid taxes.

Apple serves its customers well by cutting its costs. Taxes are a cost.

Apple serves its shareholders well by increasing profits. Cutting taxes increases profits.

By setting up divisions in Nevada, where there is mo state income tax on corporations, Apple avoids the grasping hand of California, which taxes corporations at 8.8%

I love it!

Across the nation, Apple stiffs states that impose income taxes.

When companies sell ideas or digits, they can operate anywhere. They should go where taxes are low.This is what they are doing.

The politicians grind their teeth. “How dare these firms go where we can’t get at their bank accounts?” It’s so easy when you know how.  

Apple knows how.

Read the rest here

The Tea Party Economist

In Texas, Apple is robbing the taxpayers and Texas is a low tax state.  

The state of Texas has promised Apple $21 million. The City of Austin has promised Austin $8.6 million.

Now it’s Travis County’s turn to pay up. Apple executives will meet with Travis County Commissioners Monday to hammer out a tax incentive package the county will offer the computer giant.

The commission will vote Tuesday on whether or not to give Apple $6 million in tax incentives. It’s not thought that the commission will put up any opposition to the deal.

Apple is looking for a total $35.6 million in tax breaks in order to expand its operations in Austin. Apple is supposed to hire 3,500 people and expand its North Austin campus as part of the deal.

No one is government has outlined just how the taxpayers who are bankrolling the deal will benefit from their investment.

But city and county leaders are already handing out goodies to special interest groups and have politicized the Apple deal.

Read the rest here

The Digital Texan 

Just how rich is Apple?

Apple (AAPL) is a cash cow. In its latest quarterly report , Apple listed $10.1 billion in cash, $18.4 billion in short-term marketable securities, and $81.6 billion in long-term marketable securities. In total, Apple is carrying $110 billion in cash and investment securities on top of 929,277,000 shares outstanding....

Right now, Apple is the largest corporation in the world and boasts a $560 billion market capitalization.

Read the rest here

Seeking Alpha

Judy Morris

How Sweet It Is - For Big Sugar Daddies & Other Corporate Welfare Queens

The cost to American consumers resulting from agricultural subsidies in terms of high food costs and the taxes needed to support one of the biggest corporate welfare boondoggles is a real shocker. Take milk for instance. Americans pay far more for milk under the subsidy system than they would pay under a true free market capitalist system because the subsidy costs are passed from taxpayers to dairy producers for the sole enrichment of the rich and powerful dairy industry.

In 2007, Cato.org published a piece stating:

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found that U.S. dairy policies create a 26 percent “implicit tax” on milk consumers. This milk “tax” is regressive, causing relatively greater harm to low-income families.

The Government Accountability Office compared U.S. dairy prices to world prices over a seven-year period. It found that U.S. prices for butter averaged twice the world price, cheese prices were about 50 percent higher, and nonfat dry milk prices were about 30 percent higher….

The ultimate effects are to transfer income from consumers and taxpayers to dairy businesses and to stifle innovation in this $90 billion industry.

Does Congress care one iota if Americans are being looted when they buy milk and other dairy products? Hell NO! Congress critters only care about having their campaign coffers filled with special interest dough even if consumers and taxpayers are stiffed.

In a Cato.org article on sugar subsidies, it’s more than clear that Americans are looted by the U.S. sugar industry and Congress.

The sugar program is essentially a producer cartel run out of Washington. The Agriculture Department operates a complex loan program to guarantee sugar growers certain prices, which it enforces with import barriers and domestic production controls. 

The sugar program also causes environmental damage. Large areas of the Florida Everglades have been converted to cane sugar production as a result of sugar protection. That has caused damage from the related land drainage, runoff of chemical fertilizers, and the destruction of natural habitat. 

With all the negative effects of the sugar program, why does it survive? Because Congress often puts the interests of the favored few ahead of the general public good.

Besides charging American families higher than the “free market” cost of sugar and destroying the environment, the sugar subsidies really hurt the third world and their ability to dig their way out of poverty by exporting food stuffs. But Obama has proven to be very much a sugar daddy to big sugar and has continued Republican style agricultural welfare by implementing import quotas on imported sugar. Congress has been strengthening the power of the U.S. sugar cartel since the 1980’s. In America, you fill a few campaign coffers and you buy yourself an incredibly profitable legalized monopoly.

The high cost of sugar in the U.S. has cost 6,400 jobs in the sugar processing industry and the U.S. Trade Commission has the brazen audacity to claim that the program saves 2,200 jobs in the U.S. That’s government math in action – lose 3 jobs for every job it claims to save and drive up consumer food costs. Meanwhile, the number of sugar processing plants in the U.S. has dropped from 23 to 8 and producers making products containing sugar are moving out of the U.S. In Canada, sugar is 50% cheaper than in the U.S.

The Heritage Foundation had some choice words for farm subsidies, here:

These subsidy programs tax working Americans to award millions to millionaires and provide profitable corporate farms with money that has been used to buy out family farms. The current farm bills would provide even greater subsidies for large farmers...

Thus, large farms and agribusinesses--which not only have the most acres of land, but also, because of their economies of scale, happen to be the nation's most profitable farms--receive the largest subsidies. Meanwhile, family farmers with few acres receive little or nothing in subsidies. In other words, far from serving as a safety net for poor farmers, farm subsidies comprise America's largest corporate welfare program...

. It’s been estimated that agricultural subsidies add 10% to our food costs. Agricultural and food subsidies constitute a tax on consumers and a wealth transfer from the poor and middle class to very wealthy corporations. Moreover, food costs have risen substantially in recent years as a result of the 'inflation tax' attributable to unsustainable federal deficits and debt totaling over $15 trillion (and climbing).

But the situation of rising food costs is getting far worse because the outrageously stupid energy scam of churning our food into fuel (another taxpayer subsidized boondoggle) is causing massive global hungry as corn prices rise. The agricultural lobby known as Big Corn has now seized upon an opportunity to double its subsidies and welfare profits, first with food and now with the energy scam know as the ethanol boondoggle. Congress Critters also got their cut because every step along the way, somebody’s campaign coffer gets filled with special interest dough. Owning a legislative body is about the easiest way to make money and Congress and its Critters are cheap to buy.

Americans like to think that America is a humane nation who cares deeply about the plight of the poor in third world nations. Neither America nor any other westernized nation gives a hoot about the starving around the world. Farm subsidies only accomplish one thing – they vastly enrich US and European powerful agriculture interests at the expense of the starving third world simply because poor nations cannot produce and grow food stuffs when they are forced to compete with highly subsidized products produced in America and Europe.

Western corporate welfare queens are directly responsible for much of the human misery on the planet. Corporate welfare is not only the lifeblood of public corruption, it plunders American consumers and causes horrific suffering everywhere but especially in the 3rd world. American style subsidies keeps corporate welfare queens rich with subsidies while driving up the cost of just about everything. Consumers and taxpayers are always screwed.