Comment by dmix
14 hours ago
> When people go out of their way to avoid common sense they should be punished.
Sounds like it was mostly just people reacting to government incentives. Subsidized markets acting irrational.
14 hours ago
> When people go out of their way to avoid common sense they should be punished.
Sounds like it was mostly just people reacting to government incentives. Subsidized markets acting irrational.
Politicians are conduits. Someone wanted this to happen.
But yea, subsidies. I've been on many a call where "there's govt funding available if we shape this like x" is one of the major selling points.
Politics has a habit of being very insular once elections are finished.
There will always be a strong belief in artificially changing market behaviour by simply throwing money at it and hoping it sticks. When the money dries up the public tends to go back to "what's practical and affordable?".
> There will always be a strong belief in artificially changing market behaviour by simply throwing money at it and hoping it sticks.
Well, it can be made to work, you know. Late (in the XX century) industrialization stories are like that: competitive (dis)advantages make any such attempts simply unprofittable for any businessman (or even a group of them), but if the government keeps skewing the market for decades... The Japanese car manufacturing has been heavily subsidized for most of the XX century, even after their several disastrous attempts to enter the US market. But it all worked out in the end.