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Yeah. Lay off the MSNBC punch there.

Remember the time I showed you exactly how much they were feeding into the GOP (and especially oil industry puppets like Senator Inhofe) and you insisted it was all pure coincidence?

Hahahaha... good times. But that "punch" line was pretty good too. Didn't change the truth of it but it was really sharp!

Absolutely. There should be broad spectrum laws to ensure that the environment is protected, but not specific companies targeted. We agree on this. I'm of the opinion that we should offer more in the way of tech dev grants that are unassociated with private companies in order to get our tech in position, rather than specific investment in industry. The reason we choose to pick winners and losers, is that we want to keep that as proprietary tech in US companies, rather as openly available technology. Do you have a better way of doing this to protect US interests?

I mean, not, this conversation kicked me in the eye but in the middle of a post a bit ago I went off to play with my son and he kicked me in the eye. That hurt. A lot.

Well at least they removed them from blocking the street.

Or even technologies being used. I have the same kind of problem with the way we're funding "green energy" as I did with the whole Kyoto Accords thing a decade ago. Instead of using some objective measurement to determine relative pollution to productive output (or power produced), we basically have political forces somewhat arbitrarily deciding what forms of energy are "green", and which aren't and then funding them based on those classifications.

By objective means, solar power is dirtier and more expensive start to finish when compared to oil, gas, or coal. That doesn't mean we can't and shouldn't fund research, specifically that aimed at making solar power more efficient and clean, but the current round of funding is subsidizing the finished products. I just find that problematic since that actually has the effect of stifling the needed research. Why continue researching a better product if the government has made it so you can make a profit with whatever you have ready to go right now?

It's counterproductive.



Like I said above. Fund the research with grants. It's usually orders of magnitude cheaper, results in increased rates of new/better products, and doesn't run as much into the problems of picking winners and losers. The market still does that with the end result. The reason I suspect many on the left don't like this is that the government spends tax dollars on the research, but doesn't really get anything back in return. The evil private owners of the corporations that turn that research into a product make all the money and that seems "unfair" to liberals.

But that system really does work better. The relatively small cost of research, while not paid back to the taxpayers directly, does benefit us all in the form of those newer/better/cheaper products. We gain jobs, we gain prosperity, and we gain quality of life. Those things are generally speaking worth the smallish amount for the grants in the first place.


I just think we get ourselves in trouble when we get the government involved in being a direct investor in the companies actually bringing products to market and competing with them. And we're not even doing it well either. The taxpayer "investment" is just a guaranteed loan with somewhat normal interest rates as our return. Private investors accept the risk of investing in such companies because they know that when one succeeds, it will pay off many times over and make up for the losses. There's just no risk/reward justification for these loans from the government and they are far far far too large to justify for the broader "we'll develop new tech faster" argument. It really is just about artificially propping up businesses we've chosen to reward because they're doing things that happen to appeal to a specific political agenda. And that's usually a really bad idea.

ITT: Gbaji lives in a parallel universe where liberals hate research grants.

Why can't he be the mayor of Boston?

I'm more worried bout this universe where liberals love subsidizing non-profitable industries in order to appease a political faction with actions that aren't even actually better for the things that faction cares about. It's the ultimate in word-game politics. We'll label certain activities "green", and subsidize them, and all the idiots who "care about the environment" but who don't know that what we're doing isn't really better for the environment will fall over themselves to vote for us.

Oh. And we'll toss some cash at our buddies who helped get us elected too. Good thing we've created a huge following of stupid gullible people. Even if conservatives tell them exactly what we're doing, they'll still support us because we taught them that conservatives are all evil liars! Yipppeeee! We're brilliant.

Edited, Oct 13th 2011 1:50pm by gbaji

Neither. I don't know where Joph got the $25B number. And "big oil" donates to both the GOP and Democrats, so it's not just about the GOP loving big oil.

Joph is trying to deflect attention away from the relatively massive subsidies to various green energy companies, by making some kind of bizarre "two wrongs make a right" argument involving the GOP and big oil. Which would be a bad argument even if he was correct that the GOP is the sole party involved in both receiving oil company money and handing out oil company subsidies. Since he's wrong on those as well, it's just a really really really crappy argument.

With research grants? Yes. Massive subsidies to telecomm corps? I don't seem to recall any of that at all. By all means do some research and find any example of actual subsidizing of telecomm products. I don't think you can find any, but I suppose it's possible. Ditto for computers. Ditto for the commercial internet. Isn't it amazing how the industries which grow the fastest and have the most positive impact on our lives are the ones that *aren't* being subsidized and controlled by the government?

You'd think we'd learn something from this pattern. The reality is that there is a lot of tech growth in the alternative energy field. And there are companies coming out with interesting and exciting new products. But we need to let the damn market decide which ones work and which don't. The government subsidizing products only floods the market with bad products and makes it less likely for the really good ones to rise to the top and make it. It's quite possible that in the midst of all the cost manipulation effects these subsidies create, some real groundbreaking products might fail as a direct result of the subsidies.


I trust the market to determine the best products far far better than I trust some group of pencil pushers in the government to do so. Yet, that's exactly what we're trying to do with these subsidies. We're betting that the best products will be the ones produced by companies that apply for and fight through the bureaucracy of Washington to grab one of these hundreds of millions of dollar subsidies. I think that's an incredibly poor bet. The companies with the best connections, the best PR teams, and even the best ability to pull the wool over the eyes of government employees will win those contracts.


These subsidies are at best a waste of money, and in all likelihood will slow down the adoption of alternative energy sources. They sell well in the political arena though, and that's about all they have going for them.

A lot easier to get votes when you scapegoat the previous/incumbent administration than it is to scapegoat potential voters.

Perspective? Because it's interesting to see the huge political bias of someone going into a foaming lather over an amount that's a bare fraction of their sacred cows? Because it lets me know just how seriously I should take someone when they're obsessing over the speck and ignoring the beam?


Congratulations on frantic Googling! "Oh... shit... I need... Yeah! This'll make the GOP look less bad!"

Oh, wait. Obama is in favor of cutting all those subsidies and has actually called on Congress to do so. Ouch! That has got to hurt. By the way, BP ranked ninth in total campaign giving among the oil industries in the 2008 cycle ($491k). And it was split 39%-61% between Democratic and GOP candidates with the GOP getting the lion's share. Want to know who number one was? Take a guess.

Koch Industries with $1.9 million in the 2008 cycle. I won't insult your intelligence by asking you to guess where that money went. But great job parroting some little BP factoid you pulled from the net!

Fun side fact: In 2010, BP didn't even rank in the top 20 for giving but Koch Industries managed to give over two million dollars that time around. More than during the presidential election cycle. Again, you can guess where that went.


Yeah, it's just that the GOP took in over $138 million in the elections from 2000-2010 whereas Democrats took in barely over $30 million. But what's over a 4:1 ratio if we can just say "They both do it!" and pray that everyone just says "Oh, so they must be the same then"?


Well, point (A) was that the GOP continues to defend these subsidies because they would rather pay out 85x the cost of a Solyndra or 840x the cost of NPR if it means they can keep the cash-flow coming to them. Point (B) was that your little "No, conservatives actually hate those subsidies! Honest!" falls pretty flat when I can tell you who was rallying the troops to eliminate the $50m beat that's NPR but you apparently can't name a single GOP congresscritter who has fought to eliminate these subsidies. So you can cry and say "No, it's not that much if you cut out this and this and this that I say don't count!"

How much it is, Gbaji? What's the amount so small that not a single GOP "conservative" cares enough to eliminate it? Must be less than an NPR, right?

Want to grow up yet and admit the truth?

Edit: Whoops. Got my ratio way wrong!

Edited, Oct 13th 2011 6:47pm by Jophiel