All That's Green Now Is Our Money They Burned Through
Enough with "good cause" welfare from the government. There are plenty of good causes and they should be raising money by hitting up private people and businesses to fund them -- not being fed taxpayer dollars.
As for why I despise both the Democrats and the Republicans, it's because the Republicans only pretend to be fiscally responsible. They're not the party of small government but the party of pretending to be for small government. The difference in this case is in name only. Truly.
From the WSJ, the Range Fuels fiasco...the next in line after Solyndra:
In 2007 the Bush Energy Department gave Range a $76 million grant--of which Range received $46 million. In 2009 the Obama Administration signed off on a further $80 million loan guarantee--of which $42 million was doled out. The state of Georgia kicked in a $6 million grant, and county officials coughed up tax abatements. That's aside from the more than $160 million Range drummed up from private investors.Range bet those dollars on technology and products that were unproven and incapable of competing in a marketplace without government mandates and support. These are the common characteristics behind all of President Obama's green energy fiascoes--from the bankruptcies of solar company Solyndra and storage firm Beacon Power, to the growing struggles of electric battery makers A123 Systems and Ener1. The question is increasingly not which will fail next, but whether any will succeed.
Steven Malanga writes in another WSJ piece about how government porkulus has caused damage in Buffalo:
In the 1970s, the federal government decided to invest $530 million to build a 6.2-mile light-rail system through downtown Buffalo. It was supposed to further spur redevelopment, of course.Opened in 1985 and anchored by a transit mall that banned cars, the rail line fell well below ridership projections--and downtown businesses suffered mightily from the lack of traffic. As Buffalo landlord Stephen P. Fitzmaurice wrote in 2009: "Walk down Main Street on the transit mall; aside from a few necessities like drug and cell phone stores, blight dominates." Last month the city received a $15 million federal grant to restore traffic to Main Street.
These massive investment subsidies failed partly because officials were ill-suited to select the right projects and often instead gave money to favored insiders. Even former Mayor Anthony Masiello described the federal government's redevelopment funds as "a politically motivated system trying to please everybody."
The stupidest thing is that the Occupy Wall Streeters think government corruption (I think they prefer to call it "government" or "regulation") is the answer.
The really stupid thing about OWS is that they are protesting government corruption while simultaneously demanding more of it. The answer to this paradox is: OWS isn't really opposed to corruption per se. Just corruption that they don't benefit from.
And yes, the siren song of government booty (how's that for a mixed metaphor?) has killed what looked like a promising industry ten years ago. The original idea behind things like Range Fuels was to make fuels from plant waste and non-edible crops. But the government political masters demanded results in time for their next campaign, and lured the industry into using food crops, because it could be brought to market right away. This approach had all of the bad characteristics and none of the good ones: it pleased the greens (anything that pleases the greens is bad for everyone else), it is uneconomical and only survives through corruption, and it made food prices a lot more volatile. Meanwhile, the plant waste which was the original target is still mostly being burned in the fields.
Cousin Dave at January 16, 2012 8:00 AM
"These massive investment subsidies failed partly because officials were ill-suited to select the right projects and often instead gave money to favored insiders."
Atlanta just awarded airport vendor contracts to companies with members of the City Council on their staff - and several companies feature administrators who have been jailed before for bribery.
Radwaste at January 16, 2012 8:11 AM
The very funny 1968 comedy The Producers gives the scheme underlying green energy policy.
In the film, the Producer (Zero Mostel) tells his accountant that he has sold shares adding up to way more than 100% of his projects. The accountant (Gene Wilder) says that is impossible and illegal. Still, as long as the productions lose money, no one will care about the particular portion that they own.
Green energy is supported by scientists who want grants, and by a wishful part of the public who care more about saving the world than the cost. However, the reason that all of this has political support is that huge amounts of money can be spent by government and wasted, with flowback political contributions, as long as no one expects those projects to pay for themselves.
It is exactly the expected failure and expense of green energy which hides the graft.
The slogan is "Of course these technologies will lose money for 5-10 years. That is the expected cost of a new industry." Yes, any industry formed by government with public subsidies and mandates.
Solyndra was supported with loan guarantees. The investors would have owned a successful Solyndra. The government loses and pays back the investors in the failed Solyndra. The government (the taxpayers and public) would lose even if many of these projects succeeded, because we don't even have a share of the winners, only the losers.
The Political Manual: Adequate Compensation
( easyopinions.blogspot.com/2008/03/tpm-adaquate-compensation.html )
- Search for "Create new contracts".
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Encourage new ideas for garbage processing, recycling, green government vehicles, resource management, environmentally sensitive school cafeterias, concrete with recycled content, or biodegradable curtains and furniture.
You and your family can form a service company FamCo which sells to a preferred company NewContractor. NewContractor can easily win the new government contracts by bidding 70% of the realistic price. It can be expected that the first application of a new technology will have cost overruns.
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Andrew_M_Garland at January 16, 2012 10:04 AM
Green gets even better:
A Fine for Not Using a Biofuel That Doesn’t Exist:
So essentially the big petroleum companies are being penalized for not adding unicorn piss to their gas. Of course those fines are then added into the cost of gas. It probably is at the rate of 0.01¢ per barrel. But you add that 0.01¢ to the other excise taxes and the rest and you have gas at $3.50 per gallon. What did gas cost when scary Bearry took the Presidency? About $1.90 a gallon?
Jim P. at January 16, 2012 6:33 PM
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