Unlike its failed business model – which saw it recently file for bankruptcy after receiving millions in tax-cash subsidies – the electric bus maker Proterra seems to be a never-ending source of news.
Sure, the news always is bad. But each new revelation serves as another “teachable moment,” attesting to the fact that government subsidies are, by definition, both economically fascist and economically damaging.
The Washington Examiner’s Jenny Goldsberry reports on the latest wrinkle on the face of this rapidly decaying government crony corporation, explaining that the government of Jackson, Wyoming, has put its fleet of federally-subsidized Proterra busses out to proverbial pasture.
Because they don’t work.
And the city “officials” are going to turn to – GASP – internal-combustion engines, instead!
“Now all eight (Proterra) buses need repairs. In their place, Southern Teton Area Rapid Transit will deploy six new diesel buses to the area as soon as October.”
How DARE they? Don’t they know that a lot of politicians and politically-tied, politically-motivated collectivists have banked a lot on their unsupported, factless rhetoric of “climate dangers” from internal-combustion engines?
Don’t they realize how much of OUR money has been banked on this fruitless, counter-economic, fascist fad?
Related: What a Shock: E-Vehicle Corp Favored By Biden Energy Secretary Files For Bankruptcy | MRCTV
Observes Goldsberry:
“In 2023, $1.7 billion was allocated to this program via President Joe Biden's Infrastructure plan passed in 2021. It was specifically meant to go toward 1,700 American-built buses, and Wyoming received $945,178 to ‘buy zero-emission battery-electric buses and charging equipment to replace diesel buses that serve nearly half a million visitors and workers in and around Teton Village and resorts.’"
And she adds:
“Proterra's reported loss in 2023 was five times over its loss in 2022. The company would also subsequently lay off 300 staff in January.
Biden has all but endorsed Proterra in the past, at one point taking a virtual tour of a Proterra manufacturing facility in South Carolina in 2021, where he revealed he used to be a bus driver. That year START was awarded $1.1 million, which it used to add to its electric bus fleet.”
And that occurred while Biden’s “Energy Secretary” Jennifer Granholm held stock in Proterra, and was penalized for breaching federal disclosure requirements.
But how can one complain? It’s all for a “good cause,” right? What does it matter that these federal money-conduits are not sanctioned by the Constitution? What does it matter that none of the climate apocalypse predictions have come true?
What does it matter that, as Governor of Michigan, Jennifer Granholm made sure millions in Obama-era bailout cash got funneled to Proterra and what does it matter that they subsequently placed her on their board when she left office? And what does it matter that when Granholm left the board she received that stock in Proterra and sold it for $1.6 million, juuuuust prior to the company filing for federal bankruptcy protection against lenders?
This is how the US political-economy works! It’s politics over real economics, wherein their political choices supersede your own decisions, wherein your earnings aren’t really YOURS, and if you try to make such a valid claim, the collectivists of this nation and many others will deride YOU for being “selfish.”
Related: 'Energy Secretary' Granholm Admits To Deceiving Congress Re Stock Holdings | MRCTV
Of course, they call you such things because they use aggressive force, gaslighting, demonization, and false claims of “crisis” to collectivize everything. They place everything they possibly can under their control, thus shifting it into the Tragedy of the Commons – just like the unworkable South Teton Area Rapid Transit system.
It’s possible that some folks in the Jackson, Wyoming region might want electric vehicles, and they ought to be able to choose them. But when any form of political system makes choices “for everyone” it pits people against each other and prevents market experimentation that can reveal and reward success and reveal and stop feeding failure. These market tests can offer others – both potential buyers and potential new entrants into a market – valuable information to guide them towards what people want and away from failure.
Government doesn’t do that. As it has done on a national level and even on the local level in Jackson, it forces people to pay for things they might not want. It does so through subsidies and grants, through favoritism and mandates, and through “government contracts” that free people never would have chosen.
The Proterra story continues to unfold, and with each new chapter, another lesson about freedom and free markets being superior to government and its aggressive collectivism can be learned.
Let’s try to teach new generations about this story and many like it.