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Originally Posted by spence
5) Government investment in growth technologies is a good investment and something I'd like to see Obama do more of
-spence
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June 26, 2011
Obama trips promote profits for his donors, not jobs for Americans
Ed Lasky
Between golf outings (13 weekends in a row), musical soirees in the East Room, fantasy basketball pickup games, and trips to fundraisers for high rollers, Obama has made numerous trips to promote so-called clean-tech energy ventures.
He has touted these companies as the wave of the future and as the hope for job growth in America. However, as is true of most actions Barack Obama takes there is an ulterior motive -- and it all has to do with himself.
The Washington Post reports that the focus of these clean-energy trips have been to ventures backed by huge donors to Barack Obama:
In all, Obama has visited 22 clean-tech projects in 19 separate trips....
Republicans and outside critics also have honed in on the political connections of some companies that have received federal help. The most attention has focused on Solyndra, a Silicon Valley solar company that ran into financial trouble after receiving a $535 million federal loan guarantee commitment....
Some of the biggest investors in Solyndra, which makes easy-to-install solar panels, were venture capital funds associated with Tulsa billionaire George Kaiser, a key Obama fundraiser. Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee's subcommittee on oversight and investigations, said he is "concerned that there was a hurry to get this money out of the door and that companies and individuals that supported the president were among the beneficiaries.''(snip)
But just weeks before Obama’s arrival, the company released sobering news from independent auditors evaluating its public offering plan. PricewaterhouseCoopers said Solyndra’s losses and negative cash flow raised “substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern.” The report, covered by financial media, added to doubts on Wall Street.
Solar analyst Ramesh Misra, who works for the investment firm Brigantine Advisors, was skeptical about Solyndra’s signature product. Its solar panels are composed of an array of glass tubes that are expensive to produce, causing investment advisers to question whether the product could compete with less-expensive Chinese models. Misra, who has no financial interest in Solyndra or its rivals, questioned the administration’s decision.
“To think they could compete on any basis, that took a very big leap of faith,” Misra said.
“Solyndra stands out,” agreed Robert Lahey, an analyst with Ardour Capital who added that he thinks the government took a substantial risk in backing Solyndra.
A month after Obama’s visit, the company withdrew its public offering plans. A few weeks later, congressional auditors announced that Energy Department had given favorable treatment to some loan-guarantee applicants. A Government Accountability Office report found that the department had bypassed required steps for funding awards to five applicants, including Solyndra. The GAO did not publicly identify those five in its report; the Energy Department asked that some information about companies be excluded asbusiness sensitive.
Obama began his out-of-town clean-tech travel in March 2009. At a number of the companies the president visited, there were connections - not all of them close, to be sure - to his 2008 campaign. Over the months, Obama touted a Florida's utility's electric grid project (a company in an Obama fundraiser's portfolio was doing extensive business with the project) and a Nevada company that generates emission-free power from waste heat, the warmth radiated by machines or industrial processes (an Obama fundraiser is a partner in a venture fund that has a small stake in the company).
The benefit from these travels are immense. A company cannot buy this type of public relations. After all, Obama only frees up his spare time for pleasure trips.
While Obama touts these companies as being incubators for job growth, they are failures in this regard. Clean energy does not generate many jobs at all and those that are generated are often temporary, costs taxpayers a great deal of money per job, or are jobs generated overseas since so much of the equipment being produced has a made in China or made in Europe label stamped inconspicuously on them.
definitely need more of this
