Filed under: Capitalism, Democrat Corruption, Economy, Election 2008, Politics, Taxes | Tags: Billions Wasted, Taxpayers' Money, Waste and Fraud
Filed under: Capitalism, Economy, Science/Technology | Tags: Billions Wasted, Climate Knowledge, What We Don't Know
This dandy little diagram came. I believe, from Dr. Roy Spencer, who tries to emphasize what we know about the climate. The great vast part of the circle of climate knowledge is what we don’t know that we don’t know about climate. (see Donald Rumsfeld)
That small bright blue wedge represents the sum total of our knowledge. It is on this small percentage of knowledge that we and other western industrialized countries have decided to transform our economies. We have just learned that the fabled “greenhouse effect” and the vast dangers of the earth heating up because of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are largely hooey, but billions and billions have been spent to reduce the amount of CO2 escaping into the atmosphere. Why?
It is on that basis that the president has attempted to keep us from using our own natural resources of oil and gas by refusing to issue drilling permits, by putting the coastlines of the eastern United States, the eastern Gulf of Mexico, and the west coast and the coast of Alaska off limits to drilling for the next seven years. Those efforts have contributed significantly to the soaring 9.2% unemployment rate. The administration is busily choosing winners and losers, something governments don’t know how to do.
It is on the basis of that small blue wedge that the president is promoting electric cars, which Americans don’t want, and doubling CAFE standards in a move that automakers cannot meet.
Master Resource notes that:
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office (LPO) is offering guaranteed financing to First Solar Inc. for three solar panel projects in California for $4.5 billion. Carefully analyzed, these projects do little to fund efficient energy production or create permanent jobs.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) notes that in 2010 only 1% of energy consumption was from solar power. Yet 15 out of the 23 generation LPO projects have been for solar power plants. The cost of these 15 projects has been $16 billion–40 percent of the total cost of all guaranteed projects.
A previous $1.6 billion guarantee for a solar panel project, Bright Source Energy, produced 1,000 temporary construction jobs and 86 permanent jobs. That’s $18.6 million per permanent job.
And in another piece:
The U.S. wind market, which has relied on public funding since its inception in the 1970s, has a long trail of false expectations and broken promises.
The wind industry has promised to meet U.S. electricity needs, claiming that wind power could supply 20% of all needs by 1995. Today wind energy delivers about 2% of the U.S. electricity market.Promises of reduced costs, improved performance and job creating have proved false. It seems that wind will perpetually be an “infant industry,” perpetually demanding support, and the public has not done enough to create a market for it.
Billions and billions, all based on a very small amount of knowledge about a very large subject. Possibly we should consider that we can adapt to such changes as we have seen. And that we simply don’t know enough to be investing so much in what may be absolutely futile.
This is government by Precautionary Principle. It states that if an action or a policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public or to the environment, in the absence of scientific proof that the policy or action is harmful, the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those taking the action. This is nonsense, and falls in the same category as proving a negative.
We are leaving Iraq and Afghanistan in 2014, therefore there will be no more wars and we can cut billions from the defense budget, because we simply don’t need all those planes and ships and silly equipment. Or you can make up your own example of unfortunate administration thinking.
Filed under: Democrat Corruption, Economy, Election 2010, Liberalism, Statism | Tags: Billions Wasted, It's the Spending stupid!, Now it's Bipartisanship?
Liberals are so predictable! Back after January 20th 2009, Barack Obama couldn’t stop saying at every occasion , “I won.” He was unprepared to tolerate any dissent or disagreement. “I won,” he said.
The Democrats assembled in back rooms, to which Republicans were not admitted. They wrote bills to which Republicans were not allowed to contribute. They were uninterested in Republican ideas, nor were they interested in statistics and experience about the ideas they were enacting. They produced 2000 page bills laden with pork and bad ideas and then didn’t allow Republicans enough time to even read the bills, and forced them through on party line votes by bribing and twisting arms. They spent more money to no purpose than any Congress ever has. They raised the national debt and the deficit to unheard of levels, and utterly squandered it.
In November, the Democrat Party suffered in 2010 the greatest defeat following a new president’s election since 1922. A Repudiation, a shellacking.
This was supposed to be the era of permanent Democrat dominance. Having been soundly repudiated, they gathered their defeated, fired members back to Washington DC to try to ram all their wishes through in a last-minute Lame Duck session. A session the Constitution never intended to take place. Nor did it intend for legislators who have been voted out of office to continue making laws.
Now, as predictable as the sun dropping below the horizon at night, Democrats are whining about bipartisanship! Why aren’t the Republicans cooperating! Why aren’t they helping the President to get what he wants? How dare Republicans oppose the sainted Obama!
The President has left for Hawaii, celebrating all his accomplishments. He seems to believe that getting things passed that the American people reject is an accomplishment. His self-regard and arrogance know no bounds.