The Green Energy Myth
by John Stossel July 03, 2012
foxbusiness.com
Last week, another subsidized company, Abound Solar, joined Solyndra in bankruptcy. Taxpayers lost $70 million.
Sterling Burnett, of the National Center for Policy Analysis, lists other companies you funded. 6 went bankrupt:
- Solyndra: (awarded $528 million)
- Beacon Power ($39 million)
- EnerDel ($118 million)
- Babcock & Brown ($178 million)
- Solar Trust of America ($2.1 billion)
- Abound Solar ($400 million)
Many more struggle:
- A123 ($300 million): One factory, financed by government money, made defective batteries.
- Fisker Auto ($529 million)'s electric cars shut down in their testing phase. Why? Because Fisker used A123's defective batteries.
- First Solar ($3 billion) had the worst performing stock on the S&P 500 in 2011.
- Johnson Controls ($299 million): When Obama spoke at this company's headquarters in Michigan last August, he said this company builds high-tech batteries that help America lead the world in manufacturing. But now they shut down a US plant.
- Nevada Geothermal ($98.5 million): One auditor of Nevada Geothermal expressed "significant doubt about the company's ability to continue as a going concern."
- AREVA ($2 billion): Shareholders of AREVA lost over 60% of their money last year.
- SunPower ($1.2 billion): This company hired the son of the Congressman who helped it secure a government-backed loan. At one point, it was the sixth most shorted stock on the New York Stock Exchange. It was sued for a variety of reasons, including "gross mismanagement, breach of fiduciary responsibility, unjust enrichment and abuse of control."
- BrightSource ($1.6 billion): This company spends more than half a million dollars on lobbying, and hired Joe Biden's former Chief of Staff. It admits that its cash condition is " perilous," spent millions of dollars on relocating turtles, and cancelled its IPO because of "poor market conditions."
Unlike private investors, bureaucrats aren't guided by profit and loss. Your tax money pays for daydreams, and for projects backed by the bureaucrats' friends.
Sadly, the loan guarantees will continue. Both parties support crony capitalism.
Welfare for the rich is good politics.
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