Speaking of tantrums, I think that Holman Jenkins’s most recent WSJ column about Tesla Motors may qualify:
Elon Musk has proved that a market exists for electric cars, despite their many inconveniences, especially if they come wrapped in taxpayer subsidies. He hasn’t proved he can make a profit.
His idea of an industry at scale, he would probably be loath to admit, almost certainly depends on government intervention to make gasoline-powered cars increasingly prohibited. His gigafactory, to which he will commit $2 billion to double the world-wide capacity of existing lithium-ion batteries, is a mute acknowledgment that he sees no battery breakthroughs in the offing that would transform the problems of range anxiety and recharge times.
I will be very interested in seeing how much it actually takes to double the worldwide capacity for producing lithium-ion batteries. In the past I’ve speculated that one of the reasons more electric vehicles aren’t being produced is that they can’t produce them any faster. Elon Musk’s throwing a couple of bil at increasing battery production should tell us something.
When did entrepeneurialism become cadging around for government subsidies? Has it always been that way, has there always been a strain of that, or is it something new? I know that John D. Rockefeller founded his fortune on war profiteering during the Civil War so it’s not exactly a new thing.
I imagine it has always been part of the American experience. How many of the early colonies consisted of/subsisted on land grants from the Crown?
“When did entrepeneurialism become cadging around for government subsidies? Has it always been that way……..”
When it comes to large players or connected players it’s effectively been forever. I’d just be careful to paint “entrepreneurialism” with the same brush when talking a few big profiteers vs the vast majority of small entrepreneurs. And I certainly wouldn’t advocate policies that harm or are dismissive of that vast majority just because of the profiteers. I suspect only zealots would.