Looks like the very definition of a company town. This for a company which has been dumping untreated wastewater into wetlands and occupying others' property in Texas with their construction materials. Not confident that giving them streamlined processes will benefit humanity.

Excellent sarcasm, smooth wombat; I laughed. I presume you know how these subsidies are different, so I'll write out for others' sake: Suppose people want diamond tennis bracelets from Tiffany's, but they have a hard time buying them because the bracelets cost so much. Now a rich person for some reason wants to help more people get bracelets from Tiffany's and offers to give everyone half the cost of the bracelet, making them easier to buy. This works to expand access, only until Tiffany's learns about the deal. Once Tiffany's knows this is the deal, they can double their price and still sell as many bracelets as they used to, but make a lot of extra money from fleecing the rich guy. If they raise it less than double, customers are still getting a slightly better deal than before rich guy showed up, so they're happy to buy, and again, Tiffany's is making a bunch of extra money.

Now swap Tiffany's/colleges, bracelets/degrees, rich guy/federal government, half the cost/some need-based FAFSA calculated amount, and you're pretty close to reality. Colleges keep their status character by continuing to be selective in their admissions, and if everyone shows up with a government-padded wallet, that's less financial aid the college needs to give to attract customers. They can put more money into posh facilities and paying football coaches far more than professors, because everyone gets federal financial aid which they immediately cosign over to the college. Because people don't truly care about sticker price for college any more than they do for surgery when they have good insurance: they care about what they pay out of pocket, and to a lesser extent, how much they can tell people they saved off the sticker price thanks to loans/grants/insurance.

There are at least two other big wrinkles in the government education subsidy story, and they're probably what drive anyone to care about them. First, we may collectively believe that an educated society is a valuable thing, and that getting more college graduates is a way to achieve that, and therefore we like these subsidies. Second, we may acknowledge that the money doesn't come from thin air but comes from government's power to tax us, and may have feelings about what else the government could do with the taxes it collects, what else we could spend our money on if not taxes, who should pay how much in taxes and why, or about the efficiency of central taxation and distribution versus individual and local decision-making. But those are worthy of their own threads.

If someone guaranteed their weather forecasts, we would blame them for being wrong. So watch what the sales and marketing teams say (and how they say and in what context...). If they say, "We built an interesting thing that can suggest new ideas for you to test," that's quite different from, "Our product never errs on a cancer diagnosis."

This is why some folks have returned to cash. Dave Ramsey and others give exactly this advice because it gives great visibility into whether or not you have money. It's not for everyone, but if it helps them get out and stay out of debt, I'm all for it.

I have the same bank fee situation as you, but noticed one thing: they will charge a fee if my balance dips below a certain point. So when I keep enough money in the account to avoid them charging me a fee, they're getting their monthly cut by lending out my money at interest and paying me nothing.

I agree with you that money needs standards. And nowadays those often come from government. But banking and money have existed without being government-run or government-supported, and this is long before crypto. A Slashdot comment isn't the place for a full proof, so I'll just leave a few breadcrumbs here. Banks across the US used to issue their own notes; communities have printed their own currencies, including in the Great Depression and numerous times since. Meanwhile some government currencies (Zimbabwe) are so badly managed that the populace essentially invents its own barter standard and ignores the worthless government paper.

These both could be reasonable assertions but I don't see the problem. There exists some crossover between people with skills and people with needs, and there are market-making mechanisms to help people with skills find people with needs, expanding the uses of this idea. Plus, some people in your first group will be less than totally selfish and therefore care about people in the other group, so they'll reach out to help the low-skilled needy people.

I love my EV but I won't recommend them for everyone, and I own multiple ICE vehicles because they do what my EV can't. I see a lot of benefit in one's second vehicle being electric, but it can't be my only vehicle at the moment.
Range – I agree they're great for daily use, but not for weekend trips. Tell the Girl Scout troop that you'll get into camp an hour later (or return to the community center an hour late) because you needed to stop to charge. No thanks.
Cost – in Northern California, where EVs are plentiful, electricity is $0.40/kWh. That’s roughly equal to $5/gallon for gas, depending on your mpg or km/l. No real savings there.
Charging at stores – not yet available in lots of places, even in the heart of Silicon Valley, and different spots are on different charging networks, with different connectors and charging speeds. Expect to pay more than the retail rate of electricity when you find a compatible charger. The stores I like to visit and spend my time in are not the ones with chargers. This may change.
Charger availability – vacations to those cute “tiny towns” mean zero charging infrastructure available during the logical time to recharge: at your cute little inn and while you sleep.
One thing you didn't touch on is support infrastructure. The same week our governor signed a bill calling for homes to be all-electric (no natural gas) going forward, the state issued an warning of possible electrical brown-outs if folks didn't conserve electricity during the upcoming heat wave. If we increase demand for electricity, we have to increase and stabilize its supply as well. Hopefully this is less of a problem in other areas.
In summary, I like EVs as daily drivers and as second vehicles, but fully understand why they don't work for everyone yet.

I don't find the scenario plausible. The person shows foresight and planning with fueling one vehicle but not the other? If they are nightly EV-chargers, they would not likely let their ICE tank drop below 50% on a regular basis. And the prepper who worries about evacuation scenarios has a few 5-gallon fuel cans on hand, so she has extended ICE range if she has to bug out.

Couldn't find 40%, but PBS reports range losses between 10% and 36%. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/e...

I have been in your shoes -- cycling everywhere and keeping wonderfully fit as a result. But I've never had a car that was as needy as yours. I think the newer ones are better that way. Meanwhile, I was tuning my bike every week or two to keep it running well: truing and inflating tires, cleaning the derailleur, adjusting the brakes...

During the early days of COVID, I noticed all the apartment-dwellers freaking out as they had literally nowhere to go. Meanwhile, the suburban homeowners that they demonized were enjoying front yards, back yards, maybe side yards and sheds and garages for meetings and exercise and breaks.

Whether this is a reasonable approach or not, there is a significant impact to existing property owners that you have to address if you're going to get any support here.

Some people who paid extra money for a home with curb space did it so their family / friends / D&D group could visit and reasonably expect to find parking. They are paying property taxes for and legally required to maintain that curb area. If someone else can build an 8-plex with no driveway next door to them, the nearby homeowners now have other cars parked outside their houses day and night. They are now subsidizing someone else's development decisions (to export all the parking from the 8-plex property to other homeowners' curbs); what is the right formula for compensating them for their loss?

If Congress grants you those deductions, they may look for a way to tax your additional disposable income from not having to buy gas or pants to go to work.

Books still in print, yes. And I remember those giant catalogs they'd pull out and plop on the counter. But out-of-print or used books were completely by chance, until Amazon created a central market for them.