Arnold Scolds Detroit Automakers For Being Wasteful. Next On His List: Kettles

This video clip of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger chiding Detroit automakers for being profligate and slow to change while patting himself on the back for providing incentives to keep electric car maker Tesla in the state is so laden with delightful hypocrisy that it's almost sublime.

Fora.tv: Arnold Schwarzenegger to Detroit: Get Off Your Butt

Let's get a few things straight about the Governator and his financial acumen: For that, I'll turn to the ever-irascible San Diego libertarian blogger WC Varones:

From the I-Told-You-So Department

California faces financial meltdown as debt grows by $1.7m an hour

The California budget situation is completely out of control. Raise taxes and you'll drive the last few productive people out of state. Slash spending and you'll add thousands of layoffs to an already bleak economy.
...
At the time Mr Schwarzenegger promised an end to California’s tax-and-spend policies and runaway expenses, yet over the past four years of his administration the state’s budget has grown by 40 per cent to $144.5 billion.

Honestly, Arnold is in no position to criticize anyone, whether government agency or corporate entity for screwing up.

If he'd been beating the electric car drum ten or even five years ago, he might have actually succeeded in looking like he had a "vision."

Instead, the timing and content of his lecture to the Detroit Three smacks of scoring cheap political points at their expense at a time when his ship of state is taking on water and heeling heavily to starboard.

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Tesla Motors Abandons Suit Against Fisker Automotive

But things remain tense, and the electric car biz is likely to only get more cut-throat. Gee, I thought electric sports cars were all about saving the planet, not tawdry details like profit and trade secrets.

CNet: Tesla Motors loses trade secrets case against Fisker

Electric car company Tesla Motors will not continue its trade secret suit against rival car maker Fisker Automotive, following an arbitrator's ruling in Fisker's favor.
Fisker Automotive said on Monday that an arbitrator found an interim award in favor of Fisker Automotive and the auto design company which had done work for Tesla last year.
Tesla's communications manager on Monday said that the company will not pursue the case because the arbitrator's ruling was binding.

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