Saturday, September 24, 2011

One chart to rule them all: the provable idiocy of the "green energy" agenda

A House of Representatives report entitled "The Empty Promise of Green Jobs" eviscerates the entire Obama environmental agenda.

In the fall of 2008, then-candidate Barack Obama made a campaign promise to jumpstart the economy with an influx of green jobs... The President has kept his promise to spend billions of borrowed dollars on green energy, but his promises that such spending would create a new, self-sufficient industry capable of providing millions of jobs for Americans have proven empty.

...Two years later, the President’s promise of millions of jobs stands in stark contrast with reality. As a recent report from a Bay-Area news organization made clear, green jobs predictions are “proving a pipe dream.”

...Since its introduction in the 2009 stimulus bill, the Department of Energy (DOE) has issued $40 billion in new loan guarantees for private-sector loans for renewable energy projects that might not otherwise have been market-viable. Already, multi-million dollar projects, initially labeled as successes, have failed:

• The first renewable energy loan guarantee recipient, solar start-up Solyndra, received a loan guarantee for $535 million in the fall of 2009, even after repeated warnings from federal financial analysts. In the spring of 2010, it failed to complete its initial public offering after an independent audit questioned the ongoing viability of the firm. Then, in the fall of 2010, the firm closed one of its manufacturing facilities and laid off 180 workers. Finally, the firm declared bankruptcy and laid off 1,100 employees only 15 months after Obama visited a company factory.

• Beacon Power, received a $43 million loan guarantee in July of 2009. Since then, its stock price has dropped by 90 percent – a period during which the NASDAQ exchange on which it is listed has increased by 40 percent. The company has not been in compliance with NASDAQ listing requirements, leading to a delisting determination from the exchange.

• First Wind Holdings, received a $117 million loan guarantee in March of 2010. First Wind withdrew its initial public offering in October of 2010, due to a lack of investor demand. According to the Boston Globe, investors shied away from the company because “First Wind owes more than $500 million, loses money on a steady basis, and reports a negative cash flow.”

Even in the midst of these failures, DOE has been advertising additional loan guarantee recipients, announcing a $1.2 billion loan guarantee to another solar company just one day after the FBI raided Solyndra’s offices. Congressional investigators are initiating a review to examine how many future Solyndras have been already financed by this loan-guarantee program or approved through shoddy review, and how can we prevent future examples of this kind of wasteful federal spending.

Did government invent the wheel?

Did government invent the steam engine?

Did government invent the automobile?

Did government invent the airplane?

No, drones: the free market did. The free market, private property rights, supply and demand, all contributed to individuals making decisions that changed the nature of power generation and consumption over the centuries.

It wasn't a central planner cutting checks. It wasn't a bureaucrat dictating a five-year plan. It wasn't an accountant placing bets on unproven technologies.

It was the free market.

Tell your friends, tell your family, tell your co-workers: in 2012, we must eradicate the Obama Democrats' culture of corrupt, crony capitalism.

That is, if you want America to survive.


Hat tips: TrendingRight and Power Line.

7 comments:

  1. sending more money to dc to be spent by career politicians and lobbyists isn't the solution - IT'S THE PROBLEM!

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  2. "the Department of Energy (DOE) has issued $40 billion in new loan guarantees for private-sector loans for renewable energy projects that might not otherwise have been market-viable."

    MIGHT? That's the most generous caveat I've seen in ages.

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  3. Mt Top Patriot9:32 AM

    "Green" in all its ugliness, in all its corruption, in all its elitist filth, is one of the largest of the Big Lies.

    The insult to the injury of generational theft the elites have schemed, the insult foisted upon this great nation is that as the path of corruption and the circus of clowns and con men who perpetuate such crimes, because lets be dead nuts honest here, the insult is we the people are accorded the ruling elites blessing of confiscatory taxation and purposefully inflated market price scales on economic commodities to pay for and perpetuate this shakedown.
    It is nothing less than extortion of an entire nation. The Mafia has nothing on these clowns running my government.

    While we are being honest and frank, lets take it one step further. It is going to take more than we may be capable of politically to cleanse this system of republican form of government of these vermin who are nothing but bloodsuckers, leeches who attach themselves to every source of money and suck it dry for everything it is worth. Then call us who only know the tiniest tip of the iceberg, but suspect the cultural corruption and theft runs from the white house all the way to the lowliest federal employee, we who dare to call out the theft of our wealth are branded as terrorists?
    Well fuck you!
    Anyone who works for the government is quite simply as guilty as the worst perpetrator of this generational theft in the highest offices.
    This is the worst reality of it all. The entire system relies on the little people who work in it to keep their mouths shut. And the truth is it works. These are not American's, they are the old Russian Nomenklaturer come to life today. A ponzi pyramid system of power where who belong to it belong to an elite special club. A system that grows like a beast, a behemoth that will never give up its system of perks and largess.
    But mark my words, it is a bloated Tic, for if this Constitutional republic is to survive, for if is to bear fruit of Liberty and Rule of Law, it is going to take a purging that most will fight and die for on both sides.
    It is the public pig trough feeders verses part of this here nation who are fed up with the ungrateful selfish bastards who expect us to keep the trough filled no matter how little is left for our labors.
    It is going to end, one way or another.

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  4. Anonymous9:50 AM

    Take your pick: Acorn or America. I'll take America every time.

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  5. Anonymous9:53 AM

    What epic commentary on this site, great stuff.

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  6. Anonymous9:58 AM

    Where oh where do these comments go

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  7. All, sorry about some of the "held" comments. Blogger seems to categorize some as spam, esp. if they are anonymous. I've moved them out of the spam-catcher.

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