Category: Subsidy Fraud Boy

Polling for Dollars

entitlement generation nannystate Subsidy Fraud Boy 33 Comments

It shouldn’t surprise anyone who financed this opinion poll. The questions are absolutely geared to reinforce the prevailing narrative. It’s not much different from “elections” in the Soviet Union in which the communist party candidate would get 98% of the votes.

92% of Canadians agree they feel confident in the food safety and animal welfare standards used in dairy, chicken, turkey and egg farming in Canada because of supply management. 94% of Canadians also prefer their dairy, eggs, chicken, and turkey products to be produced locally and in Canada under supply management.

The ethics of emergencies

Alternative Subsidy Cronies It's Probably Nothing nannystate Subsidy Fraud Boy 10 Comments

The misappropriation of millions of dollars is a feature, not a bug, of systems guided by short-term, “emergency” thinking. Or rather, a complete lack of thinking.

Rai led a “fraudulent scheme” targeting the hotel and PHAC officials, according to the statement of claim, telling the other owners the government was taking over the entire hotel but only paying for 100 rooms — when he had actually negotiated government payment for all 247 rooms.

It’s alleged he misappropriated the revenue difference of those 147 rooms: at least $15.7 million.

Trucking blues

entitlement generation Great Moments In Socialism Subsidy Fraud Boy 9 Comments

Buried in the stories about the collapse of Yellow Trucking is an even bigger, but unfortunately commonplace story, about how taxpayers poured billions into an organization and received a 100% loss for their efforts.

If you are a taxpayer, you know all this, your government being a 29.6 percent shareholder of Yellow and all. The Trump administration’s Coronavirus, Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act dished out $500 billion to businesses, states and municipalities as a result of the coronavirus. Yellow Corporation received $700 million of the $735.9 million set aside for national security loans.

Once the loan was funded, Yellow executive officers and directors received stock options and Yellow stock went up ten times in price from the bailout to the end of 2021.

We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars

Alternative Subsidy climategate Great Reset Subsidy Fraud Boy 30 Comments

It’s not about the emissions, it was never about emissions.

The rush to subsidize and mandate EVs is animated by a fatal conceit: the assumption that they will radically reduce CO2 emissions. That assumption is embedded orthodoxy not just among green pundits and administrators of the regulatory state but also among EV critics, who take issue with a forced transition mainly on grounds of lost freedoms, costs, and market distortions.

But the truth is, because of the nature of uncertainties in global industrial ecosystems, no one really knows how much widespread adoption of EVs could reduce emissions, or whether they might even increase them. (And no, this has nothing to do with the truth / joke that Teslas are coal-fired when fueled at night in many places.) While grid realities will indeed matter more than most realize, the relevant and surprising emissions wildcard comes from the gargantuan, energy-hungry processes needed to make EV batteries. This is one of those technical issues that tends to attract slogans, simplifications, and illusions of accuracy; a better understanding requires some patience.

That’s why “whose the biggest emitter” is a losing argument. The electrification of everything is fueled by rent seeking, political donations and naked cronyism. Emissions are just the cover story.

Borrowing Binge

Alternative Subsidy Great Healing Forward Subsidy Fraud Boy 8 Comments

If anyone is wondering why GDP was climbing during the pandemic when businesses were shutting down and entire sectors such as the travel industry ground to a halt, here’s your answer. There was a lot of vote buying to be done, and now we can’t even determine whose vote was bought.

Hogan’s team found that $4.6 billion of overpayments were made to ineligible recipients of benefits for individuals. Another $27.4 billion of payments to individuals and employers should be investigated further, the report said, calling it “the minimum amount that should be investigated.”

The post-payment verification process has just started — CRA said it has recouped $2.3 billion — even though the legislation means the agency has just three years after payment was made to verify eligibility…

But the auditor is skeptical about the chances of recovering the bulk of the money owed.

Defining Insanity

Basic Dictatorship Subsidy Fraud Boy 17 Comments

What’s notable about this news item is the way in which the story is presented as if this is a new phenomenon, or that a more sensible outcome might have been expected. It’s not just a matter of articulating the correct “goals”. Without price signals and the ability of investors to assess financial risk, “infrastructure” programs funded by the state will inevitably degrade into a fog of financial chaos. You’re just doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different result.

“The Liberal government’s $188-billion infrastructure spending plans continue to lag behind schedule, with government departments failing to provide adequate public reporting on the sprawling program, a new report says.

Auditor General Karen Hogan on Thursday released one of the most thorough reports to date on the progress of the Investing in Canada Plan, which found that “funds were not being spent as quickly as planned,” and that “objectives might not be met” after the full 12-year life of the program.”

Ironically, the one upside for taxpayers is precisely that the funds are not being spent as quickly as planned, and we may be better off if we actually don’t meet any of the objectives.

I, For One, Welcome Our New Self-Driving Overlords

Alternative Subsidy Self Driving Roadkill Subsidy Fraud Boy 40 Comments

It’s a Tesla two-fer;

Police are investigating the fatal conflagration of a Tesla Model X that killed its owner and injured two others in an underground parking garage in Seoul.
 
The Model X crashed into the wall of the parking garage of an apartment complex in Yongsan District, central Seoul, then caught fire, on Wednesday. This led to the burning death of the car’s owner, who was in the passenger seat.
 
The driver, who escaped with injuries, claimed “the car suddenly got out of control,” raising the possibility of a sudden unintended acceleration as the cause of the accident, according to police.
 
It is unusual for a car slowly winding its way through a parking garage to suddenly smash into a wall and result in the death of a passenger. The police will ask the National Forensic Service to try to determine the cause of the accident.

h/t Raymond

We Don’t Need No Flaming Sparky Cars

Alternative Subsidy Subsidy Fraud Boy 47 Comments

Auto Blog;

The latest auto survey from Consumer Reports shows several newer electric cars to be beset with problems, contradicting the conventional wisdom that EVs with their simpler powertrains should have fewer issues than gasoline- or diesel-powered cars. The CR reader survey harvested data on some 329,000 vehicles and specifically calls out the Audi E-Tron, the Kia Niro EV, and the Tesla Model Y.
 
The E-Tron is dinged for “drive-system electrical failures along with other power-equipment issues.” The Niro EV’s problems reportedly included electric-motor bearing failure. The Tesla suffers a panoply of build-quality issues include misaligned body panels and poor paint quality. Both Audi and Kia claimed to be aware of the issues. For now, though, CR has removed the E-Tron and the Niro EV from its Recommended list (which is based on vehicle test results as well as reliability). The Model Y was not on the Recommended list.

I, For One, Welcome Our New Self-Driving Overlords

Self Driving Roadkill Subsidy Fraud Boy 16 Comments

Humans are simply not good at passing off 80-plus percent of a task and then staying alert to monitor what’s going on, which is what Autopilot demands. Since Level 2 systems offer no failover capability and need a human to be ready to take over at any moment, if you’re not paying constant attention, the wreck we see here is precisely the kind of worst-case nightmare that can happen.
 
It’s not just me saying this; experts have long known about how shitty people are at “vigilance tasks” like these for decades. Imagine having a chauffeur that had been driving you for hours, and then sees something on the road he doesn’t feel like dealing with, so, he jumps into the back seat and tells you it’s your job to handle it now.
 
You’d fire that chauffeur. And yet that’s exactly what Autopilot is doing here.

Subsidy Fraud KABOOM

Subsidy Fraud Boy 16 Comments

Full thread here.

And another: The thing that absolutely blows my mind: Any engineer in college should be able to figure this out. And any rigorous industry would do root-cause analysis and determine a reason for all these continued failures is low quality (both in worksmanship and material selection).

Related: He promised life-saving ventilators. He delivered sleep apnea machines.

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