Politics and the US Economy

[RightField]

Money doesn't always find good ideas and initiatives for starters. That's just BS that you've been told. It's not that it's impossible it's that it's unlikely to start in a garage and grow to be something that is going to become a huge company.

It takes money to make money. Hell right now the Right is fighting to make sure that your money can keep making money faster than you can earn it because work is what stupid people do.

Venture capital funding is always looking for the next great thing. If you have a truly good idea for a company or a product with a good business plan, venture capitalists and investment banks will throw money at you. Some turn out good and some turn out bad, but it has to be a compelling concept to get the funding.

You can put a business plan together at your kitchen table without any investment other than a typewriter or a computer. You just have to make it compelling and believable.

The best part about it is that it's voluntary investment money that they'll give you, not federal funding that was taken from another citizen through taxation. If the money is lost or squandered, the only people who will be hurt are the investors who acknowledged the risks before they voluntarily parted with their money.

 

[RightField]

No, Republicans wanted an imaginary bill that never existed. But since we're talking about what actually passed and not fantasy land, you have no point at all.

You're a fool who is spoiling for a fight and not interested in the truth whatsoever as evidenced by this sentence above. I think I'll ignore you on this also.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

You're a fool who is spoiling for a fight and not interested in the truth whatsoever as evidenced by this sentence above. I think I'll ignore you on this also.

Mercury is lying.

It is not a bill. Demand he give you the HR number.

Democrats know that Obama's PLAN is a political, not an economic plan that will go down to defeat.

Dick Morris is contending that if things do not drastically change by January that Harry Reid will be forced to go to Obama and request that he pull an LBJ in a last-gasp attempt at keeping the Senate in Democrat control...

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Venture capital funding is always looking for the next great thing. If you have a truly good idea for a company or a product with a good business plan, venture capitalists and investment banks will throw money at you. Some turn out good and some turn out bad, but it has to be a compelling concept to get the funding.

You can put a business plan together at your kitchen table without any investment other than a typewriter or a computer. You just have to make it compelling and believable.

The best part about it is that it's voluntary investment money that they'll give you, not federal funding that was taken from another citizen through taxation. If the money is lost or squandered, the only people who will be hurt are the investors who acknowledged the risks before they voluntarily parted with their money.

Meanwhile, out government continues to dump money into the pipe dream that sunk Spain putting the plural into €PIIGS...
__________________
... under the name of the state the citizens taken collectively are considered as a real being, having its own life, its own wealth, independently of the lives and the wealth of the citizens themselves; and then each addresses this fictitious being, some to obtain from it education, others employment, others credit, others food, etc., etc. Now the state can give nothing to the citizens that it has not first taken from them.
Frédéric Bastiat

 

[RobDownSouth]

You're a fool who is spoiling for a fight and not interested in the truth whatsoever as evidenced by this sentence above. I think I'll ignore you on this also.

You're the one seemingly unable (or unwilling) to comprehend the concept of "sunset provisions" in legislation and that somehow makes Mercury a fool?

 

[RightField]

Hey, big spender
When it comes to budget cuts, Congress is just a tease
By Emily Miller
The Washington Times
Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Illustration: Washington spending cuts by Linas Garsys for The Washington Times

At the stroke of midnight Friday, the fiscal year ends. When the final numbers are in, the government will have grown larger. Despite politicians spouting off about tough cuts, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reported federal outlays have gone up by $118 billion through August. America is barreling over the cliff into bankruptcy, but Washington isn’t willing to stop the train.

The same political games drove the debate over the Continuing Resolution (CR) this week. It funds the government until Nov. 18 at the topline levels from the debt deal that earned the United States a credit-rating downgrade, rather than the $19 billion lower target in the House-passed budget crafted by Rep. Paul Ryan, Wisconsin Republican.

Led by Rep. Jeff Flake, Arizona Republican, 48 conservatives voted down the first attempt at a CR. Leaders came back with the fig leaf $100 million offset from a scandal-plagued “green” program to boost short-term disaster funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

The revised CR passed with 24 conservatives, including Rep. Tim Huelskamp, dissenting. “I said ‘no’ because a projected $973 billion deficit for next year is not good enough,” the Kansas freshman told The Washington Times. “This Continuing Resolution falls short of making good on the promises House Republicans offered in the Pledge to America and sticking to the budget principles we affirmed in the Path to Prosperity.”

By the time the CR came up for a vote in the Senate, FEMA found $100 million under the sofa cushions, and the bill passed without the offset. The House is expected to get it to the president’s desk in time to avert the shutdown threat. After seven similar battles in the last 10 months, nothing has changed.

Cowed by fears of being called partisan, Republican leaders returned from August recess forswearing conflict through the 2012 election. Senate Democrats don’t even pretend to deal with fiscal issues. They haven’t put out a budget since April 2009 and didn’t pass a single appropriations bill for 2012. To its credit, the House passed a budget and six funding bills, but a strong reform budget doesn’t do much good if it’s not enforced.

The time has come to break the endless cycle of ever bigger government by using honest numbers. Both Republicans and Democrats play by the rules of appropriators who conjure up budget “cuts” that refer to reductions in the size of expected increases. CBO uses these phony, projected spending levels with built-in increases for inflation as a baseline. Government will never shrink so long as this is the case.

That’s why the Republican Study Committee in the House has been pushing “zero baseline budgeting” that eliminates the assumption that every government program gets to play with more money every year. It’s a simple budgetary change that would force lawmakers to justify every dime of spending again each year.

Gimmicks and disingenuous talking points have left this country with a crushing $14.7 trillion debt. Forcing reality into the public discourse is the only cure to Washington’s big-spending habit.

Emily Miller is a senior editor for the Opinion pages at The Washington Times.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

The magic of baseline budgeting...

We need zero-based budgeting, but that would hold both Parties accountable and Democrats only want to hold Republicans to account in a double-dawg dare strategy that they think will win them power because Bush spends too much...



... and the first cut creates cries of, YOU WANT TO STARVE GRANDMA and CHILDREN!

WHY DO YOU HATE MINORITIES!!!​

Just raise taxes dummy! All we need is more revenue and there are still rich people, so we can't be taking too much and the proof is in the shrinking middle-class and poverty rates...

The rich are just fucking thieves stealing from them!

 

[JohnnySavage]

When Congress talks about cutting the budget, what they are really talking about is cutting the growth of the budget.

If today's budget is $100 and it is projected to be $150 next year, only in Congress can they authorize next year's budget at $125 and say they cut $25.

 

[Sean Renaud]

Venture capital funding is always looking for the next great thing. If you have a truly good idea for a company or a product with a good business plan, venture capitalists and investment banks will throw money at you. Some turn out good and some turn out bad, but it has to be a compelling concept to get the funding.

You can put a business plan together at your kitchen table without any investment other than a typewriter or a computer. You just have to make it compelling and believable.

The best part about it is that it's voluntary investment money that they'll give you, not federal funding that was taken from another citizen through taxation. If the money is lost or squandered, the only people who will be hurt are the investors who acknowledged the risks before they voluntarily parted with their money.

Sure, keep buying into that fairy tale if you like. Plenty of truly horrible plans get funded and plenty of good ones don't. If your fantasy was true then we'd have gotten out of this recession a year or more ago unless your claiming that nobody has had a good idea in the last three four years.

 

[MeeMie]

Warren and Barack’s Gift to America

One of the more sickening aspects of the ongoing budget debate has been the griping of millionaires and billionaires that they’re not paying enough taxes. As if they can’t fork over more because Treasury won’t take their check.

One in particular, Warren Buffett, says he pays taxes at a lower rate than his secretary. This has become a cherished anecdote for President Obama, which the president uses to make his pitch for soaking the rich some more.

And it has led to the egregious and misnamed “Buffet Rule,” which is actually the “Buffet tax.”

Under the Buffett tax, people making $1 million or more a year would have to pay taxes at the same rate or more as those in the middle class.

Now, as you might expect, this would put a significant dent in our federal deficit.

If by “dent” you mean ERASABLE PAINT SCRATCH.

That this is a political stunt and class warfare at its finest is evident from a piece in the New York Times – no foe of Obama’s – which states that the Buffett tax will collect about $13 billion over ten years.

The Obama administration expects the ten-year deficit accumulation to total $9 trillion.


But the Buffett tax will have real world NEGATIVE effects.

Many well off people, even those far poorer than Mr. Buffett, earn much of their income from capital gains, which is taxed at 15 percent, below the “middle class” income tax rate. That’s why the Oracle of Omaha is taxed at a lower rate than his secretary. Who, BTW, probably makes more than you or I do. I’d like to be Warren Buffett’s secretary, as a matter of fact.

Now, Obama speaks often about how this country needs innovation, that new businesses are the future, and blah blah blah.

Who does he think invests in startups?

Venture capitalists who make a high risk investment hoping to recoup a Facebook-style reward one day. Start threatening to tax their hoped-for capital gains at the top income rates of 28-35 percent – or up to nearly 40 percent if Obama gets to do away with the Bush tax cuts – and watch investors put their money instead in safe bets like, you know, Berkshire Hathaway.

A recent piece in the Washington Post makes the point about now this would particularly harm high-tech startups.

The “Buffett Rule” is effectively an increase in the capital gains tax rate that early stage tech investors would pay when one of their investments hits it big. And this is bad news for tech start-ups for several reasons:

It guarantees that investors will have a lower rate of return. A capital gains tax increase automatically lowers how much an investor can hope to make from the handful of winners in their portfolio. Given how risky tech investments are already, this makes the asset class relatively less attractive.

Technology is one of the few bright areas of our moribund economy. Why lessen this advantage with taxes that chip away at start-up capital?​

Why?

Because Obama needs to stoke the fires of class resentment to get himself reelected. It’s already too late for him to try to improve the economy significantly before Election Day.

That’s why.



Not Even Warren Buffett Will Endorse Obama’s Buffett Rule

CNBC: “Are you happy that the way it is being described? Is the program that the White House has presented for a million dollars and over the same as your program?”

Warren Buffett: “Well, the precise program which will — I don’t know what their program will be. My program would be on the very high incomes that are taxed very low. Not just high incomes. Somebody making $50 million a year playing baseball, his taxes won’t change. Make $50 million a year appearing on television, his income won’t change. But, if they make a lot of money and pay a very low tax rate, like me, it would be changed by a minimum tax that would only bring them up to what other people pay.”

CNBC: “Does that mean you disagree with the president’s new jobs proposal which would be paid for by raising taxes on households with incomes of over $250,000.”

Buffett: “That’s another program that I won’t be discussing. My program is to have a tax on ultra-rich people who are paying very low tax rates. Not just all rich people. And that would probably apply to less than 50 thousand people in of a population of 300 million.


I will look at the overall plan, once it gets submitted to Congress, which they will be voting on, and decide "do I like it" or "do I not like it" ... there is no question that there will be parts that I disagree with.

I haven't looked at the details.

 

[mercury14]

You're a fool who is spoiling for a fight and not interested in the truth whatsoever as evidenced by this sentence above. I think I'll ignore you on this also.

What do you mean you think you'll ignore me on this? You HAVE to ignore me on this. You insist on believing that the Bush tax cuts are actually permanent tax cuts. That's a demonstrably false distorted lie from the right.

The fact is that a bill without a sunset provision would not have passed. The only way that this was (barely) possible for the bill to pass was by making it temporary. So that's what was passed. It's called reality. You can't say that a bill that passed 50-50 with the VP breaking the tie was actually another bill that was more extreme and never could have passed.

Unless you're living in fantasy land. Or lying.

 

[MeeMie]

Abandon ship? Dick Durbin, Warren Buffett change tone on jobs plan


White House spokesman Jay Carney today downplayed statements by two political allies who are backing away from President Barack Obama’s top legislative priority, his $447 billion “American Jobs Act".

Obama ally and stock market billionaire Warren Buffett backed away from the “Buffet Rule” tax increase Friday. And one day before, top Senate Democrat Dick Durbin said his Democratic Senate majority doesn’t yet have the votes to pass the bill.

These top-level former endorsers put distance between themselves and the White House as wealthy Americans and many Democratic-leaning professionals recoil from what they see as President Obama’s anti-business attitude, and as the general public’s distrust of government reaches record levels.

The Buffett and Durbin revelations reveal a major crack in Obama’s increasingly populist re-election campaign, which is characterized by his repeated calls on Congres to “pass the bill.” Durbin’s apparent differences with the White House come as Roll Call reports that communication has broken down between the Obama administration and Senate Democrats.

The bill ultimately aids his campaign by simultaneously offering massive government spending to left-wing special interests and a smaller deficit to swing-voting middle-income professionals and executives.

Sen. Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, said Thursday that the jobs bill doesn’t have enough support among Senate Democrats to reach the 60 votes needed to overcome Republican opposition. “Not at the moment, I don’t think we do but, uh, we can work on it,” he told an interviewer on WLS radio.

“The oil-producing Democratic senators don’t like eliminating or reducing the subsidy for oil companies … and there are some senators who are up for re-election who say ‘I’m never gonna vote for a tax increase while I’m up for election, even on the wealthiest people,’” said Durbin, a senior senator in the Democratic Caucus.

“So, we’re not gonna have 100 percent Democratic senators. That’s why it needs to be bipartisan and I hope we can find some Republicans who will join us to make it happen,” he said.

The public is not interested in “who’s sponsoring the bill or the legislative minutia of who supports it,” Carney responded when asked about Durbin’s statement. The bill “has broad Democratic support … it has broad public support, across the political spectrum,” he said, adding “we’re working on passing it, and we’re going to get it” passed.

“There is no higher priority for this president to continue to push Congress to take action on those measures,” Carney said.

For more than a month, White House officials have used Buffett’s support for a tax increase on wealthy Americans to press for a tax increase on people earning $200,000 or more, though officials have steadfastly refused to describe an income threshold for people covered by the “Buffett Rule.”

Obama has announced that his $447 billion, one-year stimulus plan will be offset by tax hikes worth $464 billion over 10 years. This tax increase would come on top of the administration’s call for $800 billion in taxes to be gained by not extending the tax-cuts won by George W. Bush in 2003, and extended by Obama in late 2010.

But Friday, Buffett announced he wants a very high threshold for activation of the rule. His high threshold would reduce calculations of future tax revenues and so pressure Obama to either curb his promises of spending or his promises of a smaller deficit.

“My program would be on the very high incomes that are taxed very low — not just high incomes,” Buffett told CNBC. “If you make 50 million appearing on television, that income won’t change, but if they make a lot of money and pay a low tax rate, like me, it would be changed by a minimum tax,” he added.

Carney also pushed back on the media’s reporting on Buffett’s statement. “There has been a lot of deliberate misrepresentation and misunderstanding,” he said.

The principle in the Buffett Rule, he said, is that “affluent Americans should pay at least the same tax rate as middle-income Americans.”

However, Carney repeatedly refused to say how that principle would be enacted.

One option would be to boost capital gains taxes up from 15 percent, closer to the 35 percent rate already in place for wages and salaries above $105,000 per year. Asked if that option would curb the creation of new companies, Carney punted by saying that “as a matter of principle, the president believes strongly that someone making millions of dollars in income should not be paying taxes at a lower rate” than someone earning $75,000.

Carney also declined to say how many people would be covered by the principle. “I’m not sure if we gathered figures … on the number of people who would be impacted by the principle,” he said

Buffett’s statement that he favored a very high threshold is a major change from his Aug. 14 op-ed in the New York Times, in which he called for a two-step tax increase on Americans earning more than $1 million, and more than $10 million per year.

“For those making more than $1 million — there were 236,883 such households in 2009 — I would raise rates immediately on taxable income in excess of $1 million, including, of course, dividends and capital gains. And for those who make $10 million or more — there were 8,274 in 2009 — I would suggest an additional increase in rate,” he wrote in the op-ed.

When pressed for the details of the administration’s tax plans, White House officials remain vague.

In a Sept. 27 speech in Denver, Colo., Obama declared that his tax plan “reforms our tax code based on a simple principle: Middle-class families shouldn’t pay higher tax rates than millionaires and billionaires. Warren Buffett’s secretary shouldn’t pay a higher tax rate than Warren Buffett. A teacher or nurse or construction worker making $50,000 a year shouldn’t pay higher tax rates than somebody making $50 million. That’s just common sense.”

On Sept. 28, White House spokesman Jay Carney repeatedly refused to set an income threshold for the “Buffett Rule.”

“The fact is that the burden on high-income earners should be proportionate and fair and balanced … It’s a principle about making sure that everyone is paying their fair share to create a situation where everyone can share in the prosperity that we are sure will continue to be the providence of this country.”

Asked again for a threshold number, Carney replied that “the answer is in the proposals the president has put forward. He’s stated some principles about the tax code, as well as specifics in terms of some loopholes that should be closed or changed … There’s a broader need for tax reform, and within that … the principle that the ‘Buffett Rule’ explains should be contained within it … I do not have a number.”

Buffett told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin on Friday that he does not know how the White House would implement his Aug. 14 proposal.

“Well, the precise program — I don’t know what their program will be,” he said.

He let the White House put his name to their vague plan, Buffett said, after Obama economic chief “Gene Sperling called and said, ’Can we use your name?’ And I said, ‘yes.”

 

[RightField]

What do you mean you think you'll ignore me on this? You HAVE to ignore me on this. You insist on believing that the Bush tax cuts are actually permanent tax cuts. That's a demonstrably false distorted lie from the right.

The fact is that a bill without a sunset provision would not have passed. The only way that this was (barely) possible for the bill to pass was by making it temporary. So that's what was passed. It's called reality. You can't say that a bill that passed 50-50 with the VP breaking the tie was actually another bill that was more extreme and never could have passed.

Unless you're living in fantasy land. Or lying.

What I mean is that you're debating a point that makes little difference in the grand scheme of things and it's not worth the time to discuss it. Ignore.

 

[RightField]

What do you mean you think you'll ignore me on this? You HAVE to ignore me on this. You insist on believing that the Bush tax cuts are actually permanent tax cuts. That's a demonstrably false distorted lie from the right.

The fact is that a bill without a sunset provision would not have passed. The only way that this was (barely) possible for the bill to pass was by making it temporary. So that's what was passed. It's called reality. You can't say that a bill that passed 50-50 with the VP breaking the tie was actually another bill that was more extreme and never could have passed.

Unless you're living in fantasy land. Or lying.

Whatever. The Republicans wanted it permanent, the Democrats wanted it temporary so they compromised to get it passed. Why are you obsessing about it?

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

He wants to pretend that the Republicans never compromise so he can spend the next 11 months screaming about obstructionism...

 

[Ishmael]

How many democrat senators are standing for re-election and how many are from energy states? Those clowns can't get 40 of their own to vote on the bill.

They really do think we're stupid.

Ishmael

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Our gal Claire is trying to run from him...




I have a feeling, the Limbaugh Republicans in the state won't let that happen...

 

[RightField]

October 4, 2011
Still Front End of Recession
By Larry Kudlow

The stronger-than-expected ISM manufacturing-index reading for September might normally suggest that the economy, at least for now, has dodged a recession bullet. After zero jobs and zero real consumer spending in August, which put the stalled economy on the front end of recession, the ISM number is the first major September reading.

But economist Michael Darda says hold the applause: Inside the ISM, new orders and order backlogs either flat-lined or declined and remain below 50 -- the DMZ recession marker on the index.

Darda believes weak data in the U.S., plus the ongoing European crisis, plus the China slowdown, plus widened corporate credit spreads and stressful financial conditions, all point to a declining economy and additional stock market drops.

Lakshman Achuthan of the Economic Cycle Research Institute (ECRI) is also on the bear side. He has a falling weekly leading index that signals recession is inevitable. "It's either just begun, or it's right in front of us," he told CNN Money.

Tough stuff.

But another deepening economic problem is a lack of confidence. Scott Rasmussen, one of the nation's best political pollsters, also publishes important and accurate consumer-confidence indexes. On a monthly basis, he is showing a huge confidence drop of 26 percent, from 88.3 last January to 65.6 through August. His reasons? There are several.

First, the majority of Americans believe we are still in recession and that the recession is dragging on. Second, the housing market is a killer (for the economy, as well as consumer sentiment). According to Rasmussen, fewer than half believe their homes are worth more than their mortgages. Only 23 percent expect their home values to go up this year. And with the market still at fall 2008 levels, people are obviously much less well off than they used to be.

And there's more. Today, only 29 percent rate their finances as good or excellent. The night before Lehman collapsed, 43 percent rated their finances as good or excellent.

And on the political front, while people are rejecting Obama, they are also rejecting both political parties and the entire political process. According to Rasmussen, 73 percent don't expect any deficit reduction before the 2012 election. Folks want any deal to include mostly spending cuts, but expect it will include mostly tax hikes. And if tax hikes are agreed to, 62 percent say the money will be spent on new programs rather than deficit reduction.

On top of all that, economist Alan Reynolds reminds us that the president's so-called jobs plan proposes large and permanent increases in the highest income-tax rates in order to "pay for" a small and temporary cut in payroll taxes. Reynolds goes on to say that permanently higher tax rates on income to pay for temporarily lower tax rates on payrolls is not stimulus by anybody's definition.

And of course, taxing millionaires and billionaires -- especially the Warren Buffet plan to raise the minimum tax rate on capital gains -- demonizes success and makes war on capital formation. Gov. Chris Christie calls this a demoralizing message.

So for now, I'll stay with my take: We're still on the front end of a recession.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

The COWARD Bernake is using such technical economic jargon as "shaky."


Unlike the great Zandini, however, he gives us no dates.


Then, Zandi only does post-mortems...


No reliable prognostications.

 

[RightField]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204294504576615290694019956.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Good article.

 

[mercury14]

Whatever. The Republicans wanted it permanent, the Democrats wanted it temporary so they compromised to get it passed. Why are you obsessing about it?

You're the one obsessing about a bill that was never even written, much less passed, eleven years ago. You keep saying that your imaginary bill should be considered as reality today.

The actual congressional act that passed? Poppycock!!! What we need to do is disregard the act and engage in an alternate reality instead.

 

[mercury14]

The COWARD Bernake is using such technical economic jargon as "shaky."


Unlike the great Zandini, however, he gives us no dates.


Then, Zandi only does post-mortems...


No reliable prognostications.

Zandi and Bernanke. Republican economists created by Republican administrations.

 

[Solid Muldoon]

"We had an obligation to our shareholders."

The day those words were first uttered was the day America began to die.

 

[JohnnySavage]

"We had an obligation to our shareholders."

The day those words were first uttered was the America began to die.

I blame the Hudson Bay Co.

 

[RightField]

Know when to fold ’em
By KYLE SMITH
New York Post
Posted: 10:54 PM, October 8, 2011

We already knew that government is a crappy mom, rule-giver, soothsayer and job-creator. So it was refreshing to hear that one of the Obama administration’s former top lieutenants, Larry Summers, admitted in a blunt e-mail that “Gov is a crappy vc,” or venture capitalist.

What is disturbing about the bankruptcy of Solyndra, the California solar-panel manufacturer to which the government gave a $535 million loan guarantee, is not that Solyndra was a disaster, or that it blew so much money building itself, on one of the most expensive swatches of land in the universe -- an area where no factory has been built in at least a decade -- a tech temple whose conference-room walls magically changed colors, whose spa-like showers featured LED temperature readouts and whose robots hummed Disney tunes.

The real mistake was funding Solyndra, and companies like it, in the first place.

Oh, but the vetting process was “unusually rigorous,” in the solemn words of The New Yorker’s James Surowiecki, because it involved soliciting opinions from “3,000 outside experts.” Wow, 3,000 experts! How dazzling it must have been to interact with so many Ph.Ds and policy wonks who were . . . totally wrong. (Did any of them later have to return their “expert” badges? Or is anyone who is cool enough to be consulted by the Obamanoids automatically an expert on everything forever, regardless of results?)

Let’s apply the “3,000 outside experts” theory to recent history. Subprime mortgages? Multitudes of financial experts thought they were tip-top investments. Vietnam? The best and the brightest thought that was a good idea. It would be cruel to start a list of all the experts who thought the Obama administration was going to be a smashing success that would fundamentally transform the country.

Here’s an expert the White House didn’t listen to: “A number of us are concerned that the president is visiting Solyndra,” Democratic California venture capitalist Steve Westly wrote the White House on May 24, 2010. “Many of us believe the company’s cost structure will make it difficult for them to survive.”

Obama ignored him. Aware that the president was steamrolling ahead with a planned visit to his left coast eco-Potemkin Village to brag about the Solyndra loan, one waggish OMB official wrote -- four days before the visit -- “Hope it doesn’t default before then.”

Venture capital firms are gamblers. They expect that a third or more of their investments will go bad, so because there haven’t been many such failures (yet) with the Department of Energy’s loan guarantees, maybe we should think of DOE as a really successful VC firm. Obama said the goal of the program was to “take bets,” by which he meant, unless he has become a bookie, “make bets.”

But he was making those bets with your money, in a game that was so clearly fixed that the sharps were walking away. If even VC firms that gamble like retirees playing the slots at Circus Circus wouldn’t give Solyndra the money, shouldn’t that have made the government extra wary? (Wary enough to hire a crucial 3,001st expert, maybe?)

Moreover, would any VC firm guarantee a loan if the maximum potential upside was that it would get the money back (plus a small amount of interest)? VCs can afford to lose money here and there because when they win, they win big. Their money buys them an equity position that might be worth 100 or 1,000 times the initial investment.

Still, clean-energy firms are different. Special. Solar-panels equal lots of cool futuristic jobs for Americans, won’t they?

Not really. They’ll be built by Chinese and installed by Mexicans. And in America, every industry is special. Farms receive subsidies: They’re essential to the American character. President Obama described GM as “not just any company” as he threw away over $10 billion in public money to enhance his electoral prospects in Michigan. Any huge shopping center or football stadium that promises to “create jobs” gets a handout. Of course any unionized industry is special because we have to protect those high-paying middle-class jobs. Even Jack in the Box is special, doubly so: It profits from both agriculture subsidies and a waiver from ObamaCare.

We learned this week that, even as Solyndra’s accountants were warning that the company was in full meltdown, the Department of Energy was rushing to shovel another $469 million into the solar funding furnace. The resignation of the titular head of the loan program, Jonathan Silver, became public shortly thereafter.

But it’s evident that the real responsibility for wasting our money on bad bets falls to President Obama himself, who continues to defend the loan program to this day. Shouldn’t he be demanding his own resignation?



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