Obama Shoots Crony Capitalism Craps

The FCC’s bungling of the Lightsquared fiasco is exhibit A of what can happen when government is so fat and sloppy and braindead that one flabby arm doesn’t know what the other one is doing. They can't even get the crony crapitalist corruption right.

For those who haven’t been following it, the FCC greenlighted Lightsquared’s wireless broadband plan, which ended up stepping on the GPS signals that are fundamental to orderly operation of our society, to include airline navigation.

How did this happen?

How one U.S. government agency could approve a business plan that jeopardizes a public utility other government entities consider vital to safety and security, not to mention the economy, is the key question that has lurked behind the battle between LightSquared and the GPS industry since it ignited in earnest a year ago. (Aviation Week)

Here’s how!

The answer emerging from countless legal filings and Congressional hearings is that the government itself is the villain of the piece, the absence of collaboration between agencies allowing one to act without consulting the others. In bypassing its normal processes to expedite approval of LightSquared’s plan to use its mobile satellite service frequencies for a terrestrial broadband wireless network, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) left its fellow Defense and Transportation Departments, Homeland Security and others, scrambling to protect GPS signals on which they now depend. (Aviation Week)

And why did the FCC move so quickly and stupidly?

Critics were quick to point out close personal and political links between President Barack Obama, FCC chairman Julian Genachowski and hedge-fund manager Philip Falcone, LightSquared’s majority owner. (Aviation Week)

As another Obama scandal unfolds, the FCC is running from Lightsquared like a scalded dog and the company's CEO has resigned in disgrace.  Meanwhile, another Obama-Approved Solar company is going under, and GM's sales of Obama's Chevy Dolt are flatter than a pancake, causing layoffs:

General Motors Co. announced the temporary suspension of Chevrolet Volt production and the layoffs of 1300 employees, as the company is cutting Volt manufacturing to meet lower-than-expected demand for the electric cars.

The car company had hoped to sell 45,000 Chevy Volts in America this year, according to the Detrot News, but has only sold about 1,626 over the first two months of 2012. (Examiner)

Government Motors expected to sell 45,000 battery-powered crapboxes?  What are they smoking?

This on top of Obama shutting down drilling, closing over 100 coal-fired power plants, harassing the fossil fuels industry while flushing taxpayer money down the green energy toilet...  Add in devaluation of the dollar, and we have an energy crisis brewing, as the price for driving our cars and powering our homes keep climbing.  All thanks to government-induced scarcity.

Had enough of Obama's venture socialism yet?

US Government Moves to Protect GPS
No Practical Way to Fix Lightsquared GPS Problem

Biofuels Bomb

Supporting Obama Pays Off...

Navy's Big Biofuels Bet: 450,000 Gallons at Four Times the Price of Oil

The Navy just signed deals to buy 450,000 gallons of biofuels — arguably the biggest purchase of its kind in U.S. government history. The purchase is a significant step for Navy Secretary Ray Mabus’ plans to transform the service into an energy-efficient fleet. But at approximately $15 per gallon — nearly four times the price of traditional fuel — the new fuels won’t come cheap. (Wired)

There is so much wrong with that statement. First, if Bush and Rummy had handed a lucrative deal like this to Halliburton, liberals would be screaming "fraud, waste and abuse!"  Second, biofuels are less energy-efficient than fossil fuels, and this big purchase is not a "bet;" it is flushing taxpayer money down the toilet. Finally it is an expensive payoff to the FOOs (Friends of Obama).

This doesn't even rise to the level of Crony Crapitalism. It is bald-faced political patronage.  Chicago Democrat Machine politics practiced by the crooked politician from Crook Country, Barack Hussein Obama. He's an upscale Richard Nixon for the 21st century. Bebe Rebozo - Tony Rezko...

Obama does have one up on Nixon. Tricky Dick's corruption did not make him a millionaire.

But Wait!  There's More!

As they say on those cheesy tv commercials, "but wait, there's more!" Progressives are continually drooling over the prospect of grabbing other people's stuff. You can now add land grabbing to their long list of confiscatory lust that includes liberty limitation, money confiscation and gun grabbing...

Green Energy's Manifest Destiny

The rapacious Big Biofuels industry, world governments firmly in it's back pocket, is now taking direct aim at the little brown people standing in its way.

Covering a full decade of land deals from 2000 to 2010 in the global south and considering the acquisition of more than 200 million hectares of land over that period (equivalent to more than eight times the size of the UK), ILC’s new report suggests that 78 per cent of deals were for agricultural purposes, of which three-quarters were for biofuel production.

The new research also indicates that national elite firms play a greater role in the process of land-grabbing than previously indicated. While large land deals can create opportunities for developing countries , they are more likely to cause problems for the poorest members of society, who often lose access to land and resources that are essential to their livelihoods. (Biofuels Grab Half of Land Deals in Developed World)

So, you sanctimonious green progressives, consider this the next time you're tootling around in your green hybrid crapbox, all puffed up with satisfied self-righteousness...

“Under current conditions, large-scale land deals threaten the rights and livelihoods of poor rural communities and especially women,” says report lead author Dr Ward Anseeuw of the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development, CIRAD. (Biofuels Grab Half of Land Deals in Developed World)

All of this deforestation, destruction and theft of poor people's land is brought to you by your progressive federal government teamed with like-minded global progressives.  With progress like this, who needs enemies?

Green Dreams, Economic Nightmares

California continues to serve as an object lesson to the rest of the nation.  

That most blessed land of Queen Calafia, that could be an economically and geographically viable nation in its own right, is stumbling and staggering under the weight of progressive statism. It's latest woe, like all the others, is of its own doing.

The state has mandated that one-third of its energy must come from renewable sources by 2020.

California's increasing use of renewable power will come at a price, pushing up electricity bills across the state.

And while it's impossible to tell how big the cost to consumers will be, some experts fear the total cost of renewable energy in California will be in the billions of dollars.

"You're going to see significant price increases over time from renewables," said Aaron Johnson, director of renewable energy policy at Pacific Gas and Electric Co. "As you add it to the system, it is going to result in higher costs for consumers."  (SF Gate - California Renewable Energy)

Eschewing cheap and bountiful gas and coal for green pipe dreams is suicidal, but suicide is California's specialty.  The only thing that keeps such governmental action from being criminal is the fact that people can escape, and they are.  The ones that are still there voted for higher energy bills, so I don't feel sorry for them.

Meanwhile, in China, a Boom Goes Bust...

Jersey (I think it was Jersey, if not, it was one of the statists that comment here) was complaining last week about China subsidizing it's solar industry.  I told him we should thank the government of China for chipping in to make solar panels we buy cheaper.  Our government would be stupid to do the same.

Now comes news that China's solar industry is collapsing...

Nov. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Losses for China’s largest solar manufacturers, including Suntech Power Holdings Co. and JA Solar Holdings Co. may continue through next year as declining shipments prompt them to slash prices and liquidate inventory.

“Liquidation is leading to suicidal pricing.” Polavarapu said in an interview today. "There are too many solar companies in China, he said, and they are cutting prices to maintain share."

Once freed from government intervention (bad money always chases out good), solar will make technological gains and perhaps be economically viable someday.  For now, it remains the energy of the future.

Meanwhile, as Obama's venture socialists still talk of stimulus multipliers and lust for the opportunity to dump even more money down green job sinkholes, the gas and oil industry is creating real jobs and providing cheap energy to an America mired in high-unemployment Obamanomics.

The petroleum industry has done more for this country than Obama could ever dream of.

WRM - Chinese Solar Industry Goes Belly Up
The Fraying of China's Guilded Age

No one was wringing their hands over a diminishing supply of whale blubber back in the 1800's

"Proponents of green energy argue that if the government can put a man on the moon, it can certainly make green energy economically attractive. Well, notice that government was not trying to get a man to the moon profitably..."  (Green Energy Economy Reconsidered)


The ever erudite George Will wrote an article awhile back about the history of peak oil. The timeline from 1914 to now is dotted with gloomy predictions of oil's imminent demise. Back in the 70's, failure-face president Jimmy Carter publicly worried that we would run out of energy by the 90's. Will brings us up to date...

Since then, the world has consumed three times more oil than was in the proven reserves. Today, shale rock formations in Texas and Louisiana; Montana and North Dakota; and New York, Pennsylvania, and other Eastern states may contain 2,000 trillion cubic feet of clean-burning natural gas. (George Will – Peak oil)

Fellow blogger Jersey McJones recently chided me for calling wind power an "immature technology."  OK Jersey, I take it back.  Wind is very mature.  It's so mature it's over the hill.  Jerry Taylor and Peter Van Doren say it better than I ever could:

Have we ever seen such a "green economy"? Yes we have; in the 13th century.

Renewable energy is quite literally the energy of yesterday. Few seem to realize that we abandoned "green" energy centuries ago for five very good reasons. (Green Energy Economy Reconsidered)  

It Takes a lot of Land, it's not Reliable, it Starves People...
The same authors explain that you would have to turn the entire state of Connecticut into a wind farm just to power New York City.  And Lord help the NYPD and all those appliance stores if the wind stopped at night.  Solar has the same limitations.

Biofuels is no better.  It starves people to feed cars.  Farm land is finite, and government subsidizing ethanol skews the market and has caused food shortages and higher prices.  Your tax dollars at work.

I am not a Luddite. I cheer technological advances. Unlike many on the left, I only cheer actual advances, not wishful thinking ones. Take LED’s for example. I love them, and I am confident the price eventually come down. It already has for flashlights. Anyone who has ever gone camping with kids who are scared of the dark cannot help but appreciate these little energy saving marvels. They last forever!

Meanwhile, the case for fossil fuels is compelling:

Fossil fuels are everything that green energy is not. Approximately 1,000 cubic feet of natural gas (which cost approximately $4.00) can generate the same amount of electricity as running an average rooftop solar system for 131 days.  (George Will – Peak oil)

XarJ - End of the World

Obambulating Towards Destruction

Obambulate v. 1) To wander or walk about in an aimless fashion. 2) To preside or lead in an aimless, backward, or downward fashion. 3) To conceive in hope but give birth to disaster.

Green Energy Update!

Progressives are sacrificing millions of starving poor people upon the altar of Gaia...

But with food prices rising sharply in recent months, many experts are calling on countries to scale back their headlong rush into green fuel development, arguing that the combination of ambitious biofuel targets and mediocre harvests of some crucial crops is contributing to high prices, hunger and political instability.  (NY Times - Food Prices Stir Concern Cars)

The World Bank has warned that rising food prices, driven partly by rising fuel costs, are pushing millions of people into extreme poverty.(BBC - Food Prices Driving Millions to Poverty)

Liberal compassion for the poor and downtrodden is a sick joke.  Grand schemes of the left have killed over 100 million people and continue to enslave millions more. 

Photochop courtesy of Chicago Ray

Nuclear Power – No Silver Bullet

I have been an advocate of nuclear power, but it is not the panacea we imagine it to be, even putting aside the current Japan crisis.

I demand intellectual honesty from those I argue with, but I also demand it from myself and the ideas and philosophies I adopt and espouse.  I've been reading about nuclear power, and while I am far from the No Nukes crowd, I now see it is not all it's cracked up to be.

It’s Not Cheap

Affordable nuclear power, says Taylor, is a Republican fantasy. Promoting it makes no more sense than Nancy Pelosi's promotion of wind and solar power. "Take a Republican speech about nuclear power, cross out the phrase 'nuclear,' and put in 'solar' — you've got a Democratic speech about energy." (Stossel)

Environmental Impacts?
Water usage is another issue. Nuclear power advocates speak in eye-droppers, while opponents invoke billions and billions of gallons, so I don’t know what the facts are. I have heard credible sources say that nuclear power requires a lot of water. We had a plant in Northern Colorado, Fort St. Vrain, that was build specifically to save water, and it ended up a failure and was converted to a conventional natural gas plant.

Construction costs aside, here is what each form of energy is projected to cost in 2016:

Reason:  Veronique de Rugy

Nuclear beat Bio, Fossils beat Nuclear

This doesn't take nuclear power off the table, it just puts it in perspective.  It is a cheaper, more reliable alternative to wind and solar.  Still, natural gas beats it hands down, and the US has been described as the Saudi Arabia of natural gas, notwithstanding extraction problems.

Nuclear only really makes sense from an environmental standpoint as a replacement for coal-fired plants, which are being replaced anyway by natural gas.  Only around 1% of our energy is produced by petroleum, so nuclear does little to break our addiction to dictator-provided oil.

So nuclear stands between cheap efficient fossil fuels and green pipe dreams.

The Economic Solution? Keep using coal and natural gas to power the nation.  Drill for oil for our cars.  As the supply diminishes, the price will go up and other forms of energy become economically viable. Not because government apparatchiks manipulated price schedules, but because of the law of supply and demand. 

Once people start using these new technologies, the market, as it always does, will become a contest to see who can provide energy to the consumer for the cheapest price.

Such a strategy will not put us at a global economic disadvantage since other nations will be facing the same fossil fuel shortages and forced to go through the same conversions to alternatives.

The Environmental Solution says clean coal, nuclear, wind and solar.  Costs be damned.  As the technology advances, prices will go down, as is always the case in a free market.  But here's the wrinkle:  Prices cuts will only occur if government can refrain from worming its tentacles into every aspect of the green energy industry while simultaneously fending off the crony crapitalist rent-seekers.  Fat chance of that happening.

Wind, Solar and Nuclear can cut petroleum use only by the US embracing electric and natural gas powered vehicles.  And this saves us nothing, because these replacement energies are not free.

It's true, there really is no free lunch.  As Dr Thomas Sowell is fond of saying, there are not magic bullets, only trade-offs. 


Further Reading:
Stossel – What We Know that Just Aint So
Reason – The Truth about Nuclear Power