Adventures in Venture Capitalism

It’s been known for a while that green-energy is suspect and has serious issues.  Yet our fearless leader has shoved more money at failed projects that most could comprehend.  If this man ran a venture capitalist firm his clients would have left long ago because he was driving them to be broke.

What exactly am I talking about, well here’s a list of companies that have failed that received funding from Obama.

  1. Evergreen Solar ($24 million)*
  2. SpectraWatt ($500,000)*
  3. Solyndra ($535 million)*
  4. Beacon Power ($69 million)*
  5. AES’s subsidiary Eastern Energy ($17.1 million)
  6. Nevada Geothermal ($98.5 million)
  7. SunPower ($1.5 billion)
  8. First Solar ($1.46 billion)
  9. Babcock and Brown ($178 million)
  10. EnerDel’s subsidiary Ener1 ($118.5 million)*
  11. Amonix ($5.9 million)
  12. National Renewable Energy Lab ($200 million)
  13. Fisker Automotive ($528 million)
  14. Abound Solar ($374 million)*
  15. A123 Systems ($279 million)*
  16. Willard and Kelsey Solar Group ($6 million)
  17. Johnson Controls ($299 million)
  18. Schneider Electric ($86 million)
  19. Brightsource ($1.6 billion)
  20. ECOtality ($126.2 million)
  21. Raser Technologies ($33 million)*
  22. Energy Conversion Devices ($13.3 million)*
  23. Mountain Plaza, Inc. ($2 million)*
  24. Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsen’s Mills Acquisition Company ($10 million)*
  25. Range Fuels ($80 million)*
  26. Thompson River Power ($6.4 million)*
  27. Stirling Energy Systems ($7 million)*
  28. LSP Energy ($2.1 billion)*
  29. UniSolar ($100 million)*
  30. Azure Dynamics ($120 million)*
  31. GreenVolts ($500,000)
  32. Vestas ($50 million)
  33. LG Chem’s subsidiary Compact Power ($150 million)
  34. Nordic Windpower ($16 million)*
  35. Navistar ($10 million)
  36. Satcon ($3 million)*

*Denotes companies that have filed for bankruptcy.

Total waste?  $8.108 Billion dollars.  Yes that’s billion with a B.  People keep insisting that to fix the budget problem we need to make massive cuts to the big pieces of the pie.  What people don’t seem to understand is that the biggest pieces are all the small tiny pieces added together.

Look at all that money that’s been wasted.  Debt that has now been laid upon our children and working class.  For what?  So that some donors to the Obama administration can go buy a new vacation house?  So that some leftist can feel good about his view on the environment and forcing others to pay for his moral views?

Seriously, why is anyone even thinking about continuing to vote for a man who so willingly and blatantly has been robbing the American public blind.  Not only is he robbing them but selling your children into slavery.  There is no such thing as a free lunch yet everyone seems to think they’re getting one.

That stimulus so heavily lobbied for has $80 billion in politically tied energy projects.  Yet we see how those projects actually worked, not to mention how it actually delayed existing projects.  Over 1900 investigations have begun to look into waste, further costs to the American tax payer.

To put this into even greater perspective, 10% of the funding for energy projects provided by the stimulus is nothing but waste.  That’s to a cost $25.82 per every man, woman and child, just in waste.  If you just count the tax payers, it’s an extra $70.81 in cost.  If you don’t believe me, do the math yourself.  Here’s where I got the numbers for population and taxpayers.  To take it further we have another 6 trillion in debt overall, that comes out to be another $51,000 dollars for every man, woman, and child.  The overall debt burden in this country is enough for most people to buy a house, again, every man, woman, and child, even babies.

Lets look at the issue in another way focusing on spending during 2012 overall:

Under Obama, for every $7 we’ve had, we’ve spent nearly $11 (or, to be more exact, $10.95).  That’s like a family that makes $70,000 a year — and is already knee-deep in debt — blowing nearly $110,000 a year.

Joe also put it really well a while ago before we ended up even further in this hole:

If your family income were $50,000 then:

Now that has brought the spending problem into a better perspective, let me ask, why is the out of control spending and economy not at the fore front of the presidential race?  I hope all of you who continue to not see a problem with this reckless spending and endless growth of government are happy selling your soul and children’s soul into slavery.  Because you honestly have no business writing checks your ass can’t cash and putting your kids name or my name on it.  Period.

NRA and this Election

I got an email this afternoon from Stephanie at the NRA, who I had the pleasure of meeting at GBR.  The NRA has created two ads geared towards this election, specifically in-light of recent statements made by Obama during the debate as well as on his website.

This is serious folks and the fact that Heller hinged on one vote in the Supreme Court is serious.  That man wants nothing more than to disarm the American public at this point.  Many look at Romney and say he’s a gun banner just the same as Obama.  Except when you start really digging past the myths to the truth, that’s not entirely true.

Roberta was right, we are not going to reverse the slope.  We can slow it down though, and even more than that, we need to protect the tools necessary to survive when the time comes we finally discover the edge of the fiscal cliff, more specifically the bottom.

The bottom line is we must protect our natural rights from any who would assault them. Think long and hard before you vote this year.  I am one who always wants to vote what I feel is right, however sometimes you must make a tactical decision to cede ground in one place to take ground in another.

Quote of the Day – Barack Obama(10/17/2012)

“What I’m trying to do is to get a broader conversation about how do we reduce the violence generally, part of it is seeing if we can get an assault weapons ban reintroduced.”

Barack Obama – Presidential Debate
October 16th, 2012


[All of you who kept telling me that Obama wasn’t coming for my guns, shut the hell up.  That statement above makes it clear as day that we have a problem.  We have gone down this road before and it did not do anything to solve the problems it was claimed to solve.  What it did do was prevent thousands of Americans from getting effective defensive arms.  Any individual who supports a law like that is not looking out for the best for anyone.

It is becoming obvious to even those who wish to keep their heads in the sand that this man is the enemy of freedom we all thought he was.  Looks like I will be investing in more firearms and ammunition right quick.

Updated to add: I forgot that about a week ago I did this post, which quotes right off of Obama’s campaign website.  His site stated the following:

Address Gun Violence in Cities: Obama and Biden would repeal the Tiahrt Amendment, which restricts the ability of local law enforcement to access important gun trace information, and give police officers across the nation the tools they need to solve gun crimes and fight the illegal arms trade. Obama and Biden also favor commonsense measures that respect the Second Amendment rights of gun owners, while keeping guns away from children and from criminals. They support closing the gun show loophole and making guns in this country childproof. They also support making the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent.

 

Screenshot of the site can be seen here.  The fact remains that this man has no qualms about outlawing the most popular rifle in America and we also know it is a slippery slope to other restrictions.  We learned our lesson and it must be said, “Never Again!” -B ]

You Keep Using That Word…

You keep using those words and I don’t think they mean what you think they mean….

It’s amazing the number of people who just shrug this behavior off and claim it as acceptable.

h/t Kevin

A Compare and Contrast Exercise…

Let’s compare and contrast the following two people, what they did, and the reactions by the American Media.

GonzalesVSHolder

For those who don’t recognize the pictures, on the left we have former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, on the right we have Attorney General Eric Holder.

The significant similarities necessary for this discussion:

  • Both are tied to the highest position within the Department of Justice.
  • Both committed questionable acts while in that position.
  • Both were disliked by large parts of the American people for their actions.
  • Both acted in a manner with the express intent of undermining and destroying enumerated rights.

Differences:

  • Eric Holder’s decisions resulted in the deaths of both American and Mexican civilians.
  • Eric Holder refused to process cases where the American public was intimidated from exercising their rights.
  • Alberto Gonzales was forced to resign while Holder continues to retain his position.
  • Eric Holder was found in contempt of congress.  Eric Holder has not been arrested despite the ability for congress to do so.
  • The Congressional “no-confidence” vote against Gonzales did not succeed.
  • Alberto Gonzales was appointed by President George Bush.
  • Eric Holder was appointed by President Barack Obama.

For those who may not remember the details.  Here is the quick rundown of the two big scandals under Holder.

The details you more likely need a reminder of is the incidents involving Alberto Gonzales

So while the comments and behavior of Gonzales was despicable and worthy of question, why has AG Holder been allowed to remain?  There is a man responsible for creating programs with the express purpose of illegally undermining a constitutional right.  Programs that resulted in the deaths of members of the public.  A man who has been found in contempt of congress, yet no one seems to have the balls to actually fire him.

Ultimately the biggest difference between these two is the men who were responsible for appointing them.  Because honestly that’s the only reason Eric Holder has been able to continue in his position.  Remember that the next time some tells you about how the media isn’t biased.

Socialism First Hand, A Warning

Now, with his comments about taking away the incentives for success and people losing interest in working hard in mind.  Lets look at another video:

Think about this for a second.  They’re penalizing success and there are large groups of people who instead of working live off of entitlements from the government.  As RobertaX said, we cannot reverse the slope, but we can at least change it to give us some time.  Given time we might be able to reverse it.

The ACA is going to have some serious repercussions that many probably don’t even realize.  Especially in large parts of the voter base that is most likely to support Obama. What am I talking about?  College internships are liable to get screwed.

There is no way a company is going to bother paying for benefits for an intern, doubly so since usually they are on school or their parents healthcare.  So now when you’re working 40 hour weeks in the summer they’ll have to provide care of face a fine.  Well instead they’ll limit you to 29 hour work weeks.

This is significant because during the summer I regularly worked 40+ hour weeks to pull overtime to save up for my upcoming semesters.  Now instead students will have to incur more debt because they will be prevented from earning money to pay for school.  Wait, who is it that subsidizes most of the loans, which are exempt from most laws governing debt, that’s right the government.

That’s right folks, the government passed legislation that will force more people to take loans and pay them interest.  Nice huh?  Don’t worry though, they’re from the government and they’re here to help…

Ultimately though Bill Whittle nails it with this one:

The money quote:

The left has these same failed ideas from about a 20 year window at the end of the 19th century.  That have never worked, don’t work now, and will never work.  And this clinging to an ossified discredited model based on envy and resentment has killed no less than 100 million people.  And many people call this progressive as they cover themselves in glory, but not in the blood or the failure.

It may be the recent history of the 20th century, however I think it’s certainly in the current path of the future for the United States.

Not a Friend to Gun Rights…

We’ve said this for a while but every once in a while someone bats for Obama saying how he hasn’t done anything against gun rights, much less said he would do anything to infringe on the Second Amendment.   Still think Obama is all sunshine and unicorn farts when it comes to the Second Amendment?

Well, a serious hat tip to Dave Hardy on this one, here it is right out of the horse’s mouth.

Address Gun Violence in Cities: Obama and Biden would repeal the Tiahrt Amendment, which restricts the ability of local law enforcement to access important gun trace information, and give police officers across the nation the tools they need to solve gun crimes and fight the illegal arms trade. Obama and Biden also favor commonsense measures that respect the Second Amendment rights of gun owners, while keeping guns away from children and from criminals. They support closing the gun show loophole and making guns in this country childproof. They also support making the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent.

(Emphasis mine.)  And just to make sure it doesn’t go down the memory hole, here’s a screen shot of the entire page as of 1330 PDT October 10th, 2012.

Remember these facts when going to the polls or talking with others.  He is not a supporter of the Second Amendment and if he had his way personal ownership of firearms would be outlawed tomorrow.

Lets not even get started on the Fast and Furious debacle either.  As always, vote out the incumbents.

You Too Can Have Your Own Desolate Wasteland

In the Fallout game series the premise was nuclear war has rendered most urban zones a total wasteland.  Well, there’s another simpler method to create those urban wastelands.  There’s already one wasteland that exists right here in the US in fact.

Don’t believe me that Detroit is like a waste land, lets look at a picture from Detroit and Chernobyl:

And now for another picture:

Now which one is which folks?  Which picture was taken where?  One was taken in a disaster zone caused by failed socialist policies, the other was taken in a nuclear disaster zone.

Ready?  The first is from Detroit  the second is from Chernobyl.

This is what socialism brings to the people, a wasteland devoid of prosperity and growth.  Remember it the next time someone tells you government is the solution to the problem.

H/T to Kevin on the video.