What is a subsidy?
Subsidy usually means gratuitous financial support. For example, if for whatever reason you live much below the living average paying utility services in full might be too expensive - you'll be out of money before you even think of buying food and basic clothes. Yet it's clear that once can't live in a city without utility services.  So the government might have a program for subsidizing utility services for people with very low income - a person brings in proof of low income and once it is low enough government will step in and pay that person utility services in full or in part depending on actual income he proves. The same can be organized for anything government or some organization wishes to support for whatever reason. The key idea is someone gives you free money for spending on some specific purpose. subsidy - financial support. For example subsidized housing - when the government pays a part of your rent (usually for low income families). or subsidized student loan - when somebody else is paying interest on the money you borrowed while you are in school. It means a government giving out money to encourage a particular product (or service) to be bought or sold. Some people will use the word more loosely to refer to any financial incentive, even if it's not coming from the government. Wikipedia has a list of examples that may be helpful: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidy A commonly-mentioned one is farm subsidies, where farmers are paid to produce certain crops. A subsidy is a payment made by a group (usually the state) to individuals or corporations in order to shift the balance if the rational economic decision for the individual would be detrimental to the group as a whole otherwise. For example, if there are different quality kinds of crops that can be planted, for example a GM maize that brings in high yields but can only be processed to High Fructose Corn Syrup or a naturally bred corn that brings lower yields but tastes well enough for direct consumption, then if demand for both exceeds supply, the economic choice for the individual farmer is to plant the former. If the claims that HFCS contribute to obesity are founded, then it is in the public interest to produce less of it, and more alternative foods. Given that a market rather than a planned economy is desired, this cannot be achieved by decree, but rather money is used as an incentive. In the long term, this investment may very well pay off through reduced health care costs, so it is a rational economic decision from the state's point of view. In a world where all actors make decisions that are fully in their self interest, in principle subsidies would not be needed as consumers would demand healthy rather than cheap foods, and market mechanisms would provide these.
I think you are aiming your crony capitalism shotgun in the wrong direction.  Oil industry subsidies dwarf those to the EV, and the bailouts to the US car manufacturers was the clearest example you could imagine of picking winners and losers.    Far worse, both the car manufacturers and oil industry represent the entrenched interests which are fighting the future changes in the industry as opposed to the other way around.  The money went directly to the companies involved, without a lick of good capitalist competition.  Now compare that to a personal EV tax credit.  1) you encourage the clearly visible future of cheap electrical power and driverless EVs, 2) you set up the subsidy as a personal tax break to the buyer, so any company is free to up their game and make better products to win part of it.  3) its a much smaller amount, and much more cost effective per tax dollar than giant checks to monster oil companies.  Once the government stops cramming enourmous amounts of money into oil and traditional car companies, then it might be time to relook at saving taxpayer money spent on EVs. When you live in the midwest it's really hard to see food production being such an issue. I drove for 6 hours seeing only fields full of corn on Sunday - we clearly have the means to mass produce agriculture - it just isn't all that profitable without govt. subsidies right now. Except the state isnt actually paying anything, they are just not charging. Its not the same thing. The state doesnt lose any money by giving breaks to the factory, it's not a subsidy, and in the long run it provides more tax revenue, and all those jobs immediately provide more tax revenue. It's a no brainer for the state. Actually, that does make sense. If the government has less influence over domestic economics, then big business will have no reason to infiltrate it.  Now if we can manage to do that and then re-purpose those subsidies to social reform, that could be nice. Here is a list of threads in other subreddits about the same content:   * [Is there a Rawlsian argument for redistribution as a form of social insurance?](https://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/71wxwh/is_there_a_rawlsian_argument_for_redistribution/) on /r/Economics with 4 karma (created at 2017-09-23 11:22:23 by /u/jenpalex)  ----   ^^I ^^am ^^a ^^bot  ^^[FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/DuplicatesBot/wiki/index)-[Code](https://github.com/PokestarFan/DuplicateBot)-[Bugs](https://www.reddit.com/r/DuplicatesBot/comments/6ypgmx/bugs_and_problems/)-[Suggestions](https://www.reddit.com/r/DuplicatesBot/comments/6ypg85/suggestion_for_duplicatesbot/)-[Block](https://www.reddit.com/r/DuplicatesBot/wiki/index#wiki_block_bot_from_tagging_on_your_posts)  ^^Now ^^you ^^can ^^remove ^^the ^^comment ^^by ^^replying ^^delete! "I didn't read the article because the Nobel Prize hasn't meant anything substantial in quite some time.  If ""winners"" of the prize advocate for UBI, then, what that really means is that the prize committee members like UBI (and other policies similar to it) and are selecting winners based on how these economists line up with the committees political beliefs." I think you're underestimating the cost of moving people. People are actually not that mobile  It's also not just a matter of finding new developers/engineers/team to work with. There's often a lot of knowledge that people will have, that is not easily replaceable (which is why retention is a very big issue in the software industry).    Whether subsidies/tax breaks is an effective way of incentivizing a high tech economy; I don't if it's true (although I'm not an economist). There's a really interesting interview Jon Stewart had with Edward Conard (from Bain Capital) about these sorts of incentives: [here](http://www.thedailyshow.com/extended-interviews/415035/playlist_tds_extended_edward_conard/414980). Worth watching all of it, but the crux of the argument is at 4:45 The author could have done a much better job of explaining it.  Maybe this will help:  * Thanks to Hillary (and Bill) Clinton, it is hard as fuck for companies to get visa sponsorship and hire foreign workers  * Because of this, foreigners have a much tougher time finding jobs - and employers can pay them less - BUT, they'll be loyal as hell to the company because job searches are so difficult  * *BUT, in order to GET that visa sponsor privilege*, employers have to demonstrate that they can't find any talent in the US  * Company posts job with super-high qualifications for laughable pay  * (*Imagine...*) the only people that apply:  the bottom of the barrel, underqualified people, and maybe one desperate candidate  * Employer complains to the government that there's not talent in the US to fill their job  * ...and gets allocation for their visa sponsorship  **tl;dr** - the 'skill gap' is a slimy game