Month: September 2011

Some people are saying the Solyndra scandal is President Obama’s Watergate.  Maybe so, maybe not.  A lot of people certainly have a lot of “splainin'” to do about half a billion dollars of taxpayer money going down the drain.  President Obama himself needs to justify his administration’s efforts to prop up an industry (solar energy) that the nation seems to be apathetic about, while it makes it more difficult for conventional energy companies to produce and deliver their vital commodities.

The IDEA of solar energy is very attractive.  Energy directly from the sun is free and clean, we are told.  Of course that’s not quite true.  Outfitting your home to run on entirely on solar energy is actually quite expensive and would require the life of a 30-year mortgage to earn back the cost compared to most monthly electric bills.  And then it would be time to replace the system.  And there is necessarily some pollution involved in producing the panels and batteries that are part of any solar system.  Perhaps that’s why Solyndra’s solar panels weren’t exactly flying off the shelves.

More than half our electric power comes from coal-fired electric plants.   Actually when you think about it, coal is solar energy, too.  Nature just stored the energy for us until we learned how to release it.  By the same token, oil, plant-based ethanol and even wood are storage systems — Nature’s batteries — for solar energy.  When we burn them we are releasing that stored solar energy.

Of course, ultimately we know that ALL energy is solar energy.  If you believe that the earth and her sister planets were spun off the sun in the Big Bang, then even geo-thermal energy is solar energy, even though it’s boiler is deep in the earth “where the sun don’t shine”.

The only exception might be hydro-power.  But then again, the sun causes evaporation, then rain, the rain flows downhill, man builds a turbine and produces electric power. Yep, hydro power is solar power too.

So, it’s all solar, and it’s all good.  Efforts to make clean, direct solar power more practical and affordable should go forward.  When solar is actually cheaper and easier than conventional fossil and plant fuels, then it will become dominant, but Solyndra is exhibit A for the folly of government trying to force something on the marketplace.  Market change has to happen organically.

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So everyone is apoplectic about Governor and presidential wannabe Rick Perry saying that Social Security is a “Ponzi scheme”.  Some will take the transparently hypocritical route of saying Perry wants to starve old people.  On the other end will be those like Charles Krauthammer who called Perry’s statement a “gaffe”, then defined a “Washington gaffe” as “when a politician inadvertently speaks the truth”.

Good one Charles!

Ponzi schemes are illegal of course, but Perry may have been saying that Social Security as it is administered WOULD BE illegal if it were not done by the government.  That’s true of a lot of things, like a state lottery.  Here in Georgia, only the state can run a gambling operation.  Not even the Indians have casinos.

Technically it may not be an illegal scheme, but few would argue that the program is sustainable as it’s currently configured.  Remember that the Baby Boom Generation (my buds) are just beginning to receive benefits, but it will be 20 years before that chicken goes all the way through the snake.

I don’t know the exact numbers, but when Social Security was instituted in the 1930s there were something between 50 and 150 people working for every retiree in the program.  And the life expectancy of an American man was 64.  That’s why they set the retirement age at 65.  About half the people would never collect a dime.  That’s how the upper end of that 50 to 150 range worked out.

Today, there are three (count ’em, one, two, three) people working for each retiree receiving benefits.  Soon, as the Baby Boomers stretch out their hands in large numbers, there will be just two people working for each person collecting benefits.

Add to that the fact that life expectancy for Americans is now dangerously close to 80 and you can see the problem.  Not only will the majority of people eligible for benefits live long enough to collect, they will live SO LONG that they will probably collect much more than they put in.

Social Security actually spent more than it took in last year for the first time, but it probably won’t be the last.

George W. Bush attempted to reform Social Security so that it could survive what we know is coming, but every attempt to make the program viable in the changing demographic climate is demagogued and torn to shreds by the press and statist left.  If Perry becomes the Republican nominee, we can expect the “starving old people” card to be played to the nth degree.

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After a deranged atheist attempted to assassinate Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, the press blamed the Tea Party and President Obama solemnly told us we needed to be more “civil”.

But Obama’s cheerleaders apparently thought he meant civil WAR, because on Labor Day, that upstanding citizen Jimmy Hoffa Jr. said in a speech which referenced the Tea Party Movement, “…they got a war, they got a war with us and there’s only going to be one winner….  We’re going to win that war….  President Obama, this is your army! We are ready to march.  Let’s take these sons of bitches out and give America back to an America where we belong.”

And they said Sarah Palin was bad when she talked about “targeting” vulnerable politicians in the last election.

Hoffa’s bonkers rant came close on the heels of Rep. Maxine Waters telling the Tea Party to “go to hell.”  Isn’t that special?

So why are the leftists bent out of shape to the point of insanity about the Tea Party Movement?  It seems to me that the Tea Party is the soul of sobriety and responsibility, simply asking that the government doesn’t spend money it doesn’t have.  What could be more reasonable than that?

So on the one hand you have a grassroots movement that is simply asking for a return to sensible government and on the other hand you have red-faced leftists screaming insanity and obscenity without addressing the issues the Tea Party has quietly and soberly raised.

I guess I’m a little mystified at the crazy hatred displayed by the left for not just the Tea Party but Sarah Palin, George W. Bush, etc. etc.

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Talk about bad timing!  This week President Obama returned from vacation tanned and rested and ready to fulfill his pre-trip promise to reveal his “jobs plan”.  His first misstep was to plan a speech to both houses of Congress on the very day and time of a long planned Republican presidential candidate debate. House Speaker Boehner said, “Thanks but no thanks,” so the speech was rescheduled to the same time as the first regular season NFL game.  Is that better?

Then, today news broke that Solyndra, a solar company in Fremont, California, is closing its doors, filing Chapter 11 and laying off 1,100 people.

Why is that important? Because just last year the president visited Solyndra’s shiny new factory, built with a half BILLION dollars it borrowed from taxpayers (and won’t be able to pay back), and famously held the company up as symbolic of the promise of the “Green Jobs” that have been the centerpiece of his “Hope and Change” economic agenda.

Apparently it takes more than “Hope” and good intentions to succeed in business.  You must also produce a product or service people want at a competitive price.  In spite of $1 billion in investment and another $500,000-plus in tax money, the company couldn’t be competitive with Chinese companies.

Like the Chevy Volt, which the president also trumpeted but has sold less than 3,000 in the first seven months, Solyndra has failed to live up to the promise of a new paradigm of clean, green jobs.  As Linus said in the pumpkin patch when the Great Pumpkin failed to appear, “How can we fail when we’re so sincere?”

So, this couldn’t come at a worse time, since the loss of these 1,100 highest-possible-profile jobs will still be fresh in our minds when the president reveals his anticipated jobs plan.

I wonder if Solyndra was unionized?  That would explain a lot.

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