California isn’t just a basket case, it’s a proselytizing basket case, with its environmental zealots, community organizers, and wishful economic thinkers aggressively selling their ideas to other states and to the federal government. As Laer demonstrates, while the recession is slowing the other forty-nine states from buying into California’s governing philosophy, the Obama government is an enthusiastic supporter. Another four years of Obama, and California won’t be the only bankrupt crazy place in America.
…Crazifornia describes a dysfunctional state, one that can best be summed up as a banana republic governed, not by oligarchs, but by a toxic mix of environmental fascists, greedy unions, corrupt or ideology-driven legislators, and all-powerful bureaucrats. But before you get too angry at these jackals, perhaps you should reserve your wrath for the ones who truly deserve it: the California voters.
I fear the state is lost. I just hope we can contain the infection.
Senator Brown has targeted Mrs. Warren’s phony claims of “Indian” heritage; her $350,000-plus salary at HLS; her work for an insurance company in matters involving (yikes) asbestos; and other trivia. What he hasn’t said and probably won’t say: she is a nag. A scold. An ideologue. An advocate of a nanny state beyond a Swedish socialist’s wildest imagination. A bureaucratic Bruegel who paints an America of victims — pathetic figures in a landscape of unremitting hostility. Also, Professor Warren is an economic idiot.
I couldn’t figure out how to leave this as a comment at your site, but I wanted to let you know ASAP that I concede that your discovery this morning answers all of my arguments and is a gamechanger. Your diligence in investigating this matter is commendable.
The company has very limited customer base of only eight companies, and “the loss of any of these customers could materially harm our business.”
The SEC filing contained other damaging revelations. The firm said that its truck’s lithium-ion battery cells “have been observed to catch fire or vent smoke and flames,” and their warranty reserves may be insufficient to cover future warranty claims.
The company’s top management has limited or no experience in the automobile or truck business. Hansel previously led Evo Medical Solutions, which sold portable oxygen concentrators.
But other than that, it was a great bet, Secretary Chu.
The problem with his analysis is that (as Clark Lindsey notes in comments) he assumes no elasticity of demand with the lower prices. I think he’s wrong.