pacino wrote:Bernie fans falling into the Republican trap about fake Clinton scandals here

slugsrbad wrote:

TomatoPie wrote:OBAMA's $10/Barrel Oil Tax - would not be a horrible idea if the gummint had any useful clue about how to spend the money raised.

Pay down the debt? Rebuild crumbling infrastructure? Nah. Too obvious.

Instead, let's give money to our Dem friends and call it "green." Build light rail where no one lives. Plan future mass transit systems that will be obsolete on arrival. Piss it away on Solyndra and Ethanol schemes.

Thanks, Obama.

errr............ no thanks.

It's too early to be drunk.

Bucky wrote:the Solyndra loan was a failure. But the overall program is a success.

TomatoPie wrote:

Bucky wrote:the Solyndra loan was a failure. But the overall program is a success.

What brings you to that conclusion?

The long history of government's "investment" in alternative energy isn't good. Ethanol is probably the worst of it. And yeah, that is a bipartisan boondoggle that is bad for your pocketbook and the environment and hungry corn eaters. But nice for agribusiness.

TomatoPie wrote:

Bucky wrote:the Solyndra loan was a failure. But the overall program is a success.

What brings you to that conclusion?

The long history of government's "investment" in alternative energy isn't good. Ethanol is probably the worst of it. And yeah, that is a bipartisan boondoggle that is bad for your pocketbook and the environment and hungry corn eaters. But nice for agribusiness.

JUburton wrote:

TomatoPie wrote:

Bucky wrote:the Solyndra loan was a failure. But the overall program is a success.

What brings you to that conclusion?

The long history of government's "investment" in alternative energy isn't good. Ethanol is probably the worst of it. And yeah, that is a bipartisan boondoggle that is bad for your pocketbook and the environment and hungry corn eaters. But nice for agribusiness.

I don't think that ethanol subsidies and solyndra should be viewed with the same lens. Ethanol subsidies, as you said, are bipartisan and business welfare under the guise of investment in energy. They exist because of lobbyists, not science.

The solyndra grant program was a concerted effort to give incentive to domestic companies to update their infrastructure and energy consumption. This should be praised. The former should not.

Even if the program was a failure it's not something that should be stopped just because it didn't work once. The 'free market', whatever that is, in the short term does not really incentivize these sorts of investments so if they can be spurred along so people think more about the long game rather than the quarterly reporting then I'm for it.

pacino wrote:

JUburton wrote:

TomatoPie wrote:

Bucky wrote:the Solyndra loan was a failure. But the overall program is a success.

What brings you to that conclusion?

The long history of government's "investment" in alternative energy isn't good. Ethanol is probably the worst of it. And yeah, that is a bipartisan boondoggle that is bad for your pocketbook and the environment and hungry corn eaters. But nice for agribusiness.

I don't think that ethanol subsidies and solyndra should be viewed with the same lens. Ethanol subsidies, as you said, are bipartisan and business welfare under the guise of investment in energy. They exist because of lobbyists, not science.

The solyndra grant program was a concerted effort to give incentive to domestic companies to update their infrastructure and energy consumption. This should be praised. The former should not.

Even if the program was a failure it's not something that should be stopped just because it didn't work once. The 'free market', whatever that is, in the short term does not really incentivize these sorts of investments so if they can be spurred along so people think more about the long game rather than the quarterly reporting then I'm for it.

the thing is, the program has helped grow plenty of businesses. it's not a failure. it's worked. sk provided a link; i've provided some in the past.

JUburton wrote:
The solyndra grant program was a concerted effort to give incentive to domestic companies to update their infrastructure and energy consumption. This should be praised. The former should not.

Even if the program was a failure it's not something that should be stopped just because it didn't work once. The 'free market', whatever that is, in the short term does not really incentivize these sorts of investments so if they can be spurred along so people think more about the long game rather than the quarterly reporting then I'm for it.

Soren wrote:You read the part about how the program as a whole is profitable right? And do you understand that the purpose of these programs isn't necessarily to pick winners over losers but more to stimulate/encourage growth in a segment of the market that otherwise wouldn't be attractive?

TomatoPie wrote:I understand - even admire - the intent. But the problem is that these good intentions won't lead to good results, and in fact are more likely to hinder progress.

Soren wrote:You read the part about how the program as a whole is profitable right?

TomatoPie wrote:Any technology that requires subsidy is one that cannot compete with the fossil fuels. So we either get a permanent boondoggle string of subsidies by which working schlubs transfer their earnings to congress's hand-picked cronies sporting the latest shade of green, or flat out losers like Solyndra, which couldn't get off the ground even while sucking on the government teat.