Posted on 10/28/2021 1:43:16 PM PDT by JV3MRC
This is a true story. I wrote this in an email to Rush Limbaugh a few years back when he was talking about the way Americans stepped up when needed. He took many calls by many men and women who talked about friends and relatives who did great things for America, but never got recognition.
In over 30 years of being in business, my father-in-law’s small family operated business saved, not only American tax payers, but tax payers the World over, Billions and Billions of dollars. Yet, his story was never been told because he was just a normal Christian with a small business no one ever heard of. Yet he changed the traffic industry the World over.
In the mid 1980’s David started producing traffic controllers, which are computers that control the lights for the flow of traffic at intersections. When Dave started his business, states, counties, and cities across the country were spending an average of $1,700 per controller. David’s business forced the price to drop down to an average of about $900 per unit. I say average, because some cost over $2000 while others were usually about $1500.
Mind you, every intersection around the World that has traffic lights needs a controller. Consider how many controllers have been produced and sold in the 35 years, and the difference between $1700 to $900 per unit.
When David put his controllers up against the then standard archaic controllers of the day. His proved to be quieter, while using less electricity than the ones being purchased for $1500 plus per unit. His price was so low, that the California Department of Transportation sent officials to his business, because competitors claimed he was cheating by using inferior products and or illegal slave labor. What they found was a small business man with 5 employees, who was using top of the parts that were available to all businesses.This is important, because the rest of the country used California’s standard. In the beginning he only had 5 employees. In time the business had 10 employees, counting David and his wife Tina.
Plus, his controllers were computerized smart timers that allowed the lights to change with the flow of traffic. Thus the major road could stay green, until side traffic from minor approached where the detectors would then change to allow them to cross the intersection. This is especially important in the late hours at night, when cross traffic is much less frequent.
For 30 years his big competitors did all they could to put him out of business. Mind you, Dave never wanted to be big, but his presence forced the big corporations to drop their prices to compete. The stories I could tell about the way politics were involved in the traffic industry, which even involved the Clinton’s reelection in 1996. Then in 2016, Obamacare put him out of business, because their employee insurance premiums skyrocketed to almost one million Dollars a year. I myself lost my job at 60 yrs old. There is more, but my space is limited.
Nothing illegal or dishonest there. I don't like that the subsidies exist but they weren't created by him.
Put the blame for bad policy where it's due. In my neck of the woods, NYS is carpeting the landscape with windmills -- a profoundly stupid policy. But I can understand why farmers are taking the $1,000/month to have one put up on their land.
That's the gist of my first comment. I found it hypocritical that a guy that made big money from the green industry is complaining about government spending.
If it were up to a free market, you wouldn't be seeing as many EVs or windmills.
I characterize that as "dead-weight" a problem in many companies and, as you correctly point out, more so in gov and their contractors.
Now, the degree of that overhead vs actual subsidies? That I don't know but wouldn't be surprised if dead-weight costs us more over time.
Actually, at worst, it's resentment of the government picking winners and losers.
If you think the green industry would be as extensive as it is today without goverment pushing it with subsidy and regulation, you're a blind fool.
I prefer a free market, where the public decides whether or not they want something. Just like with the vax mandate, where the gov is impatient for folks to make the "correct" decision, they are just as "impatient" for everyone to get on board with saving the planet.
The greenies don't like cars, which is why they are happy to pile on regs to make them more and more expensive to buy so, hopefully, fewer and fewer people use them. The gov wants more folks to get EVs, though, so it subsidizes it such that more folks will buy them.
Obviously, there must be plenty of folks that think that way or it wouldn't be happening.
I'm not in that camp, maybe you are, but for Musk to whine about gov spending when he's big a beneficiary of that makes him a hypocrite.
That's what I'm "sayin".
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.