They Should Call It The Dolt

In the industry, some suspect that G.M. and the Obama administration decided against selling the Volt at a loss because they want the company to appear profitable before its long-awaited initial stock offering, which is likely to take place next month. For taxpayers, that approach might have made sense if the government planned on selling its entire 61% stake in G.M. But the administration has said it will sell only enough equity in the public offering to relinquish its controlling stake in G.M. Thus the government will remain exposed to the company’s (and the Volt’s) long-term fate…

Quantifying just how much taxpayer money will have been wasted on the hastily developed Volt is no easy feat. Start with the $50 billion bailout (without which none of this would have been necessary), add $240 million in Energy Department grants doled out to G.M. last summer, $150 million in federal money to the Volt’s Korean battery supplier, up to $1.5 billion in tax breaks for purchasers and other consumer incentives, and some significant portion of the $14 billion loan G.M. got in 2008 for “retooling” its plants, and you’ve got some idea of how much taxpayer cash is built into every Volt.

In the end, making the bailout work — whatever the cost — is the only good reason for buying a Volt. The car is not just an environmental hair shirt (a charge leveled at the Prius early in its existence), it is an act of political self-denial as well.

Tell me what part of this entirely predictable debacle should surprise me.  Since Obama Motors is a state-owned company, they now produce cars not that consumers want, but that Red Barry wants them to manufacture - which is another way of saying "cars he wants us to buy".  Because the government was running the project, it produced an end product incompetently made and laughably costly.  And they won't sell it at a loss to try and encourage consumers to give it a try (what's a few additional billion in subsidies after all the cash they've poured down this sinkhole already?) because they want OM to "look successful" for an IPO that isn't going to get the former auto giant off the government books anyway.

Never mind why would anybody buy a Dolt - why would any investor that wasn't a union purchase a single share of stock in a car company that will still be run by the White House regardless of whether they technically control over half ownership?

That's what makes this vid so emblematic of the Dolt and Obama Motors:

The Dolt-In-Chief drove it ten feet because they were probably afraid any further would exhaust the battery, and besides, the three hundred mile bungee extention cords from Singapore haven't arrived yet.  All the more reason not to buy it...twice.