December, 2021, Part 6, Political Class Insanity: Bankrupting The Country With Build Back Better, Solyndra Re Dux, and Please Don't Visit LA

It is the beginning of another month which means it is time again to review the latest political class insanity from the American political class. Each month it takes us multiple posts to cover the wasteful spending, incompetent government organizations and employees, government programs that usually make a problem worse than resolving it, inane and idiotic politician comments, etc.

To review past posts on this insanity and idiocy, just click on the first few posts in each month listed to the right of this page. After reviewing just a handful of these insanity posts we think you will agree that we are currently being served by the worst set of American politicians ever to hold office in our entire history.

1) Biden and other Democrats in Washington have made the ludicrous claim that Joe Biden’s outrageous and mostly useless “Build Back Better” legislation will not cost Americans any money. Yes, that has been the claim. Biden is going to bring all of these promised programs and improvements to Americans and it will not cost anything. Sounds like the type of idiocy we usually get from Ocasio-Cortez.

But the Congressional Budget Office (CB) has a different view:

• The CBO, a set of trained economists unlike Biden, says that the Build Back Better plan would increase the Federal deficit by $3 trillion over the next ten years.
• This assumes that the facets of Biden’s plan are made permanent.
• According to Senator John Cornyn: "If the temporary provisions of this bill are extended, and I fully expect them to be if our Democratic colleagues have the votes to do it, this legislation will cost a whole lot more than what the American people have been told."
• Even Democrat Senator, Joe Manchin, knows that Biden and others have been lying about this fiasco, accusing fellow Democrat Biden of "using “gimmicks” to downplay the legislation’s actual cost: "As more of the real details outlined in the basic framework are released, what I see are shell games and budget gimmicks that make the real cost of this so-called '$1.75 trillion' bill estimated to be twice as high if the programs are extended or made permanent."
• Fellow Democratic Senator, Kyrsten Sinema, is also against the sky high costs in the legislation.

As we have discussed so many times, the national debt in this country of the Federal government is over $30 trillion. The unfunded future liabilities of the Federal government is over $80 trillion. And yet Biden wants to add more trillions to the national debt and lie about it in the process. Insanity.

2) During the Obama administration, Obama made sure that big time Democratic donors and political allies in the alternative energy industry were rewarded with lucrative Federal contracts for alternative energy projects. Billions of dollars were haphazardly sent to Obama’s political friends and then were usually lost almost immediately, leaving the American taxpayer with additional debt and nothing to show for it.

Solyndra, A123, Fisker, and other companies are no longer around, having gone bankrupt or been bought out by other companies for pennies on the taxpayer dollar. And yet, despite the history of solar cronyism and expensive failures, apparently Biden has not learned anything from the disastrous Obama wasting of taxpayer wealth:

• First Solar is a tightly connected political ally and rich donor to Democrats, having gotten a $3 billion in taxpayer loan guarantee from the Obama administration.
• And despite getting nothing of value in that transaction, Biden’s administration is giving First Solar a half a billion Federal loan.
• And to make this transaction even more disgusting, the loan is to help First Solar to build a solar energy factory in India, not America, in India.
• The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation made the loan to First Solar.
• First Solar is owned by Walmart billionaire heir, Lukas Walton.
• Walton contributed over $300,000 to Biden’s 2020 Presidential campaign and $100,000 to the Democratic National Committee.Others think that this is possibly a highly unethical arrangement: "The United States International Development Finance Corporation, formerly known as OPIC, has a history of deals gone bad when mixing taxpayer dollars with politically connected entities like First Solar," said Tom Anderson, director of the Government Integrity Project at the National Legal and Policy Center. "This agency has a history of favoring entities backed by huge political contributors, like First Solar, by giving them less scrutiny while prioritizing politically connected projects above entities and individuals who are not politically active."
• Part of that history of bad deals happened in 2010 when it sped through a $10 million loan to a Hillary Clinton campaign donor while she was Secretary of State.
• The loan was supposed to fund a Haiti housing relief project but the donor put the $10 million in his own pocket, for which he was eventually sentenced to 12 years in prison, the Haiti housing project be damned.
• First Solar government/Obama windfall was granted even though its technology was deemed not “innovative,” a requirement for getting the loan.
• First Solar fired half of its employees within weeks of telling Congress the company was “financially strong.”
• First Solar settled a $350 million law suit in 2020 when it was sued by two English pension funds for lying to investors.

So let’s review: First Solar got taxpayer money from Obama for technology that was not innovative, to my knowledge never provided any technology that was innovative for the taxpayer dollars it received, fired half of its workforce after claiming in front of Congress it was in good financial shape, and got sued and paid out $350 million for lying to investors. And yet, Biden just gave them more taxpayer money to build a solar plant in India which would hire workers in India to spend American taxpayer dollars to build solar panels in India. Unreal.

3) We have always maintained that a very, very basic function of government is to protect the lives and property of the citizens it is responsible for. No matter what else politicians in a government entity accomplish, a failure to protect lives and property relegates other accomplishments moot.

The poster child for the failure of this basic government function is Chicago, as we have discussed far too many times over the years. Every year, hundreds of citizens are killed in the city from violent crime, thousands are injured, and many businesses are robbed, gutted, and put of business by violent criminals. And every year, the politicians in Chicago fail to come up with any solution to reduce the carnage.

But it is not only politicians in Chicago that cannot protect their citizens, Los Angeles is not a safe haven either:

• An LAPD detective recently gave advice to anyone who was planning on visiting his city in the near future.
• The simple advice: do not visit LA, the crime has gotten so bad that you would be taking your life in your hands if you came to his city.
• Specifically: "My advice to anybody considering coming to Los Angeles is 'Don't. We can't guarantee your safety. It is really, really out of control It's like that movie 'Purge' [sic]. Instead of 24 hours to commit your crime, these bad people have 365 days to commit whatever they want."
• Detective McBride blamed the LA crime wave on very bad and usually dumb decisions by liberal politicians including defuding the police, putting lenient and zero bail policies into effect, etc.

I don't think I ever heard a law enforcement officer encourage people to NOT come to their city because of the crime wave that is getting worse and worse every day. That is how bad mostly liberal cities have become, from LA to Portland, to Seattle to NYC and, of course, the violence capital of the country, Chicago.

Details of his position can be accessed at the following link:

https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/lapd-warns-people-visit?fbclid=IwAR3P4IGQCoqzhFH0KtT23BG4B1PfVg2-mG9up4jq-K56WfY3MrlLed6V_SY

That will do it for today: expensive cronyism still exists as Biden gives away millions of taxpayer dollars, violence and crime are rampaging across the country, and Washington continues to bankrupt the country with outlandish and stupid deficit spending.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

https://www.amazon.com/Love-My-Country-Loathe-Government/dp/1604942789/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=love+my+country%2C+loathe+my+government&qid=1607716020&sr=8-1

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.reason.com

http://www.cato.org

http://www.openthebooks.com

http://www.conventionofstates.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

 

 

More Obama Solar Failures and Some Simple Solar Math

Yesterday, we reviewed some of the mega disasters that Obama’s crony capitalism has dumped on the American taxpayer when it comes to alternative energy and alternative vehicle companies. Most, if not all, of his financed alternative energy “bets” have either gone bankrupt, are going bankrupt, or in a stall mode. None of them have produced anything of any promise, all at a cost of billions and billions of dollars.

While Solyndra was the poster child for this wasting of taxpayer wealth, yesterday we focused on the latest two disasters, Abound Solar and Compact Power. Abound Solar filed for bankruptcy after it was found out that its solar panels underperformed in the real world vs. what Abound promised and had the annoying little habit of catching on fire due to a design flaw, causing what ever structure it was attached to also catch on fire.

The worst part is that the company knew about the design flaw before it applied for and was granted a loan guarantee by the Obama administration, indicating that either the company, the Energy Department or both are culpable for wasting $70 million taxpayer dollars.

Compact Power doubled down on the waste, losing about $150 million of taxpayer wealth. Compact was supposed to be turning out thousands and thousands of car batteries for electric cars by now. Unfortunately, after receiving their $150 million gift from the American taxpayer, the company’s factory has turned out exactly no batteries. And for the foreseeable future, it will not be producing any batteries for a myriad of reasons. However, the $150 million is unlikely to ever be repaid.

Today, we will review some more Obama administration failed alternative energy escapades, as if there are any other kind besides "failed." In the process, we will have some fun with some whimsical yet simple math calculations to show how much better our billions of dollars could have been spent using existing technology that would have reduced energy consumption and our carbon footprint, not wasted billions of dollars for nothing in return.

The latest example of such mutual funding of each other is the company Congentrix. Congentrix is an energy producer which received $90 million from the American taxpayer via the Energy Department. It turns out that Congentrix just happens to be a wholly owned subsidiary of the mega bank, Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs makes tens of billions of dollars of profits every year; if Congentrix was such a great idea it should have funded it itself. The fact that Goldman Sachs and its top managers have been heavy contributors to Obama’s election campaigns should come as no surprise.

Another potential solar company failure, NRG, was documented in an article from the November, 2012 issue of Reason magazine, written by Veronique de Rugy and titled, “The Constancy Of Crony Capitalism.” If NRG goes bankrupt like most other Obama administration efforts, it will not be because it did not have enough upfront government money. Ms. De Rugy cites a New York Times investigative report as her source:

• Before getting to the NRG situation, the article reviews the billions of dollars already spent and wasted.
• The Energy Department has already handed out $16 billion of taxpayer wealth to 26 companies, many of which have already failed like Solyndra.
• NRG received a Federal loan guarantee of $1.2 billion to build a “solar ranch” in California.
• The interest rate is 50% lower than what the company could have gotten if they had to get the $1.2 billion on their own. Thus, not only has the American taxpayer guaranteeing the loan, they are allowing NRG to pay back the loan, if ever, at an unrealistically low interest rate.
• That low rate will save the company about $205 million over the life of the loan which inversely costs the American taxpayer an additional $205 in finance costs.
• But it gets better since this is the most recent loan guarantee. The company had previously received Federal loan guarantees totally $2.6 billion.
• The article reminds readers that when the Feds back a project such as NRG, it makes the effort more attractive to private investors, further reducing NRG’s financing costs and making it more financially competitive vs. its competitors. Thus, this government meddling unfairly distorts the marketplace and its competitors' relative positions.
• But it gets even better. NRG has already received more than three dozen money grants form the 2009 economic stimulus program that wasted over $800 billion of taxpayer wealth. Note that these were outright grants, not loans or loan guarantees, they get to keep the money without any conditions.
• Still more, according to the article. The company will receive a cash payment worth over $400 million from the Federal government if and when the solar ranch is up and working.
• But all of this money is not just from Federal taxpayers. NRG does not have to pay property taxes on the land in California where the solar ranch will be located, saving the company about $14 million a year.
• And finally, California state tax law offers depreciation tax breaks for renewable energy efforts, breaks that reduce the company’s state income tax levels by $110 million.

Unbelievable, taxpayer money at the Federal and state level getting thrown around for a project that does not yet exist, may never exist, and may never live up to its expectations and promises. If it has the same track record as other Obama alternative energy projects, we can probably kiss that $1.2 billion good bye.

But that article goes on to review another solar energy disaster, First Solar:

• First Solar received a $646 million loan in 2011 through its partner, Exelon, and than got another Federal loan guarantee of $547.7 million to subsidize the sale of its solar panels to commercial solar farms.
• Recently the Washington examiner reported that another Federal government program, the Ex-Im Bank (Export-Import Bank), gave a Canadian company, St. Clair Solar, $192.9 million in a loan to purchase solar energy from solar facilities.
• Not only is giving a Canadian company $192.9 million loan a disgrace relative to American taxpayers, but it just so happens that St.Clair Solar is a wholly owned subsidiary of…. First Solar.
• Thus, the Federal government is funding a solar energy generator company to sell solar generated energy to a Canadian company which is a solar energy user but which also received a Federal government loan which is really the same company that is selling the solar energy.
• In essence, the American taxpayer is funding a company to sell its product, solar energy, to itself. Only the political class could come up with such an inane process and waste.

Oh, we are on a roll. But let’s leave the other solar energy scandals for tomorrow. Let’s do some simple math. The article reports that the Obama administration has already wasted $16 billion on alternative energy companies that have produced no societal benefit in return. If we add in the additional $1 billion or so that the administration has thrown at alternative vehicle companies, Telsa and Fisker, companies that may eventually produce electric cars that the vast majority of Americans will never be able to afford, we end up with a total waste of $17 billion.

Using an experiment that was conducted by the PBS television show Nova, related to making an American home energy independent using solar energy, we have previously shown that it would cost a homeowner about $50,000 to make his or her home solar energy proficient. This experiment used existing solar technology so it does not require a hope and a prayer that shaky companies like Solyndra and the others might eventually, down the road, deliver cost efficient power.

Simple math. If the $17 billion had been used to put solar panels on American homes, the Federal government would have already had 340,000 homes energy independent, powered totally by solar energy. This would have been 340,000 more homes that are likely to get solar independence via the Obama administration’s efforts. This would have made almost 20% of Arizona’s detached single family homes energy independent. Certainly a better record than what the Energy Department has.

Some more math. Let’s get a little more conservative and not make the entire home energy independent. Rather than extensive solar panels, let’s just try to make some American homes' hot water needs more energy independent. According to a Consumer Reports investigation several years ago, they estimated that home hot water heaters use up about 30% of a home’s energy needs.

What if we eliminated this use of energy by replacing traditional home hot water heaters with tankless water heaters. These heaters flash heat water on demand, eliminating the need to use a steady load of energy to keep a large tank of water at a high constant temperature. The Consumer Reports investigation found that the typical installation of such an energy saving device would cost about $1,200 on average.

Thus, if we if we do some simple tankless water heater math we find that we could retrofit over 14 million American homes with these heaters. These heaters, according to Consumer Reports, reduce a home’s energy needs by 22%. Thus, this approach shows that if we had redirected Obama’s solar energy and auto giveaways into this already proven technology, 14 million homes would have reduced their energy consumption by almost 7% (22% efficient reduction times 30% of a home’s energy needs).

340,000 homes via solar retrofits or 14 million homes via tankless water heaters, so much better options than giving political cronies and political fund raisers free taxpayer money for shaky alternative energy projects. It is that simple. Unfortunately, it is too complex for the political class and this administration to understand.

Tomorrow we will review more solar energy busts that the Obama administration has failed to do it due diligence on, a failure that continues to cost American taxpayers millions of dollars.

We invite all readers of this blog to visit our new website, "The United States Of Purple," at:

http://www.unitedstatesofpurple.com/

The United States of Purple is a new grass roots approach to filling the office of President of The United States by focusing on the restoration of freedom in the United States, focusing on problem solving skills and results vs. personal political enrichment, and imposing term limits on all future Federal politicians. No more red states, no more blue states, just one United States Of America under the banner of Purple.

The United States Of Purple's website also provides you the formal opportunity to sign a petition to begin the process of implementing a Constitutional amendment to impose fixed term limits on all Federally elected politicians. Only by turning out the existing political class can we have a chance of addressing and finally resolving the major issues of our times.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedomfor both yourselves and others everyday.
Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment