Chinese Firm Wins Bid For US-Backed Battery Maker 183
theodp writes "On September 13, 2010, President Obama called A123 Systems from the Oval Office to congratulate them on opening the nation's first manufacturing facility to mass-produce electric vehicle batteries, which the White House noted was made possible by a $249 million Recovery Act grant the company received the prior August. 'When folks lift up their hoods on the cars of the future,' the President said, 'I want them to see engines and batteries that are stamped: Made in America. And that's what you guys are helping to make happen.' But on Saturday, the assets of A123 Systems were auctioned off to the Wanxiang Group, a large Chinese auto parts maker. Wanxiang agreed to pay $256 million for A123's automotive and commercial operations, including its three factories in the United States. Forbes reports that A123's stock, which closed at 7 cents a share on Friday, is now worthless."
This contract needs to be pulled immediately! (Score:2)
Re:This contract needs to be pulled immediately! (Score:5, Informative)
And the company actually had customers and contracts, but needed money to build manufacturing capacity (hence the grants). Then they had quality issues, plus Chrysler closed down its Electronic Vehicle division, and hence the bankruptcy. Of the 123 million that was actually spent, there are very large physical assets sitting in Michigan which may still be used (to, you know, employ people). The remaining 100 million was never "given" by the government to anyway; its still sitting in an approved grant account controlled by the US government. I now return you to your ranting.
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Perfect example. Nobody wants to talk about the miss-regulated financial industry. They want to pretend it's deregulated. Hint: Mortgage banking is one of the most regulated industries in the united states. You can go on about how the derivative market is unregulated. But you can't ignore that the mortgage market was heavily regulated and that the secondary mortgage markets worked entirely to government underwriting standards as they (Freddy and Fanny) dominated.
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No they are waging an economic war on you and me, those in charge are on their team.
How could they go out of business? (Score:4, Interesting)
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their batteries had issues and had to be recalled.
demand fell so the sales never materialized.
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Only half of grant used (Score:5, Informative)
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Please don't make this a partisan thread.
Lets take a look at the Senate roll call on the bill that actually gave them this money, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009:
Democrats - 55 yeas - 0 nays
Republicans - 3 yeas - 38 nays
Independents - 2 yeas - 0 nays (one is an "Independent Democrat")
Now lets take a look at the House roll call on this bill:
Democrats - 244 yeas - 11 nays
Republicans - 0 yeas - 177 nays
Now, please explain why you dont want this to be a partisan issue.. it became a partisan issue when the Democrats
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When someone questions you, you should question yourself, and verify what you are saying. When you do that, you might not repeatedly make an error that could have been avoided the second time.
The correct bill that provided this funding is in fact the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. So says the White House. So says the energy department. So said Obama when he urged congress to pass the bill.
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Please, if the Democrats had a bill to allow volunteers to help kids dying of cancer it wouldn't get bipartisan support from the Republicans... probably for some outrageous reason like "This endangers our right to pray in hospitals".
The senate GOP filibustered THEIR OWN BILL last week because the democrats agreed to vote on it.
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Please, if the Democrats had a bill to allow volunteers to help kids dying of cancer it wouldn't get bipartisan support from the Republicans... probably for some outrageous reason like "This endangers our right to pray in hospitals".
Would it endanger the ability to pray in hospitals? If so, wtf, why would the dems make such a requirement a part of such an important bill?
The senate GOP filibustered THEIR OWN BILL last week because the democrats agreed to vote on it.
The republicans were making a point when they proposed the bill. They thought the bill was so outrageous that everyone would get the point that it was just stupid to even start down the path (giving the president unilateral control of the amount of debt that the US can incur). They assumed that there was no way the dems would actually vote for such a bill as it was obvi
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You should see a good chiropractor. After such a desperate bending over backwards as you just did, misalignment is inevitable.
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You should see a good chiropractor. After such a desperate bending over backwards as you just did, misalignment is inevitable.
It's a shame Dr. Bob seems to be retired.
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Keep up that leaping and you'll likely end yup stuck in a well.
You need counciling, ASAP! (Score:2)
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I expect people to at least make an effort to think analytically... and regardless of your opinion of my parenting methodology (based on a snapshot in time no less) there is no doubt that my children know how
Re:Only half of grant used (Score:5, Insightful)
Man, you put together an interesting argument, then I see the diarrhea oozing down your leg. When you make jackass sweeping generalizations, you need to be ignored until you learn to play better with others.
Not chess (Score:3)
China is not playing chess, they are playing GO (wei chi in Chinese). They have the entire playing field in view and it's huge - both the real world and the board game in the analogy. In chess you have straight forward tactics and what amounts to simple strategies to achieve relatively short term goals - like isolate a pawn or pin down a piece (the king for a win). With GO the game is literally about controlling territory - vast regions or lots of small
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you up for a game of GO? i haven't played in years..
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A tired metaphor. Chinese have their own version of chess, too.
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I don't think the Chinese government is out for world domination, it just genuinely wants the best for its citizens.
That might seem strange when you think of all the censorship, authoritarianism and harsh repression of dissent, but in their minds it is what they honestly believe is best for the majority. Individual freedom is not considered the highest goal there, harmonious society is.
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Goverment should not finance companies (Score:5, Insightful)
Public money is best spent on things private companies can't/won't do.
The best long term thing Government can do to help the country is finance research and education that form the building blocks for new companies. By comparison there are boat loads of investment dollars floating around in the private sector, the Government has no special way of knowing who the winners will be over private investors and the dollars are less needed there anyway. Financing companies is much riskier always, I guess I can see floating a loan to an established company in a crisis, but that is about it.
Republicans and, worse yet, Democrats both have become overly hypnotized with the power of "Private Enterprise". But people who run private companies are still just people. Better for Government to refocus on what is does well and assure plentiful funding for that. So if you really want to help produce electric cars, put out money for research at Universities and have open contracts for US manufacturers to sell the Government electric cars.
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the Government has no special way of knowing who the winners will be over private investors and the dollars are less needed there anyway.
That's the point. Investors never want to get in to risky new technology early on. They always wait for the government to put the money in by funding research at universities and in the military, until it reaches a commercially viable state. Unfortunately sometimes the government has to go as far as funding a company to get the tech that far, as is the case with EV batteries.
The government will thus always appear to suck at investing because it naturally invests in things that are risky and many of them don
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Well, Xerox may not have benefited from Parc, but U.S. companies certainly did. If anything I would have used this to support the position that Parc like activities end up benefiting society in general and are big risks for companies but good activities for governments. I am sure some foreign companies benefited also, but there is no question being closer to the innovation (and speaking the same language) helps a society get more of the benefit.
Were you around in the 70-80’s when Japan was going to
Had they spent the money on Marijuana Farms (Score:2)
We would have saved USA farms, removed the ethanol subsidy, and had a home grown supply for the Colorado and Washington legalization demand. And we could have reduced the money spent imprisoning pot smokers, and dealt a serious blow to Mexico cartel gangs. Only one problem... we wouldn't have needed $250M in taxpayer funding, they could have accomplished all this success just by executive order, removing marijuana from DEA lists, legalizing it, taxing it, etc.
I don't smoke marijuana (or haven't in decade
A123 Horribly Mismanaged - Threw away $200M (Score:3, Informative)
I am really horribly surprised that this isn't mentioned more.
Just 4 months ago Wanxiang offered $450M for 80% of A123. Now Wanxiang got it for $260M. A123 lost it's creditors quite a large chunk of money and now Wanxiang gets control of A123 debt free.
http://insideevs.com/wanxiang-takes-control-of-a123-again-as-it-wins-bankruptcy-auction/ [insideevs.com]
A123 has been horribly mismanaged from the start. People have been clamoring for their cells for years - but they wouldn't sell to anyone but OEMs - so many people took to disassembling packs from drills or more recently buying them off the grey market (eBay).
Their batteries are very good, but they have been plagued by bad business decisions and some bad luck (like the big batch of defective cells they sold to Fiskar costing $55M to replace).
I would have rather seen A123 tech been bought by JCI rather than Wanxiang - I can only hope that they are able to sort out A123s problems and finally get their product to market successfully.
Not Chinese Owned Yet (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20121209/AUTO01/212090327/1148/rss25 [detroitnews.com]
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Some probably would.
I was hoping those US factories might be reopened by the new owners. Instead the machines and all the IP will go to the Chinese.
Re:And? (Score:5, Funny)
all the IP will go to the Chinese.
At least this time we got them to pay for it.
Re:And? (Score:5, Insightful)
all the IP will go to the Chinese.
At least this time we got them to pay for it.
But who receives payment of the auction proceeds? I'm guessing it won't be the people who put up the $249 recovery funds.
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Tax 'em (Score:2)
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You never know, this might be part of the trend in manufacturing returning to US soil; with ultra-cheap material from China sailed in through the great lakes, they can slap the stuff together with the help of minimum wage machine operators, keep the "Made in USA" label, and stick them in $100,000 cars with the profit sailing back to China (and probably some fresh water out of the lake while they are at it).
Free market advocates will be filling this thread with more vitriol about how it always backfires when
Re:And? (Score:4, Interesting)
What goes around... comes around. Let the Chinese and the Chinese government do all the R&D to stay competitive in the market and after they've suck billions into it, then let's reverse engineer it and make it here on the cheap.
Works both ways.
Re:And? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because that is not how they play this game.
Look at how they dumped solar cells as a great example.
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Re:And? (Score:5, Insightful)
So using tax dollars to lower the price of your products to drive competitors out of business is competition?
So what is your bar for cheating?
Re:Time to show some balls (Score:4, Insightful)
Americans should not have any bars when it comes to face a COMMUNIST country.
Hmmm... remind me what would you call the "bailout" that saved some American banks? Or the GM one [sodahead.com]?
Re:Time to show some balls (Score:5, Informative)
remind me what would you call the "bailout" that saved some American banks
Graft and corruption
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Would you say that Interstate Highways are communist? Maybe they are, but they are essential to the competitiveness of the US economy. Some people have never been on a highway in their entire life, but their taxes were still used to build these highways.
Agreed. But allow me to restate: to certain problems, the appropriate solutions. And let the ideology aside
Again, I'm not saying that bailing out banks was good or bad. I'm saying that it wasn't an easy decision to take, and that it was done for a reason. Saying it's communism does not help much in the debate.
Do you feel you know well the problems in China? Are you absolutely sure that what their are doing now is springing from an ideology?
Because if not, why tag China as communist (as the post I was replying did)? How would this help the debate?
Some notes [wikipedia.org]: /sq.km.
* China - population 1,347,350,000, population density: 141
* US - population: 314,931,000, population density: 34/sq km
The above consideratio
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Post as something other that "Anonymous Coward" or shut up.
Re:the grants are to U.S. based manufacturers (Score:4, Informative)
You should really read further. Less than half the money was spent, and their sustainable product's sole client pulled out after demanding highly-specialized retooling, rendering their product line worthless without another infusion of cash. The owners have decided to cut their losses and have been in bankruptcy for some time now -- the sale is pending bankruptcy court approval. Outstanding creditors will be repaid out of the $256M sale price, but the US taxpayers (who provided a grant), and the stockholders (who have no recourse), will be left empty-handed. The owners are very likely personally out a very large sum of money, as outstanding creditors will soak up all of the liquid assets, including US grant money, once the sale is complete.
On the upside, as stated, at least taxpayers are not out the entire tab.
Re:And? (Score:5, Insightful)
Free market my ass. This is corporatism. Allow the corporation to do what they want at all costs. There is no reason that the government should NOT be allowed to designate that funds it spends benefits its citizens over other people. EVERY OTHER country in the world does this.
Let the nitpicking and the corporate hothead flaming begin below....
Re:And? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd like to say this is speculative investment, and I'd also rather my governmenet not use tax dollars to engage in such speculative investment at all.
But it is, in fact, crony capitalism, or worse, pure fraud.
No, wait, it's just fraud. We are being robbed.
Re:And? (Score:4, Insightful)
The investment, made with it without an expectation of reimbursement, was nonetheless an investment. I assume it was made with the expectation of a successful venture, jobs and tax revenue, and development of a domestic battery manufacturer.
the failure began the question of whether there was a reasonable chance of success.
I expect my government to have such an expectation, but the market is a harsh place, and companies do fail.
I would prefer we do it differently.
Re:And? (Score:4, Insightful)
How can you be robbed of something you gave away?
Because in the constitution it said *nothing* about giving grants to US-based high tech battery manufacturers... therefore it is illegal for the federal government to do so (according to him). Pretty simple, really.
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Re:And? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd like to say this is speculative investment,
No it wasn't. It was a grant , not a loan, not an investment. That means the government just gave them the money with no requirement or expectation that it would be paid back.
Yes, but I'd like to think the gov't doesn't just give away money for the hell of it.
'When folks lift up their hoods on the cars of the future,' the President said, 'I want them to see engines and batteries that are stamped: Made in America. And that's what you guys are helping to make happen.'
That sounds like an expectation to me.
We are being robbed.
How can you be robbed of something you gave away?
Because I didn't give it away. Some group of assholes did. Most of whom I did not vote for.
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Because I didn't give it away. Some group of assholes did. Most of whom I did not vote for.
If it's any consolation, more than half of your fellow countrymen (based on voter participation) are OK with that "group of assholes".
If you look around and everyone else is an asshole, what does that suggest......
No, not really. Considering that somewhere around half of the population pays no taxes at all [howstuffworks.com]. I'm pretty much in the middle of middle class and do pay taxes. My wife has MS and cannot work, but I make enough that we don't feel it's right for her to apply for disability, even though she qualifies. If I look around and everyone else is looking for a handout and I'm not, does this make me an asshole? And no, I don't feel any animosity toward those that do either. However I do direct my ire toward the politic
Re:And? (Score:5, Informative)
No, not really. Considering that somewhere around half of the population pays no taxes at all [howstuffworks.com].
The above statement is simply false. The article that you quote says as much, pointing out that not paying income tax is not the same as not paying any taxes. People with low income pay SS and Medicare taxes, state and local taxes, personal property tax, and sales tax. The total tax burden on low income people is substantial.
The reason that low income people do not pay federal income tax is that they are making so little money, and when you add in exemptions, credits, deductions, etc, they are not supposed to pay anything. Retired people, veterans, handicapped people with MS, students, unemployed people don't make enough to justify any taxes as they are written. We can argue about whether those exemptions, deductions, and credits are justifiable. A better idea would be to make sure that they make enough that taxes are justified.
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Because I didn't give it away. Some group of assholes did. Most of whom I did not vote for.
If it's any consolation, more than half of your fellow countrymen (based on voter participation) are OK with that "group of assholes".
If you look around and everyone else is an asshole, what does that suggest......
That the country formerly known as the US is now officially Upper Mexico? And more than half full of assholes.
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Corporatism [wikipedia.org]
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There isn't a free market on the global level. There pretty much isn't a legal free market in the US. You can keep cawing on about the free market but it doesn't make it true.
Re:And? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the free market in action. Would you rather the White House block the sale?
I'd rather the White House not give them $250M in taxpayer money in the first place. How exactly was that free market in action?
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This is the free market in action. Would you rather the White House block the sale?
I'd rather the White House not give them $250M in taxpayer money in the first place. How exactly was that free market in action?
To go even further with that point, it's not the free market in action any more, as they already ruined that. Free market means if your management is all idiots and your manufacturing process sucks and your expenses are out of control and your downline is basically only 2 customers, you will fail. With $250 mil dropped in your lap, free market "survival of the fittest" goes away but all those problems don't go away. It just means you fail later, with more money because your company still sucks. Yes, tha
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Free market in technology means no money coming in for a year, 2 years or more while you develop it.
It means you invest $250 mill of somebody else's money, get even more money if it looks like it's working, and finally get a working salable product years down the road. With the understanding that most investments fail.
That's how Genentech did it. They got substantial government investments. Their original basic research was done under National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health grants. And
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Re:And? (Score:4, Informative)
The Republican politicians who voted for the energy policy act of 2007 were for sale. And like any good investment, they paid off, leaving somebody else to hold the bill.
Lets take a look at the Senate roll call on the bill that actually gave them this money, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009:
Democrats - 55 yeas - 0 nays
Republicans - 3 yeas - 38 nays
Independents - 2 yeas - 0 nays (one is an "Independent Democrat")
Now lets take a look at the House roll call on this bill:
Democrats - 244 yeas - 11 nays
Republicans - 0 yeas - 177 nays
Yet again the Democrats blame the Republicans for what the Democrats did all by themselves.
Re:And? (Score:4, Informative)
Lets take a look at the Senate roll call on the bill that actually gave them this money, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009:
Wrong funding. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Technology_Vehicles_Manufacturing_Loan_Program [wikipedia.org] (passed in fall of 2008) which was part of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Independence_and_Security_Act_of_2007 [wikipedia.org] Have a wonderful day. (If you had read my post, you would have caught the "program from 2008" and realized you had the wrong funding. )
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Re:And? (Score:4, Informative)
I think you forgot that the Democrats have controlled the Senate from Jan 2007-Present, and the House from Jan 2007-2010. They were in control of the committees and budgets during the financial collapse of 2008, and steered all of the "bailout" money. Technically everything leading up, causing, and continuing the recession was approved by the Democrats.
But, the public is apparently ok with all of the spending. They voted for it, and re-elected the same people, so what can you do.
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Technically everything leading up, causing, and continuing the recession was approved by the Democrats.
Not to nitpick too terribly much, but the recession was in the works well before 2007. Republicans blame Democrats, Democrats blame Republicans, and everybody believes they're right and the other guy is wrong because we can't handle the thought that we might have had a part to play.
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Nice misdirection, picking the wrong act.
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Bzzt wrong.
Mod this idiot down please. The funding act he refers to is the wrong one.
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Why couldn't they waste it on more drug prosecutions and prisons like the Republicans?
Re:And? (Score:4, Funny)
(Reliable) citation, or you just made these numbers up. And that doesn't mean a link to some blog that made the numbers up themselves, either. It means a link to an irrefutable source.
When the official source of this information is the government itself, on the official websites which tracks this stuff, which never leaves out any of its voting.. it makes you look like an idiot for not automatically going there where you should have known to go.
Senate Vote [senate.gov]
House Vote [house.gov]
Now here is an idea.. instead of pretending to be smart by asking for a citation.. prove that you are smart by actually watching what the government is actually doing through the most authoritative channel possible.. the public one that has never once editorialize.. never once given an opinion.. the one you apparently didnt fucking know about proving that you are just a sheep.
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Citation? I suspect that those numbers are very susceptible to how you do the counting. Does one guy spending his life savings on an idea count as private equity? What is the metric for success?
Re:And? (Score:5, Insightful)
In a free market, a failing company would fail. In this case, the government took $249 million in tax dollars and gave it away. This is not the free market.
Re:And? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not the free market.
First and foremost, what do you think a free market is?
Second, we haven't had *free markets for over 100 years and we don't want free markets.
Competitive markets are where the real growth is found and the only way to get competition is to restrain the worst impulses of the free market.
Third, this is what we have: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_economy [wikipedia.org]
It's better than a completely free market.
*For all definitions of "free"
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First and foremost, what do you think a free market is?
"Market" - A set of rules governing trade. Property law being the most fundamental rule, without that there is no trading.
"Free" - Anyone can play. For example the alcohol market in the US is restricted to people over 21.
Re:And? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:And? (Score:4, Insightful)
You should be more irritated that a handful of US citizens in the form of soon-to-be-paid creditors will absorb every penny of that as part of the bankruptcy proceedings, following the $256M sale. And those creditors are not stockholders, who will be left empty-handed.
China didn't get a $250M check from the US government -- a group of nameless American creditors did.
And rightly so! Why should the owners of a failed company get to keep cash if there are still debts left unpaid?
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That statement is foolish, at best. This is not the "free market". US industry has been under attack for a couple of decades now, and this is just another footnote in the grand globalization scheme.
I would suspect, though I haven't looked for proof, that the Chinese government may have been involved. A small subsidy maybe, to enable the Chinese company to bid a bit higher than they might have been able to?
There is no "free market" (Score:4, Insightful)
Free markets are largely fictitious. They can only be maintained through heavy government intervention *cough* anti trust laws *cough* and require strong public infrastructure and an educated population. In short, there is not and never has been a "free market" except that which has been fostered and tended by a government relatively free of corruption. Without this government oversight, a "free market" quickly gets taken over by privately held monopolies that are then leveraged against other markets. The market then degrades into a highly capitalized form of fascism, as is happening now in the USA.
For example, even the USA at its height had much of its "private enterprise" industrial strength funded by public entities. here is an excellent example, makes for a fascinating read [theatlantic.com].
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Thanks for the link. I've seen some pretty big pieces of equipment, but I never saw that big Fifty. Cleveland, huh? It's slightly odd that I never heard of it - gotta Google some more. Very interesting - and I do note the government involvement in it's development, construction, and mission.
It's not a free market at all (Score:3)
It's a relatively free market here in the US. There is no such thing in China. There is no way a foreign company could buy a bankrupt company in China. They don't even let you do business there without a lot of concession which may involve allowing a Chinese competitor to make your product for their local market while you're allowed to export your shit out of the country. There's also the recent clamp down on export of some
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This is the free market in action. Would you rather the White House block the sale?
Of course not. That would be Socialism. And everyone knows that Socialism is just another name for Communism and Communism is Evil and we shouldn't allow Communists to infiltrate our red-blooded 'Merican business!
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It gets kinda embarrassing when nerds reinforce their own negative stereotypes to proclaim that anything that might actually relevant they're not interested in.
I love Firefly and Game of Thrones as much as the next nerd, but we're not helping our self image by throwing a temper tantrum every time "real" news shows up in the feed.
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It gets kinda embarrassing when nerds reinforce their own negative stereotypes to proclaim that anything that might actually relevant they're not interested in.
I love Firefly and Game of Thrones as much as the next nerd, but we're not helping our self image by throwing a temper tantrum every time "real" news shows up in the feed.
The A123 story has been beaten to death though; this whole story should be modded flamebait since Slashdot editors know full well that the ensuing discussion will be a firestorm of politically motivated bickering that will stretch for 500+ posts (and generate a heap of ad impressions). Sure, for experienced users it's easy to ignore this kind of rabbit hole and never enter the discussion to begin with, but what kind of message are we sending out when the site's most active stories are all political ones?
Re:News for nerds (Score:5, Interesting)
There was an engineering professor in California named Terman who taught his students that they shouldn't just study the technology, they should also look at how to start a business, and keep their eyes out for opportunities.
Two of his students were Hewlett and Packard.
Re:News for nerds (Score:5, Interesting)
If we add that A123 is the sole provider of batteries for the Fisker Karma [dowjones.com], would you start to care? That A123 is a provider of MW-scale batteries to AES Corp, [aesenergystorage.com] for use in windfarm smoothing and grid services?
I would have preferred that the government not gotten in the business of payouts to its campaign contributors [washingtonguardian.com], but elections have consequences. Usually corrupt consequences, but what can you do.
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The united states of fail giving away their incomptetenly mismanaged and dearly needed money to their future masters. Why keep it partisan when it's your whole nation sinking?
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Damn right. It's not really corporate welfare, because that implies you KEEP the corporation propped up. It's straight out cronyism and a deliberate policy of raping your own taxpayers and transferring wealth overseas.
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But it still sucks.
Hey, at least it's creating jobs *somewhere*.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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Trolling for page views. Slanted political pieces are possibly even better than Apple/Samsung/Google/Microsoft hit pieces. Just as biased and uninformed (from the headline down to the -1 comments) but reach out to a broader base.