How 'bout Those Green Jobs

In big news on Drudge today we find out what happened after a start-up electric car company called Fisker got a $529 million federal government loan guarantee.

Standing in a shuttered General Motors plant in Wilmington, Del., Vice President Biden proclaimed that a half-billion-dollar Department of Energy loan would transform the idled site into a production line for electric cars.

"Folks, we're making a bet," Biden said on Oct. 27, 2009. "We're making a bet on the future, we're making a bet on the American people, we're making a bet on the market, we're making a bet on innovation."

That was back in 2009.  Fast forward to today and we find that the story didn't turn out quite the way Joe Biden said it would.

Vice President Joseph Biden heralded the Energy Department's $529 million loan to the start-up electric car company called Fisker as a bright new path to thousands of American manufacturing jobs. But two years after the loan was announced, the job of assembling the flashy electric Fisker Karma sports car has been outsourced to Finland.

So much for a green U.S. manufacturing revival.  But that's not to say the loan guarantee is a total loss.  It afforded the Obama administration an opportunity for another "thank you."

One of Fisker's biggest financial supporters, records show, is the California venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. The firm financially supports numerous green-tech firms, records show.

Kleiner Perkins partner John Doerr, a California billionaire who made a fortune investing in Google, hosted President Obama at a February dinner for high-tech executives at his secluded estate south of San Francisco. Doerr and Kleiner Perkins executives have contributed more than $1 million to federal political causes and campaigns over the last two decades, primarily supporting Democrats. Doerr serves on Obama's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. Doerr has not replied to interview requests since March.

Former Vice President Al Gore is another Kleiner Perkins senior partner. Gore could not be reached for comment.

This is what "stimulus" is all about.  It's what the American Jobs Act is all about.  It's purely political.

As for jobs? Obama suddenly remembered them when his poll numbers plunged so alarmingly that the one job that seems to compel his attention, his own, was at stake. For weeks he advertised a major speech that would put America on the road back to work. When he finally delivered it, it turned out to be an extension of previous payroll tax cuts and unemployment benefits, tax incentives for businesses to hire workers, and a revival of his earlier call to invest $50 billion in infrastructure repair. The latter, not even a Band-Aid on America’s $2-trillion maintenance backlog, was to be paid for by taxes, which as the President well knew, stood no chance of passing in the now Republican-controlled House of Representatives.

President Obama is most worried about his own job, and he's putting federal money where he thinks it will do him the most good.  That would be where it will come back in the form of campaign contributions.

Comments

[john lawless]

This used to be called corruption.

[CaptDMO]

We're making a bet on "green" jobs?
Once I figured out that I couldn't immediately recognize the sucker
at the table when I ventured into "friendly" poker games, I realized I'd better stop playing with folks who otherwise, had absolutely nothing more productive to do than get good at playing cards.

Doerr and Kleiner Perkins executives have contributed more than $1 million to federal political causes and campaigns over the last two decades, primarily supporting Democrats.

Dems selling their "New and Improved" representation at yard sale prices?
Wow! A $529 million federal government loan guarantee for a paltry fifty grand a year "ante"? Unless Mr. Gore is simply pasting his sooooooo close to being relevant once wanna-be "credentials" onto "other peoples money" to gamble with, how did HE get invited to THIS "wall street"(NEVER gamble with your OWN money) table?
At least Billy Mays, and Ron Popiel, offered up something actually tangible for your "Gee, If I buy into this, I MUST be smart. It'll be different THIS time!" investment. I actually saw overpriced bottled water, and imported vodka, bottles turned into fairly attractive, reasonably priced IMHO, cobalt glassware for sale at an outdoor art/craft show event recently.
Now THAT'S "green" recycling (OK, BLUE actually), and opportunity of creation! Of course, there was a bit of personal impetus, and actual perspiration, required.