PJ Media’s Tom Blumer makes an interesting point about Hotcoldwetdry
Failure Deniers: Climate Change and Public-Sector Science
Tuesday afternoon, as I was reading Barack Obama’s Georgetown University speech on “climate change,â€Â it occurred to me that the biggest and perhaps most consequential difference between the government and the private sector is how each reacts when reality doesn’t behave as expected.
The public sector does not have a monopoly on people who become irrationally wedded to ideas and programs which have become outmoded, obsolete, redundant, or worthless. The difference is what happens to such people — and in some cases, their firms — in the private sector when they stubbornly stick to their guns.
At a private firm, if a new product or idea loses — or is on track to lose — serious amounts of money, or if a research project is going nowhere, it gets killed (see: the Ford Edsel, New Coke, Apple Newton). Those who fall in love with these flame-outs and blindly defend them even when the handwriting is on the wall get fired. If a bad product or idea isn’t terminated quickly enough, it has the potential to jeopardize entire companies, even large ones (see JCPenney’s three-tier pricing plan and HP’s 2011 Touchpad debacle).
But within government?
If a new idea or product is failing or initially seems destined to fail, bureaucrats, their corporate beneficiaries, and their cronies work to get them underwritten or subsidized. The fact that the government is even involved likely indicates that the private sector knows better than to touch it without putting taxpayers on the hook. This explains why the Obama administration has had losers like Solyndra, A123 Battery, Beacon Power, and so many others in its energy “loan†portfolio.
Heck of a point. The private sector on its own would abandon so many of these hotcoldwetdry projects in a heartbeat. However, when government is throwing money around, they’re more than happy to take the money. Most of the pro-AGW research and findings comes at the hands of government grants, not solely private sector cash (except for few that have deep pockets donors such as George Soros, who fails to practice what he preaches).
Make sure to read the whole thing.
Meanwhile, Obama is flogging his “climate change” announcement during this week’s Weekly Address, which is funny considering that he is in the midst of a massive fossil fueled trip to Africa, putting out more “carbon pollution” during this trip than some countries put out in a year. I’m not going to excerpt it, because there is simply just way too much stupidity.
Also, I hate defending Obama, but there’s a meme going around that he said not to vote for anyone who doesn’t believe in Hotcoldwetdry
President Barack Obama is trying to frame climate change as a make-or-break political issue, urging Americans to vote only for those who will protect the country from environmental harm.
I’m sure he feels that way, but that is NOT what he said during the Weekly Address, but simply wishful thinking, and, let’s face it, biased and shoddy journalism by the AP and Washington Post.
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The Chinese are thinking that solar power is going to be a big success. Solar will continue to drop in price and wind power will continue to drop in price. Fossil fuel’s price will continue to……….
No john, the Chinese see solar power as a huge boondoggle. That is why they are flooding the market with below cost solar panels. If they drive all other competition out of the market, then they can raise the price to whatever they want. People like you who don’t care about how much you hurt others will gladly pay for Chines solar panels made by people in an oppressive communist regime by people who make a buck a day.
You’ll then proclaim how much of a saint you are feeding into your delusions of grandeur.
This is the market reality that john likes to say is a good thing:
Large German companies such as Siemens and Bosch abandoned the solar industry, which had lost them billions, while investments in failed solar companies, including Q-Cells and SolarWorld, destroyed 21 billion euros of capital.
In response, German Chancellor Angela Merkel told a June energy conference in Berlin to expect reduced government spending on energy like wind and solar power to keep Germany economically competitive. Europe’s clean energy economy had become a black hole eating euros.
So let’s recap…..
Solar and wind cannot compete in the open market. The only way they do compete is with slave labor (China) or massive subsidies. At the same time while trying to artificially lower costs of so called “green energy,” (which isn’t lowering the cost at all,) Obama and others seek to artificially inflate the costs of other energy alternatives.
So tell us all john, if solar and wind are such great options, why can’t they compete in the open market?