"I don't think anyone's cheering for the Volt to fail. That's weird. It's also weird that you think anyone cheered for GM to fail. They did fail. They went bankrupt. What bothered me--and tens of millions of others--was the same too-big-to-fail mantra that says that when a firm of a certain size goes bankrupt, the taxpayer has to swoop in and throw money at them, instead of going through the bankruptcy courts."
That bothers this liberal, too, and lots of others in this country. True capitalism would have allowed the failure. But how many "free market" declaimers in Congress voted for the bailout? Anyone have stats on that. GWB certainly was for it.
"Bigger is better, I guess. And if a car costs $41,000, that means it must be twice as good as one that runs $20k. Krauthammer is pointing out what I've seen five other authors write in the past week: for $41,000, it's a lousy buy. How typical of GM to build up the Chevy Volt hype for three years, only to build a turd."
Except that that's capitalism. You build a new thing, sell it for a lot, and over time the price goes down. One must recoup investment/R&D costs. I can't say this is what they're doing, but it's certainly a common capitalist argument--we see it particularly in the drug trade (er, pharmaceuticals).
But yes, I think that's a high price. Lousy vehicle? I don't know. I can't afford a new car, hybrid, electric, or otherwise. Why not let the market decide?
