1. Requiring all new buildings to pay for solar that costs 60 cents/kw is an indirect tax.
2. Agreed on SpaceX, but its because engineers are put in control rather than MBA.
3. Tesla is for the Lower Upper Class. That won't change. Future promises are marketing (lies, lies, and more lies).

The poor pay a lot to society - sales tax, lack of education and safety investment, etc.
The middle class is an endangered species.
The upper class is where more and more business focus is. The other is government.

None of the technology is progressing due to Musk's companies. He's implementing current technologies better than others.

Quite frankly, government subsidies for these are a waste until the fundamentals line up. We're still a decade or two away from that. Battery technology progresses at a compounded 5% rate. That hasn't changed much in the last century.

Government money typically only shows positive ROI in long term fundamental research. Metallurgy, chemical, CS, etc.

You hit the nail on the head - compensation isn't worth the work. There are more STEM graduates than jobs, but 3/4 leave the field due to substandard working conditions and pay. There is no recruitment problem, there is a retention problem.

More likely they have more money because they work in the only expanding job area - Sales.

The media in the USA is the most dishonest I've seen. Their entire goal is to generate misinfotainment that is interesting enough to generate more ad revenue.

Chrome is multi-threaded. Firefox is not. Firefox runs better on old systems, Chrome runs better on new ones.

The minute Firefox switched to Yahoo/Micro$haft, it lost me. There's now no real independent browser.

Most people don't make decisions like that. They just see "cheaper" gasoline and buy a bigger car. That's happening right now.

Taxing gasoline more leads to less gasoline use. Taxing roads leads to less road use. But the 2 don't affect each other much. Not to mention the atrocious assault on our privacy for tracking where we drive for a road tax.

Because it's not a fact. Maybe in the big northeast cities, but not most of the country.

Semis create 80x the road wear compared to cars, not thousands.

The rich live close while the poor have to commute (NYC tried something similar). Not to mention this encourages less efficient cars. It's a very, very regressive tax.

It's very rarely enforced - there's no trick and it won't change. Both the corporate republicans and socialist democrat branches block needed reforms.

You didn't read your own linked story. The USA snoops on powers but doesn't hand that over to corporations. OTOH, the Chinese snoops #1 priority is to steal everything nailed down so that they can duplicate it for economic gain. Pretty much complete opposites.

LA already has an incredible amount of illegal labor. Minimum wage is the middle class there. Otherwise... bring in the robots!

Students need proficiency in basic communication (verbal, written) and math. Those seem to be extremely lacking.

Otherwise? Maybe spreadsheets.

I blame the Boomers. They gave us Debt, Pollution, and Narcissists.