It looks as if the Obama Administration has a major “green” problem. The firm responsible for Solyndra, RockPort Capital, and several other major companies directly connected to the Obama Administration have received in excess of $4 billion in government assistance. This cronyism includes millions in tax breaks (one conveniently preceding a $10 million investment from WH Economic Adviser Jeffrey Immelt’s General Electric), stimulus grants, loan guarantees, and government endorsements that gave credibility to a firm’s untested product. With the release of more White House emails, it looks as if the Obama Administration’s problem is more than just a few bad loans.

In 2009, another RockPort investment, Satcon technologies, partnered with SunPower Corporation and Exelon Energy to build a 41-acre solar array in Chicago. SunPower, recently covered here, is the recipient of a controversial $1.2 billion DOE loan guarantee. SunPower also worked with Satcon on another government-funded solar project in Hawai’i.

Meanwhile, the DOE has doubled down on their loan program with a $646 million loan guarantee to Exelon Energy (who own the SunPower/Satcon project in Chicago). Exelon bought out the Antelope Valley Project from First Solar Energy after First Solar missed the DOE’s loan guarantee deadline and was denied an extension. In another interesting appearance, Jeffrey Immelt’s GE Energy Financial just bought out First Solar’s Desert Sunlight project after receiving a DOE guarantee for a portion of their $1.46 billion loan. It’s probably more than a matter of coincidence Exelon arose out of an $8.2 billion merger advised by Rahm Emanuel in 1999 and that White House political strategist David Axelrod is a former consultant for Exelon. Furthermore, Exelon executives were major contributors to Obama’s 2008 campaign, bundling several hundred thousand dollars in campaign contributions.

(more…)

The Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements were both born out of the despair following the 2008 financial crisis, and both have tapped into the public’s anger over the unfairness of bank bailouts and huge bonuses for the risk takers while the rest of the country has struggled with unemployment, falling home prices and anemic economic growth.

Yet the elite media has constantly vilified the peaceful Tea Party as right-wing rabble for prodding politicians to do nothing more than reduce the bloat of government.

Meanwhile, politicians, the press — and now CEOs — have generally celebrated Occupy Wall Street as the second coming of the civil-rights movement — no matter how many times its followers have clashed with police in the name of Mao and Che Guevara.

And the worst part about these unfair depictions of the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street?

There’s no end in sight.

I can’t remember a single instance in which the chief executive of a major bank or conglomerate has said something nice about the Tea Party’s goals of limited government, lower taxes and free markets — the very things upon which this country was founded.

But such business leaders as GE chief executive Jeffrey Immelt and Blackrock chief Larry Fink have been falling all over themselves trying to say nice things about the OWS protesters, their grievances and rants against capitalism — even while the unwashed mob is nearly rioting not far from their corporate headquarters.

(more…)

Along with their White House pals, the MSM is currently freaking out over the prospect of Obama losing his bid for reelection and nowhere is that more apparent than on the “Today Show” where, out of whole cloth (or not — more on this below), they’ve decided to float a narrative that says Secretary of State Hillary Clinton might be replacing Vice President Joe Biden on the Democrat’s 2012 ticket.

Like the rest of America, the “Today Show” is looking at President Obama’s lousy poll numbers, brewing White House scandals, and one lousy jobs report after another. But unlike, oh, 62% of Americans, the MSM is panicked at the thought of Obama not winning a second term. And since the President has already failed and is unlikely to un-fail over the next 13 months, the MSM is looking for what’s known in the political business as a game-changer.

And so, the charlatans disguised as journalists over at NBC are trying to craft one:

The White House is getting irked about persistent speculation in the media that President Obama might dump Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. as his running mate in 2012 in favor of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

After hosts of NBC’s “Today” show questioned both Mr. Biden and Mrs. Clinton on consecutive days about a possible switch, White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer posted this on his Twitter account Tuesday morning:

“I have noticed a weird @todayshow obsession with faux story of Sec. Clinton replacing @VP…Have asked both about it last 2 days on the show.”

This is also a welcome distraction for NBC. This kind of ginned-up speculation allows the “Today Show” to pretend the biggest political story of the day is anything but Fast and Furious, Solyndra, and another lousy jobs report issued just this morning. MSM-created distractions are a very large part of the MSM’s 2012 gameplan.

But is this really just the desperate MSM acting desperate and is the White House really as put-out over this as they seem?

(more…)

From the Associated Press:

The deals announced Friday include a $1.5 billion loan guarantee to Florida-based NextEra Energy and other investors that bought a planned 550-megawatt solar farm on federal land in Southern California from First Solar, as well as $646 million to Illinois-based Exelon Corp. for a 230-megawatt solar plant near Los Angeles. Next Era Energy Resources and GE Energy Financial Services bought the Desert Sunlight project from First Solar, while Exelon bought the Antelope Valley project. First Solar will continue to build and operate both projects.

A third project, worth $1.2 billion, will help San Jose-based SunPower Corp. build a 250-megawatt solar plant in California, while $1.4 billion will go San Francisco-based Prologis Inc. to support installation of about 750 solar rooftop panels in 28 states.

The loan program expires on Friday.

(more…)

Michael Barone in The Examiner:

Barack Obama looked and sounded angry in his speech to the joint session of Congress. He bitterly assailed one straw man after another and made reference to a grab bag of proposals which would cost something on the order of $450 billion—assuring us on the one hand that they all had been supported by Republicans as well as Democrats in the past and suggesting that somehow they are going to turn the economy around. He called for further cuts in the payroll tax (which if continued indefinitely would undermine the case of Social Security as something people have earned rather than a form of welfare) and for a further extension of unemployment insurance (perhaps justifiable on humanitarian grounds, but sure to at least marginally raise the unemployment rate over what it would otherwise be).

He called for a tax credit for hiring the long-term unemployed (unfortunately, these things can be gamed). He gave a veiled plug for his pet project of high-speed rail (a real dud) and for infrastructure spending generally (but didn’t he learn that there aren’t really any shovel-ready projects?). He called for a school modernization program (will it result in more jobs than the Seattle weatherization program that cost $22 million and produced 14 jobs?) and for funding more teacher jobs (a political payoff to the teacher unions which together with other unions gave Democrats $400 million in the 2008 campaign cycle). “We’ll set up an independent fund to attract private dollars and issue loans based on two criteria: how badly a construction project is needed and how much good it would do for the country.”

Yeah, sure. Like the screening process that produced that $535,000,000 loan guarantee to now-bankrupt Solyndra. And Congress should pass the free trade agreements with Panama, Colombia and South Korea. Except that Congress can’t, because Obama hasn’t sent them up there yet in his 961 days as president.

(more…)

For some background information, see this CNN Blog story about GE moving jobs to China
while GE’s CEO, Jeffrey Immelt, is one of President Obama’s advisers on U.S. job creation.

Cross-Posted: TobyToons.com (Conservative Political Cartoons)

The Coffee Party is at it again.

Desperately seeking a raison d’etre other than NOT to be the Tea Party, the Brew Crew has just issued a Congressional chain-letter which it hopes its tens of followers will co-sign. Pulling no punches, the Political Percolators are telling Congress to…to…well, to quit being so darn mean to Us the People. Here’s the full venti cup of their scalding scolding:

Dear Congress,

Please remember: you are fighting over how to spend our money.  We the People pay 33.7% of the Federal Fund while corporations pay 7.2%. Many corporations pay no taxes at all.  Yet your entire focus during this budget battle has been on how much to hurt the people.

We did not cause the recession, the deficit, or the national debt.  We know this, and we need you to know that we are aware of a corrupt system in which corporations spend their vast wealth to lobby and manipulate you.

We know that’s why the tax code so unjustly burdens us while favoring them. We know this is why Elizabeth Warren and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are under attack from the US Chamber of Commerce and other powerful lobbyists. We know that is why your policies reward multinational corporations, including those that DID cause the recession, with bailouts, bonuses, and tax benefits.

As you wrangle over how much to hurt our quality of life and jeopardize our future, consider ways to create jobs and invest in our future.

Congress should work together on how to help us, not fight over how to hurt us.

Sincerely,

Annabel, Eric B, Lynda, Eric W, Gloria, Mark, Beth, Tina, Corinne and the Coffee Break to Save America Team

The note to Coffee Party mailing list members is oleaginously signed with first names only. But the letter to Congress itself is a rich pu-pu platter of economic naivete.  Annabel Park—the dark liquid organization’s founder—and her co-scolders have obviously never heard of the Laffer Curve—or if they have, they think it’s a baseball pitch.

(more…)

While GE spent millions to elect President Obama and pushing fiscally destructive policies like cap & trade on the American taxpayer, the company’s bloated tax department of 975 employees has been busy making sure it’s own tax bill on $14 billion of revenues less than ZERO. That’s right, GE actually claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion.

It’s interesting to note that while Ronald Reagan cracked down on GE in the mid-1980s—he overhauled the tax system after learning that G.E. was among dozens of corporations that had used accounting gamesmanship to avoid paying any taxes—President Obama has taken the opposite approach. CEO Immelt and Obama have appeared joined at the hip of late, with the President even appointing him chairman of the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.

Among the actions Immelt has taken over the years to preserve GE’s preferential tax treatment, was to bribe Charles B. Rangel in 2008 (then Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee) with a $30 million “donation” to New York City schools, including $11 million to benefit various schools in Mr. Rangel’s district.

(more…)

The appointment by President Obama of Jeffrey Immelt, Chairman and CEO of General Electric, to head the new President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness is just another sign of the commitment of the Obama Administration to “Crony Capitalism”. For over 100 years GE was known for business innovation and manufacturing excellence. But long gone are the uplifting moments in our nation’s history when company spokesman Ronald Reagan proudly exalted GE’s motto: “Progress is our most important product.”

Mr. Immelt as the newly appointed pied-piper for the future for American industry suggests, (as Immelt wrote to shareholders):

“The interaction between government and business will change forever. In a reset economy, the government will be a regulator; and also, an industry policy champion, a financier, and a key partner.”

For the last three years, Mr. Immelt has been in the vanguard for this new relationship between business and government, as a member of the Administration’s “Economic Recovery Advisory Panel”.

During the wild Congressional spending spree of the last couple of years, GE miraculously became the largest beneficiary of the government’s Troubled Asset Recovery Program (TARP) bank bailout. Although GE did not initially qualify for TARP, the company’s $18 million annual investment in battalions of Washington DC lobbyists convinced Administration regulators to push that “reset” button and extend TARP guarantees and subsidies to GE. Public records demonstrate GE Capital, the company’s massive financing arm, pocketed $120 Billion in loans from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation at interest rates of less than 1% and snatched 25% of the entire $340 billion in subsidies from “Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program” (TLGP) rescue fund.

Unlike other highly regulated financial institutions that secured Federal back-stops, including Bank of America, Citigroup and J.P. Morgan Chase; GE was not required to curtail use of risky derivatives or pass the Fed’s liquidity “stress test” to qualify for taxpayer funding. GE was also exempted from new regulations restricting executive compensation at firms like AIG and Goldman Sachs. Mr. Immelt took advantage of GE’s special treatment to pick up $30.9 million in total compensation over the last three years, while GE shareholders suffered a catastrophic 46% loss as the company’s shares crumbled from $35 to $19.

(more…)

I recently took a two-day trip down to Palm Springs to attend an event called “Uncloaking the Kochs” hosted by Common Cause. Accompanied by my dear friend, former assembly candidate Alvaro Day, I traveled as an independent investigative journalist, and not in any official capacity on behalf of Big Government or Breitbart.com (though I was pleasantly surprised to run into a familiar friend of mine on rollerblades jovially inviting everyone to Applebee’s).

Among Common Cause’s, well, common causes, are campaign finance reform, net neutrality, outlawing the filibuster, promoting cap and trade, and in this particular case, herding a mass of protesters outside a nearby hotel to yell at Charles and David Koch for being conservative and rich.

Unfortunately several “haves” have missed the memo that you’re not to be both rich and conservative at the same time, and that bankrolling your pet causes is an extra no-no if you’re conservative—thus exempting left-wing billionaire philanthropists George Soros (from whom Common Cause has received $2 million over the past eight years) Peter Lewis, John Doerr, Julian Robertson, Nicolas Berggruen, and many others from being yelled at too. (more…)

A joke making the rounds during my brief, late 1990s stint with General Electric’s ideological and political forerunner, Enron, keyed off of that company’s disastrous energy venture in India and its fabled arrogance. It went, in short, who else would believe they could sell turbines to Indians?

Give it a minute. Then hold that thought.

Last week, to optically set the stage for Tuesday night’s rhetorical pitch for more big government to prop up certain favored losers called the ‘clean energy economy’, President Obama teamed with his BFF — and big-time lobbyist for/vendor to massively increased government mandates — CEO Jeff Immelt of GE for a photo-op at a GE plant in Schenectady, NY.

GE makes a gas turbine there, several of which it has signed a contract for sale to India. So that made a very good backdrop, if for a very confused message.

The logic goes something like this: GE makes renewable energy gizmos, manufacturing jobs for which Obama wants to create here by mandating markets for and otherwise propping them up with taxpayer dollars. Therefore, GE’s economic, non-mandated, efficiency-enhancing fossil fuel turbine is evidence that energy technology innovations are possible and therefore the federal government ought to mandate all sorts of uneconomic ‘renewable’ efficiency killers.

Which reminds us of Enron-style arrogance.

(more…)

As we mentioned in our last article, the prevalence of the Triple Bottom Line philosophy is signaling a changing paradigm, a time of transformation. Our question, then, is this: What exactly are we transforming into?  The knee-jerk answer might be that we are transforming from a capitalist system to a socialist system. However, the widespread adoption of 3BL belies such a simple answer. Socialism, with its complete government control of production, is hardly desirable for private business interests. American corporations are willingly embracing 3BL without even a government mandate. There is something deeper going on than simply a tug of war between two economic systems, and we are seeking to explore just what that may be.

Our first clues as to where we are going lay in the past, with the origin of the term “Triple Bottom Line.” For that we can credit John Elkington (his personal website and blog is here), who introduced the public to the term for the first time in his 1997 publication Cannibals With Forks: The Triple Bottom Line of 21st Century Business. Elkington is a longtime advocate for corporate environmental and social awareness, having cofounded the business development consulting firm SustainAbility in 1987. In fact, we may consider him a “founder” of corporate sustainability, having been called a “dean of the corporate responsibility movement for three decades” by BusinessWeek.  Elkington currently serves as the Executive Chairman of the sustainability think tank Volans, which he helped found in 2008. His work with Volans is what provides a real glimpse into the end game of 3BL, in a concept termed “The Phoenix Economy.”

The Phoenix Economy is a concept professing that the failure of an existing economic system will leave a void and an opportunity for a new system to take its place.  (The term “phoenix” refers to the bird of that name which, in ancient mythology, dies in a self-created fire and is then reincarnated from the ashes.)  Old paradigms and established principles are replaced by a new way of approaching economics — and indeed the culture. Elkington recognizes this as an opportunity to establish a new paradigm based on 3BL philosophy. Global sustainability is the principle by which the economic and social culture will be driven. The Volans website provides a concise explanation of the Phoenix Economy.

According to Volans:

From the ashes of the downturn, a new economy is self-assembling—focused on providing social and environmental solutions, where markets and governments have failed.

(more…)

Anthony Weiner honed his political craft working for New York Senator Charles Schumer, and it shows in his recent attack on Glenn Beck and his sponsor Goldline.

Weiner and his comrades’ views are well reflected when he says in his Goldline Report:

…during troubling economic times it seems there is always someone ready to take advantage of the situation and profit from people’s fears.

In the past there is always the “product” that is either the next big thing (the dot com boom) or the investment that will never go down in price (the housing market), and in the past much of the media has failed in its duty to conduct due diligence, but never before have they worked so hand in hand to cheat consumers.  Commentators like Glenn Beck who are shilling for Goldline are either the worst financial advisors around or knowingly lying to their loyal viewers.

Goldline’s high pressure sales tactics and fear mongering about big government as well as their ability to hire sales staff and spokespeople who misrepresent their roles are case studies in why entities like the SEC and FTC are necessary.

Of course, it is the unscrupulous businessmen and their shills in the media who are preying on people’s fears to make a buck.  Guess what Mr. Weiner? It is because people like you are running our nation that is precisely why people are turning to gold, and precisely why places like Goldline can charge a premium.

You see, the reverse is true when it comes to your argument that because of the sales representatives at Goldline who “misrepresent their roles,” the SEC and FTC are necessary entities.  We need gold and thus gold salesmen because agencies like the SEC and FTC, along with you and your colleagues in Congress and over at the Fed help sanction and blow the very bubbles that you speak to and debase our currency, stealthily taxing us and leading us on a path to monetary and fiscal collapse.  It is because of your “consumer protections,” that consumers are made unsafe.  It is because of your regulations that we have distorted markets and the moral hazard that encourages imprudent risk-taking.

(more…)

Tons of news in the market today as we unpack the surprisingly good job numbers, the Senate holds placed on Ben Bernanke’s renomination, and the massive Comcast-NBC deal and what it says about the new realities for mass media. Today’s the 99th edition of Coffee and Markets, a daily podcast from The New Ledger on politics, policy and the marketplace with Francis Cianfrocca, brought to you by BigGovernment.com.

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Related Links:

On Bernanke: Vitter, DeMint, Corker, Bunning
FTC on Media Bailout
New Realities for Mass Media
The FTC’s Shallow Dive into Journalism’s Future
The Real Reason Comcast is Buying NBC
Mainstream Media’s Broken Business Model