Delta_V

Fair enough. Not all monopolies are bad monopolies. There's a narrow set of circumstances where a monopoly can exist within a market without making that market something other than free.

Government owned utilities for example - natural monopolies that are allowed to exist in a highly regulated state.

Monopsony can also be good for the free market in sectors with inflexible demand, such as healthcare.

But those are exceptions, and not the general rule.

It always becomes monopoly.

One person telling everyone else what's going to happen isn't freedom.

Speaking to reporters early Wednesday, Tver Gov. Igor Rudenya said that all drones in the region were shot down and that there was a fire on the ground as a result of debris from a downed drone. As he spoke, loud explosions could be heard in the background.

Yeah, an unregulated market isn't free.

Prisoners may find it difficult to make the commute and show up on time for a factory shift.

But actually yes, their labor contribution is a significant component in the supply chain.

For example, if an undocumented worker labors to produce food, that frees up another person's labor for working in a factory.

Some of the things used in the automotive industry that are made by prisoners:
-wiring harnesses
-interior components like seat covers, upholstery, and floor mats
-lighting components like headlights and interior lights
-repair and refurbishment of government fleet vehicles; brakes, body work, painting, mechanical repairs, etc..., which also frees up the labor of skilled mechanics to work on returning broken EVs to the road

Other goods and services produced by prisoners that indirectly assist the production of EV's include:
-circuit boards, mostly for government use, but lower demand for civilian circuit board manufacturing capacity lowers the prices of EV components
-office furniture
-eye-wear, including prescription lenses and safety glasses that might be worn in the EV factories
-metalworking, including making toolboxes, lockers and shelves that may be found in EV factories
-government warehouse & distribution jobs free up civilian labor that can go into EV supply chain logistics

Yeah, tax incentives and consumer rebates won't encourage investment in American EV manufacturing capacity because they could disappear overnight and the extra capacity would then be wasted.

Free money to build new factories will do it though, and that's what Uncle Sam has been spending on - its less risky to tool up a factory for mass production of a low margin family sedan when somebody else is paying for the tools and you won't lose money if your new model sedan doesn't sell enough units to cover the one time factory startup costs.

I don't think the Bolt was a practical vehicle? You can't take road trips with it, even across the charger-dense East Coast USA - it won't get you from Miami to Orlando, or from New York to DC.

Driving it from 80% to 20% charge gives a range of 155 miles, which is decent, but then a fast charging station would need 1.4 hours to charge it back up from 20% to 80%.

I also don’t believe for a second US car manufacturers are not milking customers with features they don’t really need

Japanese car makers do the same in the US market.

same problem with unregulated higher education prices + loans

The Chinese supply chain benefits from government money increasing demand by lowering prices of finished goods, without having to lower prices of supply chain inputs.

Tariffs negate the increase in demand by increasing the price of finished goods. If the prices are brought in line with what the goods would have cost without the subsidies, then the Chinese government has spent that money for no gain, and the US government collects that much money by taxing its citizens instead of letting them have cheaper cars. If the tariffs are even higher than the subsidies, the Chinese government's loss is greater, but the US government's gain is smaller - lower demand leads to less revenue for the Chinese supply chain and fewer taxes collected by the US government.

If you buy a Chinese car that has American tariffs placed on it, the only loser is you. China and USA both benefit.

That exists in USA's supply chain too.

Prisoners are the most glaring omission from the Constitution's abolition of slavery.

Undocumented immigrants are exploited even harder than other working class people living in America, and that's the real reason that neither party will do more than give lip-service to securing the border, or even talk about going after employers who hire undocumented workers.

Eat the dragons.