More Green Jobs Outsourced to China

Remember when we were assured by the President and all those ‘smart’ people in the ‘green’ industry that, while their products may be more expensive, they could not be outsourced?

Anyone with common sense (aka wisdom) and business sense vs. ‘green smarts’ looked at this statement and asked: ‘Why not? It’s just another industry.’ And, as wisdom shows, here we are with another instance (previous green job outsourcing example) of green job outsourcing:

“Solar power is a key component of our clean energy future,” said Gov. Deval Patrick this summer, announcing a plan to install large-scale solar photovoltaic power installations throughout the commonwealth.

Just a few weeks later, the governor helped cut the ribbon at the opening of Evergreen Solar’s new plant in Devens, built with $58 million in state funds.

But half a year later the forecast for solar’s future – not to mention the governor’s other green initiatives – is looking cloudy with an increasing chance of failure.

Earlier this month, Evergreen Solar shocked everyone by announcing it is cutting up to half of the 800 jobs at the brand-new, taxpayer-bought Devens plant and shipping them to China. Solar panel materials will still be manufactured in Massachusetts (at least for now), but they will be assembled in a locale with much cheaper costs.

This is not to be confused with the issue of ‘green’ industry being unable to survive without unearned taxpayer dollars/government spending:

This shock came on the heels of Boston Power Inc. canceling plans to build a 600-job factory in Auburn. It had failed to win a $100 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to develop advanced battery technology. No government cash, no manufacturing plant and no jobs.

Instead of touting a green energy future, Beacon Hill’s mandarins should recognize that their emphasis on renewable energy technology and production will only hurt the Massachusetts economy further.

Solar power is hardly economical in the sun-drenched Mojave desert. So what makes the governor think it makes sense in the Northeast?

As well don’t confuse this with the uncompetitive price either:

Massachusetts’ retail electricity rates are 57 percent higher than the national average and more than in every state except Hawaii, Connecticut and New York. Yet Patrick and his allies would have ratepayers pay even higher prices, since renewables are considerably more expensive than the conventional sources that now power the bulk of the state’s economy.

There are a lot of real benefits to going ‘green’ with energy- its just that no one can figure them out other than politicians unanchored to economic realty.

Filed under: Energy, Environment, Politics, Business, Democrats, Economy, Environment, Government, Green, News, Obama, Politics

News Flash: China Asks Obama for Their Money Back In Recent Trip

Amazingly, Hu Jintao asks of Obama what every regular American is beginning to ask about the disaster of Obama-nomics:

http://widget.nbc.com/videos/nbcshort_at.swf?CXNID=1000004.10045NXC&widID=4727a250e66f9723&clipID=1178451&showID=61&siteurl=http://www.nbc.com?vty=fromWidget_Video&dst=nbc|widget|NBCVideo&__source=nbc|widget|NBCVideo

Caution! Very funny material. Liberal-viewer discretion is advised.

Filed under: Economy, Politics, Barack Obama, China, Economy, Life, News, Obama, Politics, President Obama

Environmental Utopia!

I’ve heard a myriad of great earth saving ideas from many passionate, well meaning environmentalists out there today. It struck me that if I were to put all of these great ideas together, we would see the wonderful, cheap, and sustainable outcome of the Eco-Utopia we are marching toward at Copenhagen next month! C’mon, let’s outline the benefits:

No power except wind or solar. No power grid- grids need stable sources of energy to work. So, we’ll no longer have those pesky computers, refrigerators, or pointless TV’s. When the wind blows or sun shines, you may get some limited electricity locally for lights. Unless you have wind, lights will only be available during the day. Batteries require more energy to manufacture than they are worth and contain toxic chemicals, friend! Learn to get your work done during the day and synchronize yourself with mother earth’s rhythms.

No meat. Meat animals take way too much land, bio-matter to eat and water to live to adulthood to be slaughtered for our heinous consumption. Just ask PETA. Prepare to embrace vegi-steaks and tofurkey (made of tofu grown on a collective farm).

No flatulence. Cows and most humans will need to be eliminated to save the atmosphere from ultra-damaging Methane. Humans also exhale CO2, so eliminate most of them on that basis, too. It also doesn’t matter that 95% or more of CO2 comes from natural sources. We have to do our part!
Cows are also meat, so they are also eliminated under the ‘no meat’ category above.

No chemicals or bio engineering of foodstuffs. So no fertilizers or high-yield, disease-resistant crops. This will also stop the corruption of our genetic purity. It doesn’t matter if this is unproven and only has the effect of getting more people fed. Franken-food must be eliminated! This will also cull the super-sized human herd. Hail Gaia!

No daily showers. This is too wasteful of Gaia’s precious fluids! Drink water if you must. The rest is for display purposes only.

No petroleum-based products. So if you stink from not washing, go to your earth garden and rub some mint on yourself. Live in a climate with winter? Suck it up and stink ‘til Spring. This also eliminates most household items. Women: you are liberated! You no longer have worry about trying to clean a house! Dirt and germs are now your friends! They will also help eliminate the disease of humanity more rapidly now, thank goodness!

No AC in summer. Hopefully like in Europe, we’ll get a heat wave that will eliminate ten of thousands of you old people that are past your ‘useful’ date. Note to everyone else: don’t get old.

Little or no heat in winter. What do you think you are going to destroy or burn of mother Gaia’s to warm your earth-raping body? Certainly nothing that will get you up to the 65-70 degrees you wastefully use today! Don’t even THINK about going out to cut down living trees for wood to burn once you lose gas, oil and electric feeds! The Government knows best. Please don’t complain and try to freeze to death with a little dignity.

No plastics. Milk will need to come in other containers like glass. Wait! How will we manufacture the glass in the first place? Forget any containers. You will just need to milk the cow directly if you want milk. Wait, I forgot! Cows are meat and flatulent! Forget milk and most any other container, device, or object in your house. Don’t even DARE think about replacing plastic with wood, earth-raper! Just do without. It’s environmental purity.

No cars. Certainly no gas powered ones. But wait! Where will the electricity come from for battery operated cars? But wait again- how will be manufacture or ship batteries full of toxic and dangerous chemicals? Cancel cars. Cancel horses, too. They are meat and flatulent like cows. Just walk you lazy scum.

So we will be cold, stinky/unwashed wretches lacking any stable power supply, starving for lack of enough food for all. We’ll be stuck where ever we are living due a lack of any means of transportation. We’ll suffer greatly from the weather and die early from simple ailments and diseases.

Hey, no one said getting to Eco-Utopia would be easy! We will all have to make a few changes in our lifestyle and expectations. Get on board and reap all of these tremendous, earth-saving benefits. Please join me in a rousing chant to mother earth: “Hail Gaia, she must be untouched. Hail, hail Gaia, she’s the one for us…”

Filed under: Environment, Global Warming, Climate Change, Culture, Entertainment, Environment, Environmentalism, Global Warming, Health, History, Life, Nature, Politics, Thoughts

Sacred Green Jobs Can’t be Outsourced- Not So!

Jobs that are ‘Green’ are paid for and resourced just like any other job in a free market economy. If a competing entity, even foreign, can create and produce a like quality product for less cost, they will win business in a rational, free market system. Period. Here’s what’s already happening with the overly-expensive, subsidized, and unsustainable ‘green’ economy Obama and Democrats are so eager to foist on us:

Buy American Products of Suspect Value

U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer on Monday called for a “comprehensive” review of all renewable energy projects seeking funding from the economic stimulus package, following reports that $849 million in U.S. grants have gone to foreign wind companies in the past two months alone.   

The New York Democrat first intervened last week, writing a letter to Energy Secretary Steven Chu urging him to deny stimulus funding to a Texas wind farm that would rely on wind turbines made in China. The $1.5 billion project would create up to 3,000 jobs in China but according to one report only 330 jobs in the United States, most of which would be temporary. Schumer spokesman Josh Vlasto told FoxNews.com that the senator is calling for a review of “all pending green energy projects” seeking stimulus funds to ensure they create jobs in the United States.  Schumer said in a statement Monday that the United States should not be giving China a “head start” in the quest for alternative sources of energy.   

“Our domestic clean-energy sector has the potential to emerge as a global leader and it is counterproductive to invest U.S. stimulus funds in Chinese companies rather than our own,” Schumer said.  

I’ll give credit to Democrat Schumer for weighing in on this after the fact, but its the typical leftist good-intentions-but-clueless-economically/anti-business blindness that sets the stage for these continuing economic disaster-situations (Liberals driving sub-prime mortgages come to mind). These always occur when the government meddles in and creates artificial distortions in markets that would not occur if they were driven by natural, free-market forces.

Filed under: Economy, Energy, Politics, Business, Democrats, Economy, Environment, Government, Green, News, Obama, Politics

Obama: Leader of the Ultimate Anti-Business Administration

Is it really that hard to figure out why our ‘economic recovery’ has ‘mysteriously’ produced no jobs? Obama wonders, Pundits and the Media wonder, and Leftists and Democrats (but I repeat myself) wonder.

The only ones that don’t wonder are the bulk of normal Americans that are involved in business and the free market economy. They are not risking their money or hiring workers because Obama’s extreme and sweeping collectivist policies are threatening the underpinnings of the free market system. His collectivism threatens to change the rules of the market to that of politics and irrational whim.

To wit: the Government under Obama conceived of the ‘Cash for Clunkers’ program. Here was a blue ribbon piece of collectivist, central planning. Its intent was to get low mileage cars off the road and, the real intent, was to ‘stimulate’ the union and regulation-devastated US car industry into productivity. It was a sop to the environmental loons, auto unions, and they thought it would stimulate the economy. too! It was a masterpiece of successful government economic meddling, right?

Wrong. What really happened:

Cash-for-Clunkers = Stimulus for Japan
Clunkers greens foreign competitors’ bottom line (HP)

Congress continues to pat itself on the back for its clunkers “stimulus,” hoping that no one notices the details. The latest embarrassment: Having spent $80 billion in taxpayer money to bail out Detroit, federal data confirms that Congress designed a clunkers taxpayer subsidy that boosted the sales of foreign cars.

The disconnect comes from placing green religion over business sense. (emphasis mine) Were Congress really interested in helping domestic car companies, they would have made the clunkers rebate available to all vehicles, not just fuel-efficient ones (new cars had to get at least 22 mpg to qualify for the $4,500 rebate; trucks 18 mpg). After all, struggling Chrysler’s most competitive products are trucks, not small sedans. (emphasis mine)

But determined to force its green morality on Americans, Congress punished domestic automakers by walling off their more profitable large vehicles from buyers.

The result? Buyers flocked to the small cars Asian manufacturers do best.

For example, according to NHTSA, when buyers traded in a Detroit-built “clunker,” 58 percent bought a new foreign car. When customers traded in a foreign car, by contrast, only 14 percent bought a Big Three vehicle. (emphasis mine)

Hail to the central planning idiots. We just financed the sales of foreign cars and the growth of foreign jobs with our tax payer dollars. It’s not results that count, just good intentions, right?

Is it a wonder why the Soviet Union crumbled under the un-workability of its collectivist policies and ideology? Is it a wonder why rational, free market capitalists are sitting on their hands waiting to see how radically Obama and Democrats will deconstruct our society?

How many times must history repeat itself for the reality-challenged amongst us before they finally learn?

Think on this and vote accordingly in the 2010 elections.

Filed under: American Values, Economy, Politics, Barack Obama, Business, Economics, Economy, Government, Obama, Politics, President Obama