Yep. Elon Musk’s Boring Company selected to compete for O’Hare express projectBoth of these are very valid points. I think not many people realize (or are purposefully led astray from that conclusion by MSM) that the Middle East revolutions were all driven by poverty and not some sudden drive for freedom and human rights. The fact that the toppled regimes were all replaced by even worse ones should be a good enough evidence that something more basic/fundamental was at play. The US government was quick to claim credit for those revolutions but the people who lived there that I talked to all said the situation is dire and driven by hunger.
The point on Musk's ventures is also a very valid one. It seems that his ventures dwarf even the infamous Solyndra in terms of sucking taxpayer money like a black hole.
Can we wean Elon Musk off government support already?
"...Musk is, to be sure, an ideas man. Private, commercial space travel? Check. Washington to New York in less than half an hour in what he calls a “hyperloop” train that will travel at 800 miles per hour? Check. A new kind of tunneling engineering? Check. Solar energy? Check. Electric cars? Check, check. As wide-ranging as these various entrepreneurial ventures may be, they all have one thing in common – not a single one of them would get funding in a competitive private capital market if it weren’t for massive (and I do mean massive) taxpayer-funded government subsidies. A study published two years ago by The Los Angeles Times revealed that just three of Musk’s ventures – SolarCity Corp. (which manufactured and installed solar energy systems before its 2016 merger with Tesla Motors Inc.), Tesla Motors Inc. (which manufactures electric vehicles), and Space Exploration Technologies Corp., known as SpaceX (which builds rocket ships) – had received $4.9 billion in government subsidies to that point in time. By now, Musk’s various ventures have sucked well over $5 billion from government coffers. But granting literally billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies to Musk’s firms isn’t the worst of it. No, that honorific is reserved for this little gem: In order to induce car buyers to spend their money on electric vehicles, the federal government offers a $7,500 rebate on the purchase price. Some states enhance that rebate with rebates of their own. In California, for instance, purchasers of electric vehicles get a state-funded rebate of $2,500 more. There’s a phrase for that – it’s called “crony capitalism.” And it stinks."
Speaking of government-funded scams and energy - you mentioned that the time to install solar panels in space on a mass scale was 10 years ago. What makes you think that this government-funded project would not have gone down just like the infamous Solyndra?
Solyndra - Wikipedia
What advantage does the placement in space of these reactors would provide? Beaming that energy back to Earth is probably still not feasible on a mass enough scale to support a nation.
Couple of things that may change the assessment a bit. First, there is always the option of going back to nuclear energy if the situation becomes dire enough. I doubt the concerns about environment or radiation poisoning will bother anybody if hunger starts looming closer.
Second, the US government can (and has repeatedly done so in the past) wage wars abroad to continue the energy flow to US for a long time to come. You already alluded to that in your previous posts, but the wars since 2000 in Iraq, Syria, and the meddling in Venezuela shows that it can be done selectively on oil-rich countries with little political repercussion even if it is blatantly obvious that it is being done for energy source control reasons. Aside from (maybe) Russia, pretty much any other energy source rich country on this planet (including Canada) can easily be declared an "enemy" and appropriated. So, it seems the US government has quite a bit of (military) leverage to keep the standard of living here higher than in most other nations.
Finally, you said that the current immigration policy is insane. Then why is it being pushed? Nobody is that crazy at the national level. So, the other option is it is being promoted on purpose, but to whose benefit?