The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Obama Helping the Rich Get Richer

Posted on | September 2, 2011 | 39 Comments

If you’re a liberal who thinks Republicans are corrupt pawns of Big Business, and who thinks that Democrats are the party that cares about the poor, isn’t it time you WAKE THE HELL UP?

Investigators Probe White House
Role in Massive Energy Loan
House investigators said they have uncovered evidence that White House officials became personally involved in an Energy Department review of a hot-button $535 million loan guarantee to the now-failed California solar company Solyndra. . . .

If the praises of high-ranking Obama-administration officials were a viable business plan, the solar-panel maker Solyndra would be an industrial juggernaut. . . .
Obama and Biden were literally invested in Solyndra’s success. The company got a half-billion-dollar federal loan guarantee, the first in a highly vaunted Department of Energy green-jobs program, as part of the stimulus. This was supposed to be the new economic model: government and its favored industries cooperating to lead the country into a green, politically approved recovery. . . .
A Department of Energy spokesman explained wanly, “The company was considered extraordinarily innovative as recently as 2010.” Innovative, maybe; profitable, no. It had never turned a profit since its founding in 2005. In the still “extraordinarily innovative” year of 2010, it canceled an attempted IPO and axed its CEO. . . .
President Bush was flayed for the Enron bankruptcy, based on his tenuous ties to the firm. If the same media rules applied, Solyndra would be Obama’s Enron, given his active promotion of the company and his lavish funding of it. A prodigious Obama-Biden fundraiser is a major backer of the failed concern.

“Green jobs” = Obama gets the green. You lose your jobs.

Category: Barack Obama, Corruption, Democrats, Environmentalism

Comments

39 Responses to “Obama Helping the Rich Get Richer”

  1. Mike
    September 2nd, 2011 @ 11:21 pm

     Being in the construction trade, I can tell you that “green energy” is way over hyped. It is cost prohibitive for any but the extremely well off to afford and the payoff is many years down the road, if at all. Solar panels have a ten or fifteen year lifespan and storage batteries have less than that, plus the maintenance issues. Even “passive solar energy” is costly in materials and depends on site location and orientation of the dwelling.

    As far as wind power goes…again cost is a factor and site location as well as average daily wind speed. If you don’t live in an area with a ADWS of 10MPH and very little to no trees blocking the wind, forget about it.

    Lets see, what other kinds of green energy do we have? Geothermal…again, high cost, you have to drill a bunch of holes in the ground and run pipes, ect….hydroelectric…high cost plus you have to have a stream close at hand with plenty of fall.

    I’m just sayin’.

  2. Anonymous
    September 2nd, 2011 @ 11:30 pm

    Leeds certification is just another scam.

  3. Another Obama Touted Company Goes Bankrupt…Figure The Odds « That Mr. G Guy's Blog
    September 2nd, 2011 @ 7:34 pm

    […] Obama Helping the Rich Get Richer. […]

  4. Bob Belvedere
    September 2nd, 2011 @ 11:40 pm

    It was a scam when it first began back in the early 1980’s.  My father and I were State Certified Energy Auditors, so we studied all the available technologies.  The payback on anything other than insulation and other low-tech solutions was not economically viable.  The same is pretty much true today.

  5. JeffS
    September 2nd, 2011 @ 11:54 pm

    I’m installing 2 solar panels and deep cycle batteries at my home.  They are NOT intended as any sort of “green energy”, but as a means of running my amateur radio station off the grid. 

    In the process, I’ve gained a fair understanding of solar energy and battery usage.  And I think that you describing “green energy” as “way over hyped” is being too kind by half.

    The only way that solar power might possibly ever come even close to being “green” is if people limit their power use to small appliances in the day time.  And that’s ignoring the fact that solar panel manufacture requires toxic materials, plus there’s a toxic manufacturing by product, silicon tetrachloride. 

    But, you are correct in concept.

    Except that I’ll disagree with you on hydroelectric power.  True, you do need suitable sites, and the initial investments are high, but it’s about the closest thing we have to a reliable and renewable energy source.  So long as the sun shines, and the rain or snow falls, you can generate electricity.  The only restrictions are artificial, and often arbitrary.  It’s the next best thing to nuclear energy. 

    Which is probably why watermelons hate dams so much.

  6. Beto Ochoa
    September 3rd, 2011 @ 12:16 am

    If all the layers are peeled back on this administrations dealings,
    there will be felons turned out to make room for the gaggle.

  7. Tom Callow
    September 3rd, 2011 @ 12:21 am

    Anyone have any gold for sale?
    Will trade heirloom tomato seeds, non-dna tweaked corn seeds and car and computer service.
    Also looking for ammo

  8. AngelaTC
    September 3rd, 2011 @ 12:25 am

    There is a reason the market stopped using flowing water, the sun and the wind for energy 150 years ago – it’s not cost efficient.   They can put as much lipstick on it as they want, but green energy is just a resource hog.

  9. AngelaTC
    September 3rd, 2011 @ 12:27 am

    Obviously you didn’t factor in everything – for example, making other people pay for the initial investment.  Duh.

  10. Anonymous
    September 3rd, 2011 @ 1:05 am

    Actually, flowing water is very efficient… so naturally, envirowhackos want to demolish the dams.

  11. Anonymous
    September 3rd, 2011 @ 2:29 am

    In addition to that most dams also manage the water an entirely justifiable reason for many dams even if they didn’t generate power. Angela is correct about wind and sun not even being a good “blast from the past.”

  12. Adjoran
    September 3rd, 2011 @ 2:31 am

    There is a common factor which is directly proportional to the life expectancy and quality of life for a country’s population and the country’s environmental efforts.  That is per capita wealth.

    Economic growth is crucial for the environment and for the populace.  We’re better off growing faster with coal now so we discover new technologies faster with our new wealth, than by trying to “go green” and slowing economic growth.  It’s worse for the environment to be “green.”

    Many of the enviro-wackos understand this, at least the leadership.  They don’t care because the environment is just a front anyway.  The idea is to grab control of the economy by the back door.

    It needs to be rolled back, soon, and hard.

  13. Mike
    September 3rd, 2011 @ 2:37 am

    I agree that hydro is efficient. A friend was going to use hydro at his house in the country. He has a thirty foot waterfall on the property, plus plenty of fall on the creek after the falls, but for some reason, he didn’t try it. I’m not sure if it was because of the initial expense or if it was because the county wouldn’t let him divert water from the creek.

    Another friend had a small hydro outfit set up, but every time there was a hard rain, it would knock his waterwheel out. I think he had a bad setup, though, plus his generator wasn’t waterproofed and seized up.

    I’ve got a 45 watt solar setup myself to use for my wife’s CPAP machine in case the power goes off. She has to have it to sleep.

  14. Strings_55
    September 3rd, 2011 @ 3:01 am

    One thing I am liking that actually looks like it works is Stirling systems. Mirror covered satellite dish. A Stirling engine (an 1800’s invention that uses temperature differential to run). Computer program to follow the Sun rather than just sit there waiting on it to come over.

  15. JeffS
    September 3rd, 2011 @ 3:27 am

    I agree, “green energy” is a resource hog. 

    But if  the market STOPPED “using flowing water … for energy 150 years ago”, just exactly what are those all those dams around the world doing?

  16. JeffS
    September 3rd, 2011 @ 3:30 am

    Hydropower is indeed extremely efficient, and nearly 100% “green” (aside from blocking water flow and fish passage).  The sun does all of the heavy work. 

    God bless the hydrologic cycle.

  17. ThePaganTemple
    September 3rd, 2011 @ 1:18 pm

    You guys get too worked over these environazi clowns. You need to loosen up and relax a little bit.

    Hey, I know, here’s a good heartwarming, fuzzy story you can read, full of laughs and good cheer, about a young envirowacko and his best friends in all the whole wide world-grizzly bears

    The Heartwarming Story Of Little Timmy Treadwell, in which little Timmy gets his just desserts by becoming his bff’s main course.

    See, even in this screwed up world, if you look hard enough you can find a reason to smile.

  18. ThePaganTemple
    September 3rd, 2011 @ 1:37 pm

    Geothermal might be good, at least to a limited extent. Its supposed to recycle underground temperature to your house. Underground temperature is constant, which is why if you have a basement you rarely need air-conditioning. Geothermal pumps the air out of your house and replaces it with the recycled subterranean temperature. It’s supposedly cleaner than fossil fuel derived heat or air, but I don’t know how cost efficient it is. I know it costs somewhere north of nine thousand dollars to install a system on the average and I think it cuts at least a third off your heating/air-conditioning bills.

  19. ThePaganTemple
    September 3rd, 2011 @ 1:39 pm

    That’s also probably the real reason they want to nix any solar powered plants in the few places where such a plant might actually be viable, like the deserts in California, supposedly to save a few hundred lizards.

  20. JeffS
    September 3rd, 2011 @ 2:38 pm

    Heh!  I use Tim’s story as an example of why to not trust the judgement of envirotards.  But I didn’t know about this article.  Thanks!

  21. Loose Thoughts ~ What I’m Reading at Bride of Rove
    September 3rd, 2011 @ 11:04 am

    […] The Other McCain: Obama Helping the Rich Get Richer If you’re a liberal who thinks Republicans are corrupt pawns of Big Business, and who thinks that […]

  22. ThePaganTemple
    September 3rd, 2011 @ 3:06 pm

    You’re welcome. I guess you know about what happened in Idaho, but if not here’s that and other great bear stories With pics.

  23. N6cid
    September 3rd, 2011 @ 3:55 pm

    So hows that solar powered Ham station working out?
    n6cid

  24. N6cid
    September 3rd, 2011 @ 3:56 pm

    Well said…

  25. Bob Belvedere
    September 3rd, 2011 @ 4:22 pm

    Back then the best you could get was a tax break – there was no Department of Giving You Green Money.   While we listed the savings on the tax breaks in our reports, we never counted it as part of the payback.  It was a one-off thing in most cases.

    The key in these things is will the investment in energy saving devices and actions give you a return on it within three to five years.  We also factored in replacement and maintenance costs.  Solar devices were especially bad at payback.  Weather-stripping,  insulation, and new windows were the best.

  26. Bob Belvedere
    September 3rd, 2011 @ 4:34 pm

    My understanding is that it’s very promising but not there yet.

    For me the test as to whether any process is worth the effort is whether or not sober investors are interested in it for non-political, non-tax break reasons.  Now, they may not invest in a particular procedure because of the too many restrictive laws and regulations, but, if you hear the investors lamenting that fact, that tells you something – they want to get in, but the gummit makes it cost prohibitive.

  27. Anonymous
    September 3rd, 2011 @ 5:41 pm

    It’s all about reducing us to an early 19th-century standard of living so we’ll be easier to dominate.

  28. anti-neocon
    September 3rd, 2011 @ 8:00 pm

    I have geothermal.  My energy costs have dramatically dropped.  It’s fantastic!

  29. Anonymous
    September 3rd, 2011 @ 8:15 pm

    I’ve only had one contract documents for one %100 Leeds designed building and that project was cancelled by Sara Lee’s stockholders.
     
    The design required the 500,000 square feet to be divided into five wings rather than one rectangle because the heating/cooling scheme required an inordinate amount of window surface. The floor framing plan was ridiculously complicated because the entire length of each side had plenums incorporated in to the concrete floors. At each floor and ceiling there would have been computer controlled transom like windows that would allow air in at the bottom or out at the top. In short structural design was totally subservient to what would ordinarily be the functions of the HVAC design and equipment.
     
    I don’t know what the total contract costs were but guesstimate it must have been double a conventional design and would probably be more like 30 years to recover the difference between the Leeds design and a conventional one. That’s a pretty high expense hurdle even for an owner financed and occupied building. An impossibly high hurdle for a spec office building.
     
    Most Leeds design features are at the margins like certified recycling of construction waste, as much as possible paperless contract documents and use of “sustainable” materials like tree-farm grown 2x4s.

  30. Anonymous
    September 3rd, 2011 @ 8:21 pm

    Which is likely a miscalculation.

  31. Anonymous
    September 3rd, 2011 @ 8:26 pm

    Only relatively wealthy societies can afford the luxury of diverting wealth for the environment. The poorer the country the greater the environmental destruction, case in point Haiti.

  32. Zilla of the Resistance
    September 3rd, 2011 @ 8:35 pm

    Linked here: No One Could Have Seen It Coming… Except For Those Of Us Who DID

  33. DaveO
    September 3rd, 2011 @ 9:19 pm

    Where did all the money from TARP, Stimulus I and II, along with all the social/discretionary programs go?

    Why was the first act of the White House to fire/bring to heel all of the Inspectors General?

    Why won’t the GOP establishment elites call for a full audit, with prosecution in those cases warrenting it?

  34. JeffS
    September 3rd, 2011 @ 11:35 pm

    Still working on it!  Got two more conduit runs to install, and then I can wire the batteries to the solar panels, and connect to the station.   I should be able to run the station off the grid under normal conditions, with limited generator support under other-than-normal conditions.

  35. JeffS
    September 3rd, 2011 @ 11:39 pm

    That’s in the regional news, TPT (I live in Washington State), and many people want to take a horsewhip to those Federal nincompoops. 

    Bears are no joke.  The man did what was needed, and should be thanked, not prosecuted.

  36. JeffS
    September 4th, 2011 @ 12:32 am

    And what’s your return?  Expressed in years to recoup your initial investment?

  37. ThePaganTemple
    September 4th, 2011 @ 2:52 am

    Its similar to something that happened in KY. A man killed a black bear that tried to break into his house, and he was arraigned for prosecution. There was an uproar, and suddenly the local news stopped covering the story, just dropped it. To this day, you will look in vain for any news about the matter. There are so many black bears in Kentucky now, the state relented and agreed to a bear hunt. The environazis went nuts until the state imposed restrictions on the kinds of weapons you could use for the hunt, which was for one day, in the dead of winter, which of course is when bears hibernate. There was a big snow on during the hunt, and not one bear was seen, let alone killed. These people want as many bears in my state as they can possibly have. Me, I want them all wiped out, and make no bones about it. The environment has managed to thrive without the dinosaur and the dodo bird, I’m reasonably sure it can make it just find without a bunch of vicious bears mauling everything in sight.

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