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The Stench of Green Subsidies


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#11 stocks

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Posted 10 February 2016 - 12:55 PM

One Man, Elon Musk, Has Received 5 Billion in Govt Subsidies

Tesla Motors Inc., SolarCity Corp. and Space Exploration Technologies Corp., known as SpaceX, together have benefited from an estimated $4.9 billion in government support, according to data compiled by The Times.

Tesla and SolarCity continue to report net losses after a decade in business, but the stocks of both companies have soared on their potential; Musk's stake in the firms alone is worth about $10 billion. (SpaceX, a private company, does not publicly report financial performance.)

New York state is spending $750 million to build a solar panel factory in Buffalo for SolarCity. The San Mateo, Calif.-based company will lease the plant for $1 a year. It will not pay property taxes for a decade, which would otherwise total an estimated $260 million.

The federal government also provides grants or tax credits to cover 30% of the cost of solar installations. SolarCity reported receiving $497.5 million in direct grants from the Treasury Department.
 

 

Musk's holdings in solar panel installer SolarCity (SCTY) and electric car makerTesla (TSLA) are down a staggering $3.3 billion - just this year. Musk is the largest single owner of both companies - which together have handed all investors total market value losses of $14.8 billion this year.

 

Both Musk's companies have been falling out of favor with investors this year as the market punishes companies that are thin on profit but high on valuation. Falling oil prices have also taken out the urgency and enthusiasm over alternative energy plays.

 

ELON MUSK'S ROUGH YEAR

 

Company, symbol, % ch. YTD, Musk's paper loss

 

SolarCity, SCTY, -61%, $666,257,752

 

Tesla, TSLA, -37.4%, $2,596,965,278

 

http://www.usatoday....hammy/80086284/


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Defenders of the status quo are always stronger than reformers seeking change, 
UNTIL the status quo self-destructs from its own corruption, and the reformers are free to build on its ashes.
 

#12 stocks

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Posted 08 April 2016 - 09:40 AM

Tesla 3, Elon Musk’s latest four-wheeled exercise in rent-seeking.

 

A $35,000 (to start) car that cannot serve as your primary car, that requires you to have a practical car for road trips, cold days and so on… is a toy.

 

I am opposed to subsidies for products that cannot stand on their own two feet.

 

Musk himself is particularly annoying because he’s a billionaire who could have self-financed his company.

The fact that he looks to government for “help” tells you all you really need to know about what he himself thinks about the economic viability of his cars.

 

 

http://ericpetersaut...t-talkers-like/

 

 

 


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Defenders of the status quo are always stronger than reformers seeking change, 
UNTIL the status quo self-destructs from its own corruption, and the reformers are free to build on its ashes.
 

#13 stocks

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Posted 25 June 2016 - 05:34 AM

Tesla bails out SolarCity,

 

But who will bail out Tesla?

 

SolarCity is bleeding cash, and the suspicion is that Mr. Musk is engineering what amounts to a bailout by Tesla. The problem is that Tesla is also spending its available cash to develop its Model 3, which is billed as an electric car even the masses can afford. Tesla has an unusually high debt-to-equity ratio, and it isn’t obvious how adding another cash-needy company will increase value. Caveat shareholder.

 

So far Tesla looks more like a classic of the reverse income redistribution of green crony capitalism, in which middle-class taxpayers subsidize billionaires who make products to satisfy the anti-fossil-fuel indulgences of the upper classes. That Mr. Musk is reshuffling his Tesla balance sheet to subsidize his own solar venture is a sign that this may not be a sustainable business model.

 

 

http://www.wsj.com/a...tion-1466638430

 

 

 

 

 


-- -
Defenders of the status quo are always stronger than reformers seeking change, 
UNTIL the status quo self-destructs from its own corruption, and the reformers are free to build on its ashes.
 

#14 stocks

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Posted 05 September 2016 - 10:39 AM

S&P rates Tesla B-. The next step down is CCC.

 

On August 1, S&P warned that it might downgrade it further, following its $2.6 billion acquisition of another money-losing, cash-burning Elon Musk company, over-indebted SolarCity. S&P slapped a CreditWatch “negative” on Tesla, based on “significant risks related to the sustainability of the company’s capital structure following the proposed transaction.”

 

With its lofty stock price – though it’s down 27% from its 52-week high – and its insane market capitalization, Tesla has the ability to raise money in the equity markets without breaking a sweat, as it has repeatedly done, including the $2 billion follow-on offering announced in May.

 

For now, investors are more than willing to pay an arm and a leg for a company that, after 10 years of existence, has not yet figured out how to stop losing money, and that sells so few cars that its sales are not even a rounding error in the 74.4 million new vehicles to be sold globally this year.

 

 

 

 

http://wolfstreet.co...edit-nightmare/

 


-- -
Defenders of the status quo are always stronger than reformers seeking change, 
UNTIL the status quo self-destructs from its own corruption, and the reformers are free to build on its ashes.
 

#15 Rogerdodger

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Posted 28 September 2016 - 02:21 PM

Who loses with these treasury handouts? The children.

 

The state level is bad. Federal waste is even more worser.

Remember Solyndra?

The California-based solar company that went bankrupt after receiving $535 million in federal loan guarantees from the Obama administration.

One of many.

So far 112 subsidized solar frauds have closed and at least 36 "Green" fraud energy producers.

 

All at a staggering cost to whom?...our children.

 

But big donors to politicians must be paid back somehow.

 

wind_waste.jpg


Edited by Rogerdodger, 28 September 2016 - 02:22 PM.


#16 stocks

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Posted 27 February 2017 - 12:02 PM

Tesla Motors, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) announced that Chief Financial Officer Jason Wheeler was resigning two days after the filing of the company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K with the Securities & Exchange Commission for the year and quarter ending December 31, 2016.

 

According to a subsequent report in Seeking Alpha, the electric car maker will either be financially insolvent in four months, or have to sell huge amounts of stock to stay afloat.

 

The obvious answer to Tesla’s cash shortfall would be to file with the SEC to sell more stock. But Probes Reporter, which follows SEC investigations, suggests that Tesla’s SolarCity unit is already being investigated. If there is an SEC investigation, it would create a huge impediment to any near-term Tesla stock offering.

 

http://www.breitbart...-cash-4-months/


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Defenders of the status quo are always stronger than reformers seeking change, 
UNTIL the status quo self-destructs from its own corruption, and the reformers are free to build on its ashes.
 

#17 Rogerdodger

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Posted 27 April 2017 - 11:06 PM

Oklahoma is #3 in wind energy production in the US.

But Oklahoma is now in dire financial straits as $120,000,000 annually is being sucked out of the state's budget by wind subsidies and could cost up to $5.2 billion by the time the last bill is paid..

The Governor who originally supported Wind Energy and the Zero Emissions Tax Credit, now says it was a horrible mistake, essentially a blank check funded by taxpayers that goes to multibillion-dollar corporations based outside of Oklahoma and mostly located in foreign countries. It’s the worst kind of corporate handout..

 

Frank Keating: I signed wind industry tax breaks, and I was wrong

Credit:  By Frank Keating | Tulsa World | February 24, 2017 | www.tulsaworld.com ~~

In 2001, when I served as governor of Oklahoma, I signed legislation creating the Zero Emissions Tax Credit for industrial wind energy. The tax credit was designed to give a jump-start to a wind industry in its infancy in Oklahoma at the time. It was sold to us as a low-cost way to broaden our already robust energy and economic development program. It was supposed to create jobs and develop a more prosperous future for Oklahoma.

Signing this legislation was simply a mistake. What was promised to cost the state less than $2 million annually when I was in office has soared to $113 million for the 2014 tax year and is expected to cost billions in the future. Wind farms average 10 percent to 13 permanent jobs, which hardly lives up to the promised employment growth.

Because the tax credits weren’t limited or capped, the Zero Emissions Tax Credit has warped into a scam costing taxpayers millions to the detriment of other publicly funded services. In 2014, the credits became directly refundable, meaning the state writes wind companies checks for 85 percent of the value of each credit. That’s essentially a blank check funded by taxpayers that goes to multibillion-dollar corporations based outside of Oklahoma and mostly located in foreign countries. It’s the worst kind of corporate handout.

I’m shocked and dismayed that taxpayer money has been spent so recklessly and at the cost of funding Oklahoma’s education system, which we know continues to be at risk. Because of power purchase agreements with other states, people outside of Oklahoma enjoy the majority of this discounted power, thanks to the subsidies we fund. Yes, this really happens!

If you’re not upset yet, just wait because it gets worse. The wind industry will tell you there are already controls in place because the current law sunsets these credits in 2021. However, Oklahoma pays these billion-dollar wind companies for the electricity produced by each turbine for 10 years. Turbines put in operation this year will receive tax credits until 2027. Under current law, payments will continue until Jan. 1, 2031, for turbines placed in operation before Jan. 1, 2021.

The wind industry is also not telling you about plans to accelerate the pace of construction so it can benefit from these subsidies on more than four times as many turbines as the number that generated the $113 million claimed in 2014. This considerable growth could cost us up to $5.2 billion by the time the last bill is paid.

The costs will continue to rise, opportunity for education will be lost and taxpayers will be on the hook for billions if we don’t act now. Decisions made now will affect, and perhaps destroy, our state government financially over the next 14 years.

As your former governor and a proud citizen of Oklahoma, I encourage us all to work together to end this subsidy no later than July 1, 2017, before the planned growth compromises our future. Together, we can and we must protect Oklahoma.

Frank Keating was governor of Oklahoma 1995-2003.


Edited by Rogerdodger, 27 April 2017 - 11:13 PM.


#18 stocks

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Posted 02 December 2017 - 12:08 PM

Tesla – which lost $619 million in Q3 – delivered only 3,590 vehicles in November in the US. Tesla has a  market share of 0.26%.

 

Porsche outsold Tesla by 55%. 

 

Tesla market capitalization is about $52 billion, greater than Ford ($50 billion) and not far behind GM ($61 billion). 

 

 

 https://wolfstreet.com/2017/12/01/carmageddon-for-tesla/  

 

 

Tesla will probably be downgraded by one or both of the main credit rating agencies in the near future.

 

A downgrade will take its unsecured debt into the "C" rating range. 

 

 https://seekingalpha...redit-downgrade

  

 

 

 

 

 


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Defenders of the status quo are always stronger than reformers seeking change, 
UNTIL the status quo self-destructs from its own corruption, and the reformers are free to build on its ashes.
 

#19 stocks

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Posted 18 August 2018 - 06:21 PM

Gabe Hoffman @GabeHoff
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Gabe Hoffman Retweeted Ross Gerber

This week means $TSLA still has another 305 points to fall. Tesla is headed for BK. Learn to read a balance sheet.

 


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Defenders of the status quo are always stronger than reformers seeking change, 
UNTIL the status quo self-destructs from its own corruption, and the reformers are free to build on its ashes.
 

#20 stocks

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Posted 30 April 2019 - 04:39 AM

Tesla Discloses Record Pollution Credits for Q1: Without Them, it Would Have Lost $918 Million and Bled $1.14 Billion in Cash  

 

This is the reason Tesla doesn’t disclose these credits fully during its earnings release when the media might jump on it (possibly) but delays the disclosure until it files its quarterly 10-Q with the SEC usually the following week.   https://wolfstreet.c...illion-in-cash/   

 

Tesla calls these taxpayer-funded pollution credits – part of the package of rich corporate welfare programs that Corporate America benefits from in numerous ways – “regulatory credits.”


Edited by stocks, 30 April 2019 - 04:43 AM.

-- -
Defenders of the status quo are always stronger than reformers seeking change, 
UNTIL the status quo self-destructs from its own corruption, and the reformers are free to build on its ashes.