Seriously, some of these memes don’t require text to know their meaning. Upvoted 👍

why do you feel trump is the worst president?

Trolling combined with stupidity is a dangerous combination.

you should probably see a specialist about it.

You're already bringing the special... So no therapist needed.

byrd vs ashli.

who would win?

trump was voted out of office, not biden :)

and trump beat biden :)

bds :)

Moving up Jimmie lol

Carter was definitely bad, there's no question about that. The worst is still FDR. He prolong the Depression and he locked thousands of innocent Japanese, German and Italian Americans for no reason.

Then there's Woodrow Wilson who wanted to throw out the Constitution. LBJ and Carter were equally awful. Bill Clinton was actually not that bad in comparison. He did hand over missile guidance technology to China.

I think Joe is in the running for worst president ever and will reach that point any minute now.

if reagan hadn't stopped carter's solar and EV research we would have had teslas ready to boycott saudi arabia after 911.

You seriously think that innovation comes from the government? If we had the capacity and the freedom to develop a better car or whatever then we would have done it in the free market. The free market is and always will be where innovation comes from. Not the government. The military and NASA has done a lot but it was the free market that picked up what they started and ran with it. The military and NASA didn't develop those technologies themselves. They had contractors to develop all of that. It was still the private sector and not the government.

The greatest advancements in the history of mankind are directly attributable to the free market and nothing else. Prosperity NEVER EVER comes from the government. Governments, all governments, stand in the way of prosperity.

When the government spends taxpayer money on private sector technology they create a vacuum in the economy. The government is picking and choosing winners and creating losers. That is not natural.

If you think there would have been a Tesla in the 80's if it wasn't for Reagan you are sorely mistaken. We didn't have ion lithium batteries back then at least at a price range the consumer could afford. Technology was just not there yet.

When the government and General Motors worked to create the EV-1 back in the 90's for whatever reason they reclaimed every single car that was sold. Those who bought them never got them back. That is why government inhibits prosperity because that move was in direct opposition to free market economics. In a free market the EV-1 would still be available if it was a viable product.

most high tech trickled down from the military, yes.

the free market is highly subsidized directly as well.

but if you wish to remove such assistance and let the market develop at it's own pace....

...we could go back to the EV1 which was cancelled ONLY because california pulled it's subsidies :)

That is complete crap. The military makes stuff to break things and kill people. So unless are computers and cellphones are designed to break things and kill people then the military did NOT contribute much to technology. It is and always has been the free market.

A "subsidized" market is NOT a free market. It is corporatism, we lived or lived for most of the last century as a corporatist economy until now where we are right on the verge of fascism (and the Republicans are not the ones driving that movement). Corporatism is not a healthy economic model.

The EV-1 was pulled by the federal government. California's subsidies (if there were any) had nothing to do with it. As liberal California is they would be the last ones to pull any subsidies from an electric car. Plus these cars were already made and out in circulation. If California pulled the subsidies that would have stopped production of future car, not pulled existing ones off the streets. No one knows why the feds pulled the EV-1.

you don't know what you're talking about.

it is a free market. it's just subsidized :)
conservatives were the ones who promoted corporatism.

https://www.google.com/search?q=tech+invented+by+the+military

feds didn't pull EV1. show evidence.
https://www.google.com/search?q=who+killed+the+electric+car

I know exactly what the free market is. I've studied free market economics for years. If you had the slightest clue about what it is then you wouldn't say things like that.

The United States was founded on free market principles even if a free market cannot truly exist with a government. A free market exists in the absence of government. Any government intervention of any kind into the market no longer makes it a free market. When our government has practiced a hands off policy on the economy we have always prospered.

Calvin Coolidge and Warren Harding before him gave us the roaring 20's because they backed off of tampering with the economy. As a result of that a stock market crash in 1919, that resembled the same conditions as the 1929 crash, gave us an economic downturn that lasted about 18 months and rebounded. All because of Harding and Coolidge's hands off approach.

Hoover and FDR both though they could "fix" the economy through social programs. As a result the turned a depression into the Great Depression and prolonged it over 10 years.

I saw the documentary "Who killed the electric car" several years ago. I don't remember much about it other than no one knows why they pulled the car off of the streets.

Yes, I know that the military did invent some technology but it was the private sector who took the basic idea and ran with it making it into something the military never dreamed of.

I'll say it again, innovation comes not from the government but in spite of the government. And I'll keep saying that until maybe, just maybe, it seeps into your cranium. Because it would be really cool to see that light bulb turn on over your head as all of the sudden the realization that what I am say is true happens.

If they tried to say it was because California cut subsidies (which I don't remember if they did or did not say anything about that) the fact remains the same. Subsides would have only affected production and not the cars on the street.

trump university "economics studies" obviously failed you.
or you're just stupid. or both.

if 18 months of nothing saved the 1919 recession, the 1929 depression had 36 month of do nothing before hoover was thrown out of office.

once california canceled their 2000 EV mandate, ALL the evs from all automakers being prepared for the mandate were killed. GM leased EV1s thats why nobody could keep them.

the exception was toyota that kept the 1997 Rav 4 ev and 1997 Prius going. Owners converted priuses into plug in hybrids which birthed the 2010 Leaf and 2010 Volt.

tesla's sports car was fringe until the model S in 2012 made EVs sexy and trendy.

the rest is history thanks to bush era EV incentives that survived and were renewed.

Trump was NOT a free market guy. That is one of the many reasons why I didn't like him and didn't vote for him in 2016. Trump is more of a Keynesian and that is why he continued to run up the national debt just as much as Obama did.

Did you not read where I said that Hoover and FDR both screwed up the economy and created the Great Depression. The worst of it happened under Hoover. But neither one of them would have ever done anything different because they both tried to pass laws to fix the economy. Had the left it alone it would have righted itself.

Where you get this idea that the government needs to control the economy is just not based in fact, history or reality. It is at best Keynesian and at worst Marxist. Governments have long had very horrible track records. You can count the number of times mankind has lived with any kind of freedom on one hand. The rest of the time they allowed governments to rule their lives. Because far too many people want to be ruled. I am not one of them but you are.

GM made the EV-1. All other electric and hybrids came years later.

I think you are just accepting the narrative without thinking it through. Never at any time before or since has any car manufacturer called back every single car they leased. Why? Because it makes absolutely no economical sense whatsoever. It takes the government to do something so colossally stupid like that.

Just like leaving thousands of Americans stranded in a country that would just as soon kill them as look at them. And those Americans are still there.

you have an extreme view of regulated capitalism.

Members of Congress can legally receive up to $250 cash a day from lobbyists and not declare it for taxes! Let that sink in,,,

A propagandist's phony one,,,

No I don't. I understand fully well what fascism is. Before it becomes fascism it is corporatism but what it never is is capitalism. I prefer the phrase free market economics because capitalism is a word that Karl Marx used and he created a straw man out of so he could beat it up. Marx probably understood free market economics but Marx hated that because he wanted power and control over all of us insects.

Regulated?
You forgot favored, protected, supported, subsidized, oh, and deregulated whenever that was deemed suitable. Just like US corporations are today, at least when agreements can be made with heads of goverments and lobbyists,,,

2 party system depends on lobbyist cash to keep other parties out :)

sorry but you're totally wrong about the history of the EV1 and electric vehicles. i will waste no more of my time on the topic.

capitalism MUST be regulated. we can agree to disagree on that as well.

A heavily regulated capitalistic economy is no longer a capitalistic economy. It borders on fascism. To quote Keith Olbermann when referring to W, "You sir, are a fascist. You should get a t-shirt with the word fascist on it". Olbermann was a douche and he had absolutely no clue what fascism is.

Under fascism private ownership is retained (unlike all other variations of socialism) but private businesses are so overwhelmingly regulated by the government that it ends up being the government running all businesses.

we already tried free market capitalism with zero regulations and it led to the crash of 1929

unions were a compromise that prevented actual communism and did very well for america for a very long time. they need a reboot, not removal.

the US is the only industrialized nation in the world without government paid health care.

removing consumer protections and other regulations designed to protect the public from predatory industry isn't a good idea. streamlining and refining them is.

That is utter BS. The free market did not cause the Great Depression. The Federal Reserve, for whatever reason, cut the money supply in 1929. That caused a panic in the market. The economy took a severe hit from that and Hoover just screwed everything up trying to fix it. He lost re-election to that slime ball FDR. FDR ran on a platform of "change" (sound familiar?) but when he got into office he just keep doing exactly what Hoover had been doing. Then he added to it and gave us the New Deal which just sent everything to hell in a hand basket.

The economy never fully recovered until the day Roosevelt died.

Unions were started by communists. That's who Mother Jones was. They didn't do that much for America because at their height they only represented about 25% of the work force. They only represent 13% now. The unions had no effect at all on all of those non union businesses. Before the first union ever formed Henry Ford limited the work day to 8 hours and paid his employees enough money so that they could also be customers of the company.

The free market always benefits the workers and the consumers. If a businesses work force is not happy they leave. When they leave the business collapses. So to make workers happy businesses started offering services to entice workers to stay.

"the US is the only industrialized nation in the world without government paid health care."

And lets keep it that way. Let the rest of the world burden their citizens with poverty until health care collapses under its own weight.

"removing consumer protections and other regulations designed to protect the public from predatory industry isn't a good idea. streamlining and refining them is.

There you go again thinking that mankind is basically evil and must be controlled by a strong overbearing government.

What if I told you that very few people actually ever start a business with the intention of ripping off their customers? What if I told you that if a business looks out for their own best interest they are inadvertently benefiting mankind. Actually I don't have to tell you that one. Adam Smith said it in back around 1776.

Freedom and morality are the two essential ingredients in prosperity for all and I mean for every single person in the country. If you remove one or the other or both you have slavery.

Socialism despises freedom of the individual and despised the morality taught by a God, in preference to a morality forced on us by the state.

auto companies should have treated their workers better so they wouldn't have had to unionize.

poverty is often the result of medical bills even with private insurance and high deductibles and copays.

if the crash was caused by "the federal reserve stopping the money flow" then that means it needed better regulations to prevent that.

https://www.history.com/topics/great-depression/1929-stock-market-crash

I just told you that Henry Ford DID treat his employees better and that was before the unions. Did you miss that?

We don't have poverty in America. If you want to see poverty go to a 3rd world socialist nation. That's poverty.

In a free market healthcare would break people. People's standard of living would be higher and competition would drive medical costs down. Giving over to a government run healthcare is going to create poverty. We just cannot afford it.

We should get rid of the Federal Reserve altogether. It was an insidious idea forced on us by Woodrow Wilson. We were told that it was going to end the boom/bust cycle found in capitalism. It has only made the boom/bust cycles much more devastating during a bust cycle. And we really don't have much of a boom cycle anymore. The Fed was an idiotic socialist Democrat idea to begin with.

not really. if that were true, they wouldn't have unionized.

medical debt bankruptcy in america is the highest in the world.

scandinavia is a nice balance of socialist capitalism :)

Businesses don't unionize. Unions do. Their thugs who move into a business and start telling management how to do their jobs. They're parasites.

The next to you go car shopping and wonder how you will ever be able to afford it, thank a union.

Socialism mixed with capitalism is like crap mixed with brownies. Sure, it still looks like a brownie bu would you ever eat it.

In addition, socialism is a power vacuum. It won't be long before it destroys capitalism and freedom.

if you don't like unions, go assemble cars in a non union factory.

or buy a tesla.

nobody's stopping you.

I know that. I don't completely hate unions. My dad was a union plumber. My brother was a union welder. I think in the construction trades they do good in that they are like an employment agency.

Where they are harmful is in business like the auto industry and where they are destructive are government unions. When government unions demand higher wages it is a negotiation between the government the union and who is left out? The taxpayers who are actually going to pay those higher wages. Even the leftist hero FDR noticed that and spoke out against it, which is odd considering his apparent disdain for everyone.

I buy used cars. Unions may have built those cars but the previous owner paid those union wages, not me. I bought a new car once and I will never do that again. Once you drive it off the lot the value drops considerably. A few years after buying it I would see ads for the same year and everything selling for less than I owed on that car.

I can't afford a Tesla either. I wouldn't mind owning a Tesla but after buying my first truck about 15 years ago, I can't go back to a regular car. There is just so much more you can do with a truck. I just bought my 2nd used truck about a month and a half ago. A 2014 Ram 1500 4x4 and so far I love it. I just wish Biden wasn't president because it costs a fortune to fill it up. If you guys weren't so fanatic in your hatred of Trump and if foreign entities weren't trying to collapse our economy, then Trump would have won in a landslide. There wouldn't have been any voter fraud and it wouldn't cost a fortune to fill up my tank.

Democrats are always bad for the economy. ALWAYS. I really do not understand how you can't see that. The cost of living always skyrockets when the Dems are in control of everything. It has been that way ever since Woodrow Wilson who forced the IRS and the Federal Reserve on us. And yes, I do not that gas prices went up under Bush but Bush wasn't much of a conservative. No free marketer would ever say, "Sometimes you have to abandon the free market to save the free market". Nor would they ever say that any business is "too big to fail". Failure is good for the business world.

Tha hell planet are you from?
Ever even seen an airplane? Radio? TV? MRI? VCR? CD? DVD? Cell phone? WiFi?

pffffft, you're old enough to remember the leap forward after WWII and your parents witnessed the South's transition from a Third World dust heap complete with horse drawn carts full of rotting produce on mud roads to something almost as modernized as the damn Yankees' North starting after WWI.

biden didn't raise the gas prices, opec did.

your gas guzzler, your choice.

used EVs start at $4k

it doesn't matter if the union car you got was used, you're still perpetuating socialism.

buy a non union car if you really believe in capitalism.

"buy a non union car if you really believe in capitalism."

You enjoy telling me that because it is impossible to buy a car not built by union workers. But the time will come, and come very soon, where union workers will all be replaced by machines and AI. In fact most jobs, union or otherwise, will be replaced by machines and AI.

there's MANY non union cars in america silly.

Yes, but I'm not fond of Korean made cars. Japanese cars sold in the US are built in the US by union workers. Toyota trucks are way over priced anyway.

then buy an american non union car.

tesla :)

you clearly know nothing about economics OR cars OR energy

https://www.google.com/search?q=which+american+made+cars+are+non+union

https://www.nabetcwa.org/buy-union-made-cars

Some models of Mazda, Mitsubishi, Toyota and Volkswagen are union made.

Besides, like I said, I don't hate unions. I just think they distort the economy by forcing wages that are too high on businesses. We have to pay those high wages in the costs of the products they sell. When the non-union shops see that the market will bare those high prices they raise the price of their products. Toyota has built up such a good reputation that their cars and specifically their trucks are priced higher than American trucks.

Basically unions are parasites. I am just glad that my profession was never unionized. I don't need another unnecessary expense in my life.

your "libertarian" ideas would end up as corporate feudalism.

"SSTTUUTTAA

he can't :) "unions make them cost too much!" LOL"

hahaha, he says unions are Commie so that's why he buys from China!

How's that for irony?

That's the Marxist lie. We're currently living under corporate feudalism where the government picks the winners and losers.

Without the government businesses would be forced to appease their customers or they'll go out of business. There would be now government to bail them out.

Buy. American. cars. you. Commie.

he can't :) "unions make them cost too much!" LOL

living in the first world has it's costs.

Yes, but who said that they have to be so high? We don't become a 2nd or 3rd world nation if the government eliminates all social programs and repeals all anti-free market laws. In quite the opposite because that will infuse all of that cash the government has been stealing from us back into the economy and stimulate innovation in a way like we've never seen before.

If you want to see green energy become plentiful and affordable then let the free market work freely. There are people working on stuff in their garage that if they introduced it now they would be regulated out of existence. There is an actual race to see who comes up with the first green solution to energy right now and the oil industry is leading the way, not to shut it down but so they don't go the way of the buggy whip. Because if they shut it down someone else will come up with it.

The costs the government charges us right now is worse than exorbitant. In a nation that was created to keep politics as local as possible, why does the federal government take a much bigger chunk of our pay check than our city does? That's backwards. Why does the federal government need any of our money to begin with. Income tax is not very old in this nation. We existed much longer without it than with it. Even Republicans seem to accept the lie that we must be forced to pay the government so that we have roads and bridges, police and fire depts. Even though ALL of that is local government, not federal.

"biden didn't raise the gas prices, opec did."

Dude!!!! Haven't you been paying attention. Biden made us dependant on OPEC again. Has he not done that gas prices wouldn't be so high.

Are those used hybrids or used Electric vehicles? They don't have the range a gas vehicle does and recharging stations are virtually non-extant.

If, like you, your whole life revolves around a few square miles in a city then you'd be fine with an electric car. For the most part I'd be fine with and electric car just to go to work and back. I live fairly close to my job.

But I'm fixing on retiring soon and my wife and I want to travel. We want to see the parts of this country we haven't seen yet. We're thinking of getting a trailer to sleep in while we're on the road.

And electric car doesn't have the range and pulling a trailer would wear the battery out much faster.