JOE BIDEN JUST BLEW UP THE CASE FOR INDUSTRIAL POLICY.

You have to cut through the gibbering incoherence, but there it is!  "President Biden tells a story about his grandpop during Michigan visit."  Here's video.

The coot refers to the use of public money to provide a network of charging stations for electric cars, but then told a story about his forefathers jousting with an earlier generation of technophobes who didn't want somebody burying gasoline storage tanks out in the country.

Presumably, he's pushing the public money to address the following challenge.  "An electric car, therefore, is a two-sided platform good, the two sides being an installed base of car buyers and a large network of geographically dispersed multi-stall rapid-charging stations."  The "two-sided platform good" is a member of a class of economic phenomena trafficking under the rubric of "installed base" or perhaps "path dependence" and there are all sorts of lurid, and wrong, stories of people being stuck with inferior technologies like small coal wagons or Sholes typewriters or VHS tape (all of which you can find in some museum these days) because of some historical accident.  You know, like we're all driving these.

That's a Stanley Steamer, dear reader, and those Biden ancestors were not deterred by that installed base of watering troughs for horses and coaling stations for railroads, all of which provided an important side of the platform, namely the "large network of geographically dispersed" fueling and watering stations.  Grandpop, on the other hand, had enough entrepreneurial alertness to see the potential of those Otto cycle flivvers, and he, and other like-minded people, created the network of service stations that the president hailed as drivers of economic development.   So much for the argument that there couldn't be flivvers without service stations, and there were no service stations ...

We know what the Biden ancestors wrought.  Consider Kwik Trip, where in addition to that fill-up, people can get their coffee, lottery tickets, and Marlboros in a box, and there might be other service businesses nearby.  Gosh, no need for an industrial policy, and benefits from entrepreneurial activity trickling down to consumers and to other businesses to boot.

In addition, dear reader, consider that the industrial policy of government funded charging stations might be rent seeking.  On a road trip two years ago, look what I found.

That's a bank of Tesla charging stations near one of those shopping agglomerations that developed by the service station that Gramps built.  Tesla, however, are providing both sides of the platform.

The reason why consumers still choose Teslas over products like Audi’s eTron or attractive EVs from GM’s Buick, Cadillac, GMC, and Chevy brands is perhaps surprisingly simple. They can drive their Teslas for long distances in full confidence that they will find convenient locations at which to recharge their vehicle. While the incumbent automakers are still focused narrowly on perfecting their electric cars, Tesla has been thinking about the entire vehicle system, with the aim of solving consumers’ core driving needs.

Are the rent-seekers counting on Big Government to stump up the money for the other side of the platform?  "Unless you buy a Tesla, you have few options for reliable route planning, guaranteed access, and rapid public charging."  What would Gramps say?  Those weren't Ford service stations or Olds service stations, were they?