Government-backed Clean Energy Projects

It is either arrogance, ignorance , or corruption. I'll report. You decide.

They are at it again. The government continues to pour tax dollars into alternative energy projects. So, what's the problem? One problem is that it's our tax dollars they're spending. Another is that they are risky investments. Yet another is that clean energy projects have a track record of failure. The biggest problem is that the spendthrift government is throwing our hard earned tax dollars down a hole.

Steven Chu, Department of Energy, appears to be acting as a venture capitalist with taxpayer money, according to economist Morici as reported in CBS News. With a constant supply of money euchred from the Americans who earned it, the Energy Department under Chu's direction, guarantees jumbo loans to new clean energy companies.

Like Solyndra, these so called clean energy companies have a dubious business future. According to the CBS story, the twelve companies that were collectively approved for 6.5 billion in federal assistance are now having trouble staying afloat. Five already filed for bankruptcy.

Other companies, SunPower and First Solar for example, owe more than they are worth. Such is the status, too, of the United States. With national debt topping $15 trillion and 100.3 percent of GDP, this means that America owes more than it makes in a year, with more years to pay that debt down than you and I have left to live. Like the clean energy companies, America lurches headlong down a clear path toward bankruptcy.

It would seem that a smart guy like Steven Chu would know this. If not, we can assume ignorance. If he knows, he acts as if he doesn't care, in which case it's arrogance. As head of the Energy Department, Chu's actions speak of political motivations geared to cement relations with key constituencies and individuals. In a word, corruption.

The government is not capable in any way of making commercial investments in new technologies. It is an absurd idea, besides being arrogant, ignorant, corrupt, or all three. When will Americans know they have had enough of government subsidies for inept ventures? When will they know that clean energy technologies are scamming the system at our expense?

As for Steven Chu, he shared a Nobel Prize in physics. And economist Morici had it about right when he said in the CBS News report, "tasking a Nobel Prize mathematician to make investments for the U.S. government is like asking the manager of the New York Yankees to be general in charge of America's troops in Afghanistan. It's that absurd."

To that I would add arrogant, ignorant, and corrupt. Wouldn't you?