So we have this company Solyndra, a solar-panel company, which the government gave a $535 million loan to and now it is in Chapter 11 bankruptcy. apparently this is only one of multiple companies that were given such loans and are now in bankruptcy. I think this if anything demonstrates the problems with the form of industrial policy where government thinks it is fit to determine what are the industries of tomorrow. "Green technology" and "green jobs" and so forth, for the time being, are mostly a fantasy. The United States economy is not going to be turned around by trying to create green jobs. You cannot power the likes of New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, etc...or any major city with the likes of solar and wind power. The technology just isn't there at the moment (and government-subsidized wind farms are another boondoggle I think).
Another technological boondoggle I think is the push for electric cars. These are not going to replace gasoline-powered vehicles anytime soon. They take too long to charge up. Yet we see government pushing for cars like the Chevy Volt.
It will be interesting to see what heads roll over this Solyndra incident. In addition to being an example of the fallacies of this type of industrial policy, it also seems to be an example of crony capitalism, as the company is backed heavily by George Kaiser, a major donor to the Democratic party and a man who helped raise a lot of money for the Obama campaign.
No comments:
Post a Comment