Government & Green Energy Debacle

[bhunter]

Originally Posted by barbara

Boreas
After some googleing, I found that at least 50% of small business fail in the first year and 95% in the first five years. Businesses with less than 20 employees have a 37% chance of surviving four years.

I'm guessing the failure rate for publicly funded businesses is not so different than the failure rate for privately funded businesses.

We all know that, but thanks for the numbers. Every one of those private businesses lost their own money and they chose where to invest it. Moreover, inadequate starting capital is the most common failure mode for small businesses. There never was, and never will be, a mechanism better than the market to allocate scarce resources. When private money will not invest, it is usually a good sign that there is something wrong with the purported investment.

Here's a quick summary of how those green "investments" are doing:
http://jeffreystedfast.blogspot.com/...-stimulus.html

Obviously, the government has other reasons for promoting one business over another, but that is not the purpose of government in a free market economy.

[barbara]

Originally Posted by bhunter

Not really. Private money is entirely different than government money. The point is that if these were good investments money would already be there without government's inept intervention and its concomitant spectre of cronyism.

There is no cronyism in the public sector!! How naive can you be!

And, While the public money is handled differently than private money, in the end, money is money.

I have owned several businesses and I have worked in the public sector managing your hard earned tax dollars.
In the past four years there has been far more scrutiny of gov spending than there has been in the previous decade.
(which has increased my job duties threefold while at the same time I have been forced to take a cut in pay due to the economy..... But.... At least I still have a job when many of my co workers were laid off)

[barbara]

Lol.... My bad..... I meant to feign surprise at the thought of there being no cronyism in the PRIVATE sector!!
Oh well..... Guess this gov worker's brain is a bit mushy this morning!

[finnbow]

While I agree with bhunter on whether or not the government should subsidize green energy companies, it's not as though it's the only industry sector being propped up by the government. The GOP seems pretty adept at showering money on Big Oil and the Military Industrial complex, while both parties shower untold millions in the direction of Big Agriculture.

In short, the parties largely choose to piss away money on their favored constituency. It has always been thus.

[bhunter]

Originally Posted by finnbow

While I agree with bhunter on whether or not the government should subsidize green energy companies, it's not as though it's the only industry sector being propped up by the government. The GOP seems pretty adept at showering money on Big Oil and the Military Industrial complex, while both parties shower untold millions in the direction of Big Agriculture.

In short, the parties largely choose to piss away money on their favored constituency. It has always been thus.

Yep, and I'm against all of those subsidies. The idiotic ethanol move is hurting most everyone.

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-dru...-little-better

[barbara]

Those private businesses lost their INVESTORS money. You know.... Banks and lending institutions.....


Didn't the gov have to bail out a few banks a while back?

[bhunter]

Originally Posted by barbara

Those private businesses lost their INVESTORS money. You know.... Banks and lending institutions.....


Didn't the gov have to bail out a few banks a while back?

Banks and government have had a special relationship. Arguably, if they weren't so intertwined, those banks ought to have fended for themselves. I can't find a justifiable reason why government ought support one entity just because it happens to be large and was poorly managed. Meaning that, if government and banks weren't proverbially joined at the hip, they ought to have perished or went through normal backruptcy.

[barbara]

Originally Posted by finnbow

While I agree with bhunter on whether or not the government should subsidize green energy companies, it's not as though it's the only industry sector being propped up by the government. The GOP seems pretty adept at showering money on Big Oil and the Military Industrial complex, while both parties shower untold millions in the direction of Big Agriculture.

In short, the parties largely choose to piss away money on their favored constituency. It has always been thus.

Very well stated!!

[Boreas]

For a little perspective here, the amount of money represented in the OP is about $10.25 billion. That's just a little less than the average daily expenditure of our government as a whole.

It also is worth noting that only around half of the companies listed are in bankruptcy. Some of them may emerge from the process strongly and the other half may never need to take similar actions.

John

[Bigerik]

Is all of it just gone tho? I thought Johnson Controls was buying out A123, for instance. Fisker need not fail. Technologies created by these companies still have value. "Fail" can be determined in many ways.