Mistaken Priorities

Investors.com posted an article on Friday about some of the money spent on American Embassies overseas.

The lead paragraph of the article points out:

While our consulate in Benghazi was guarded by unarmed Libyan contractors making $4 an hour, our embassy in Vienna received an expensive charging station for its new electric cars to help fight climate change.

The article also states that there were 230 security incidents in Libya between June 2011 and July 2012. Forty-eight of those incidents took place in Benghazi. Was anyone paying attention?

The article states:

In a May 3, 2012, email on which Ambassador Stevens was copied, the State Department denied a request by a group of Special Forces assigned to protect the U.S. Embassy in Libya to continue their use of a DC-3 airplane for security operations throughout the country.

Four days after the use of an ancient DC-3, along with other security requests, was being denied, on May 7, 2012, the State Department authorized the U.S. Embassy in Vienna to purchase a $108,000 electric-vehicle charging station for the embassy motor pool’s new Chevrolet Volts.

The article concludes:

Instead of an “Energy Efficiency Sweep Of Europe,” money should have been provided for a terrorist sweep of the Middle East that included protection for our diplomats in places like Benghazi. The $535 million wasted by Obama-Biden on Solyndra would have helped.

It seems that someone’s priorities were misplaced.

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About That Successful Bailout Of General Motors

President Barack Obama, with Assembly Manager ...

President Barack Obama, with Assembly Manager Teri Quigley, drives a new Chevy Volt, during his tour of the General Motors Auto Plant in Hamtramck, Mich., July 30, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

One of the accomplishments that President Obama is citing on his ‘stump speech’ is his bailout of General Motors. So far the taxpayer has lost about $25 billion on the bailout. I have posted a number of articles about the lack of sales of the Chevy Volt during the past year (you can use the search engine at the top of this site if you want to read them). The bottom line is that even with the government paying customers to buy the car, the car is not selling. There have also been a number of fires in the Chevy Volt after minor accidents.

Yesterday USA Today reported that General Motors is shutting down its Chevy Volt assembly line for a month and retooling it to produce Chevy Impalas.

The article reports:

“We are not idling the plant due to poor Volt sales. We’re gearing up for production of the new Impala,” Chevy spokesman David Darovitz said in an email.

Maybe I just don’t understand business, but it seems to me that if a car is selling well, you don’t suspend production of that car for a month.

 

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When Government Interferes In The Free Market

There will probably come a time in the future when we are not driving cars with internal combustion engines. I don’t know when that time will come, but I know it will come when an alternatively-fueled car becomes practical and economical. We are not actually there yet.

On Friday the Washington Examiner posted an article stating that General Motors is temporarily laying off 1300 employees due to lack of sales of the Chevy Volt.

The article reports:

The car company had hoped to sell 45,000 Chevy Volts in America this year, according to the Detroit News, but has only sold about 1,626 over the first two months of 2012.

“GM blamed the lack of sales in January on “exaggerated” media reports and the federal government’s investigation into Volt batteries catching fire, which officially began in November and ended Jan. 21,” the Ann Arbor (Mich.) News reported.

Under President Obama’s proposed budget for next year, the government subsidy for people who purchase a Chevy Volt will be raised to $10,000. I am not sure that will pass or will help if it is passed. I suspect the only way to sell them is to drop the price to about $20,000, which is about what average people actually pay for a car. Meanwhile, I wish the auto bailout money had stayed in the taxpayers’ pockets. 

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