Would Leftists Invest Their Own Money in a “Green New Deal?”
Jonathon Moseley
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Would you invest your own money in the “Green New Deal” as a good investment for the future? Or will leftists only put at risk other people’s money through taxpayer funds? Confront candidates for office and office-holders with whether they would sink their own money into this project. Send their answers to Big League Politics.
The “Green New Deal” has been recently popularized primarily by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-Venezuela) — while overshadowing many other Democrat Members of Congress standing right beside her.
Even as snow fell in Los Angeles this year, and many cities experienced record — not just cold, but record — cold temperatures and record — record — snowfalls this Winter, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez argues that it doesn’t matter if we spend trillions of dollars because we all be dead in 12 years — down to 11 3/4 years now, and counting down.
Big League Politics also chronicles how the “experts” told us that it would be “too late” to stop runaway global warming if we didn’t return human society to the 15th century by 1999. Then we had to act by 2016 or it would be too late. Now, magically, there is still time but only 12 years. In other words, it is never too late to embrace radical socialism and dismantle the modern world.
Senator Kamala Harris (D-California) recently dismissed the impossible cost of the “Green New Deal” (which would include refurbishing every building anywhere in the United States). The leading Democrat presidential candidate answered: R.O.I. ! The trillions of dollars required don’t matter because of the Return on Investment (R.O.I.).
In other words (this author earned an undergraduate business degree majoring in Finance), the “Green New Deal” will turn a profit. Sen. Harris thinks that the United States will earn back in new jobs, savings, and exports of green products more than the costs of the “Green New Deal.”
Of course, this is all just a rehash of President Barack Hussein Obama’s “Green Economy” ideas. This was the Obama’s drum beat, picked up by Hillary’s campaign. If we strangle the economy with regulations and spend tons of money on unproven technologies, we will usher in a utopia of high-paying jobs and we will take a leadership role in the world economy with high-paying, high-tech jobs.
The spectacular failure of Obama’s and Hillary Clinton’s “Green Jobs” and “Green Economy” ideas never seems to dawn on Democrats or the media. The collapse of some of the more prominent companies funded by President Obama’s “Green Economy” federal loan program cost the U.S. taxpayers $2.2 billion, plus massive State-level investments and subsidies.
The flagship of Obama’s “Green Economy” and “Green Jobs” was SOLYNDRA. “Green Economy” company Solyndra went bankrupt, costing the U.S. taxpayer $528 million out of a $535 million loan guarantee or are struggling to avoid bankruptcy. Note that the point here is not whether some companies struggle. But where is the strong demand for a green economy?
Even Tesla motors (Elon Musk’s electric car company) may fail after 15 years of persistent losses. Tesla won $280 million in federal subsidies last year alone. “Tesla has received $1.3 billion of tax incentives from the State of Nevada for its battery Giga-Factory and $750 million in grants from the State of New York for its solar factory. Forty-two states also offer cash incentives including a high of $5,000 in Colorado and $2,500 in California. But subsidies in 10 states are set to expire on April 1, 2019.”
Some of the green-energy companies that already went bankrupt or are teetering on the edge of insolvency, and the amount of U.S. government money at risk, is is:
Evergreen Solar ($25 million)
SpectraWatt ($500,000)
Beacon Power ($43 million)
Nevada Geothermal Power ($98.5 million)
SunPower ($1.2 billion)
First Solar ($1.46 billion)
EnerDel’s Li-On battery subsidiary Ener1 ($118.5 million)
Amonix ($5.9 million)
Fisker Automotive ($529 million, including Delaware State funds)
Abound Solar ($400 million)
A123 Systems ($279 million)
Willard and Kelsey Solar Group ($700,981 plus losses of Ohio state funds)
Brightsource (struggling after cancellation of IPO) ($1.6 billion)
ECOtality (attempting to re-organize out of bankruptcy) ($126.2 million)
Raser Technologies ($33 million)
Mountain Plaza, Inc. ($2 million)
Range Fuels ($80 million)
Thompson River Power ($6.5 million)
Stirling Energy Systems ($7 million)
Azure Dynamics ($5.4 million)
GreenVolts ($500,000)
Nordic Windpower ($16 million)
Navistar (purchased out of bankruptcy by Volkswagen ($39 million)
Satcon ($3 million)
Konarka Technologies Inc. ($20 million)
Mascoma Corp. (renamed and re-organized with new investors) ($100 million)
The size of those U.S. Treasury investments is small compared to the new utopian dreams. But if “Green Jobs” and a “Green Economy” were a good investment and prospect for our economy, offering R.O.I., why aren’t all of these businesses thriving? Why are all of these companies failing?
The new plan, which is just the old plan in new packaging, is a vague set of aspirational platitudes, certainly not a plan. The “Green New Deal” resembles the speeches traditionally given by beauty pageant contestants. (Never make the mistake of assuming that a beautiful women isn’t smart. The goal of beauty pageant speeches was to offend no one and sound profound, while pleasing the crowd with good feelings. That is, say nothing while sounding good.)
So should you invest your own your savings in the “Green New Deal?” It’s going to make a lot of profit, according to Sen. Harris. Will leading Democrats in Congress — who seem to get incredibly rich while serving on modest salaries — invest their own large life’s savings in this amazingly profitable opportunity?
If there were such a strong “R.O.I.” on the trillions of dollars that Sen. Kamala Harris and AOC want to spend on their “Green New Deal,” why are so many of these companies failing? Is there a strong demand for clean energy products and services — enough to justify risking trillions of dollars of taxpayer funds?
(The “Green New Deal” reminds this author of my brother’s favorite business joke: Businessman #1: “But we’re losing money on each unit we sell.” Businessman #2: “Don’t worry. We’ll make it up in volume.”)
We must ignore for this exercise the certainty that China would simply steal all of our inventions, use slave labor to produce the same products at lower cost, and drive U.S. innovators out of business.
In France, attempts to impose a “Green Economy” on France has produced a Second French Revolution of “yellow jacket” protestors which could topple the French government, so severe is the backlash. The protesters — who are marching and rioting every single weekend for the last 15 weeks at least — are wearing automobile emergency fluorescent jackets because French President Macron’s plan to fight climate change includes dramatic increases in the taxes on gasoline. The cost of driving their cars is threatening to bankrupt the working class. So they are wearing the yellow jackets that French law requires every driver to have in their car to protest the costs of buying gasoline for their cars.
These massive protests are a direct rejection of left-wing plans to fight climate change. The prospects of forcing a “Green New Deal” on U.S. society are even dimmer here in the New World. The plans that AOC is banking on and Democrat presidential candidates are running on could topple the French government.
It starts to become more and more unclear why this is a “Green New Deal” as we also wonder about Obama’s “Green Economy” ideas. Does green refer to the “green” rookies who lack knowledge and experience like AOC?
Does green refer to the socialist green envy of those unwilling work for those who accomplish things by hard work? Or does the green refers to the color of U.S. money that the advocates hope to bilk out of the unsuspecting with their alarmist con game?
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