# Is Fisker Latest Victim in Right-wing Witch Hunt?



## EVDL Archive (Jul 26, 2007)

Examiner's Green Transportation blogger David Herron sees reason for criticism of DOE loan to Fisker as attempt to undermine President Obama.

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## PhantomPholly (Aug 20, 2008)

Yeah - it couldn't possibly be simply that 75% of Americans feel their tax dollars should either be spent at home or not spent at all, could it? Or, that 60% of Americans don't think the government has any business at all financing individual companies?

Well, I'd say that flags this as another political piece irrelevant to EVs.


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## tomofreno (Mar 3, 2009)

> Well, I'd say that flags this as another political piece irrelevant to EVs.


Fisker makes evs. If you don't like it don't read it. Don't tell the rest of us what we can read.


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## PhantomPholly (Aug 20, 2008)

tomofreno said:


> Fisker makes evs. If you don't like it don't read it. Don't tell the rest of us what we can read.


You're the only one telling others what to do. I'm simply disappointed in the news bot. 

You might want to consider your own advice....


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## drivin98 (May 9, 2008)

PhantomPholly said:


> Yeah - it couldn't possibly be simply that 75% of Americans feel their tax dollars should either be spent at home or not spent at all, could it? Or, that 60% of Americans don't think the government has any business at all financing individual companies?
> 
> Well, I'd say that flags this as another political piece irrelevant to EVs.


I think the point is that the money was for American jobs. The money was spent in Michigan at their headquarters on Karma (and Nina) development and in Delaware retro-fitting a factory and not in Finland as was reported.

Also, not sure where you pulled those numbers from but they smell funny. 

The fact is that all governments spend money in the private sector and while I might not have loaned Fisker this much (had I a say), it has produced jobs and there's no doubt America can use all the jobs it can get at this point.


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## PhantomPholly (Aug 20, 2008)

drivin98 said:


> I think the point is that the money was for American jobs.


That was certainly the theory.



> The money was spent in Michigan at their headquarters on Karma (and Nina) development and in Delaware retro-fitting a factory and not in Finland as was reported.


Whenever an international company receives money one place, it is as if it received the money everywhere. That is not a political point of view, it is simply a financial fact - because if you receive a pot of money in point (a) you can pull out all of your OTHER money in point (a) and move it around, claiming "all of the money intended for point (a) went where we said it would." Both political parties have fallen for this type of thing.



> Also, not sure where you pulled those numbers from but they smell funny.


They are my own approximate averages based on multiple polls & sources, which are close enough to accurate for the sake of this discussion. Left leaning CNN polled that 6 of 10 Americans opposed the auto bailouts is simply one example. Other similar polls come up with similar results. And, I seriously doubt you disagree substantively that the vast majority of Americans feel that our government spending should benefit America first?

Anyway, keeping it politically neutral outside the chitchat forum the upshot is that the story was no more inaccurate than the rebuttals. Both slant the events for their own purposes. The reality is that we will never know, short of Fisker opening all of it's international books to us (which will NEVER happen because it might embarrass their Washington patrons) whether ANY of the money actually impacted their American operations, nor what percentage did stay at home created any jobs. 

There is no magic "free money." The likeliest answer? A net job loss - perhaps immediately (current high taxes pulled from the private sector plus the slow economy causing one or more additional business to cut more employees; those job losses more than offsetting the temporary Fisker gains); perhaps long term (additional debt, which forestalls our economic recovery and cripples future economic growth); and more likely than not both.

Final note: It wasn't just Fox. ABC News reports that only 500 jobs have been created, and those were in Finland. Any plant in the U.S. is strictly a theory - and we know about good intentions... In any event, with the LMSM reporting this it is hardly a right-wing witch hunt.


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