Another Energy Company Goes Bankrupt, $39 Million Borrowed From Taxpayers

MaggieD said:

No. It's not about attacking the President. Well, I guess it is, since Obama made the decisions. But it's much more than that. It's the whole darned system. Doesn't someone/anyone have to account for having flushed $100 million taxpayers dollars down the toilet within a year? (Both companies) What are we doing as a nation? Rolling the dice? Putting it all on black? And I'd be putting this thread up regardless of who was president, Dem or Rep. Obama just happened to luck out on these two.

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If it was someone else saying this, MaggieD, I'd be shouting Bunk, but based on previous posts I believe your intent is not party-centric. My comments are still directed at others in this thread and related ones where the posters only desire to attack Obama and foolishly fail to think about what else they destroy in the process. For me, I don't care who's in charge of the energy policy (Republican or Democrat or Whatever) as long as they're not stupidly expecting foreign oil to fulfill our future energy needs.

As far as the $100 million lost. I think we are witnessing some slick hucksters who are taking advantage of government funding. If this was deliberate (a hard thing to prove) then taking two days to skin the perps alive and leave them for the ants...is just too kind a fate for them.

This money the government is doling out is extremely important, not only because of current economic woes, but because it's vital to future US interests. So I'm not sure who specifically is deciding what companies get government money, but he needs to be sacked. As much as I oppose government meddling, I think whenever gov't money is given for energy projects, it needs to be doled out piecemeal and with a certain amount of oversight. Companies simply cannot go bankrupt while the government is feeding them cash. That is inexcusable! So to be certain the money isn't wasted on company parties, the government may need to play nursemaid. If companies aren't using government money, then there's no need for it.

EagleAye said:

If it was someone else saying this, MaggieD, I'd be shouting Bunk, but based on previous posts I believe your intent is not party-centric. My comments are still directed at others in this thread and related ones where the posters only desire to attack Obama and foolishly fail to think about what else they destroy in the process. For me, I don't care who's in charge of the energy policy (Republican or Democrat or Whatever) as long as they're not stupidly expecting foreign oil to fulfill our future energy needs.

As far as the $100 million lost. I think we are witnessing some slick hucksters who are taking advantage of government funding. If this was deliberate (a hard thing to prove) then taking two days to skin the perps alive and leave them for the ants...is just too kind a fate for them.

This money the government is doling out is extremely important, not only because of current economic woes, but because it's vital to future US interests. So I'm not sure who specifically is deciding what companies get government money, but he needs to be sacked. As much as I oppose government meddling, I think whenever gov't money is given for energy projects, it needs to be doled out piecemeal and with a certain amount of oversight. Companies simply cannot go bankrupt while the government is feeding them cash. That is inexcusable! So to be certain the money isn't wasted on company parties, the government may need to play nursemaid. If companies aren't using government money, then there's no need for it.

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We are in perfect agreement. ...specially that ants thingie. :rofl

conservativeguy said:

Those are assumptions just like you are assuming without the government R&D funding none of that stuff would have been developed.....on that point I strongly disagree with you. Humans have been inventing for thousands of years and most of those inventions did not receive any government funding.

BTW - you almost had me backpeddling on the no TANG comment. I then realized someone would have eventually spilled some sugar and vitamin C in a glass and figurde out that one.:lol:

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We used to be a nation of grand ideas. No we're a nation of "I've got mine, now leave me the **** alone."

Internet. Interstate Highway System. Eradication of Polio and Smallpox. Public education for all citizens. A Man on the Moon. The GPS system.

Compare that to what Donald Trump has done. Or the Koch Brothers. Or the Walton family (sure, Wal-Mart is HUGE, but it hasn't ended any diseases or made anyone smarter, with the possible exception of a few higher-up employees who might've had tuition assistance).

Grand projects and major advancements only come when we work together as a people. When profit is involved, some pretty nifty things arise, sure - but not the kinds of things that really move us forward. Our government didn't invent the airplane, but they certainly played a part in advancing aviation to the point we know it today.

That's my point. When I think of the amazing things we've done - it's almost always involved the government.

When government attacked a disease, it was eradicated. When for-profit companies attack a disease (first off, it has to have enough victims to make the disease profitable), they figure out how to make people live longer and become dependent on their drugs.

McDonald's and Wal-Mart are cool and all, but while they've made money for some folks, they've done nothing to improve our species (and arguably have made it worse). I just can't think of one GRAND, course-of-humanity-changing thing that the private sector has brought us in the past few decades. If you'll let me know a few, I'll certainly cede the point, but I'm seriously trying to think of one, and I can not.

MaggieD said:

No. It's not about attacking the President. Well, I guess it is, since Obama made the decisions. But it's much more than that. It's the whole darned system. Doesn't someone/anyone have to account for having flushed $100 million taxpayers dollars down the toilet within a year? (Both companies) What are we doing as a nation? Rolling the dice? Putting it all on black? And I'd be putting this thread up regardless of who was president, Dem or Rep. Obama just happened to luck out on these two.

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We invested in the Internet too. You didn't freak out about that. Why?

Do you think the government should only invest in projects that are guaranteed to be successful?

FilmFestGuy said:

Thank God you weren't an adviser to JFK.

There would be no internet, no GPS...no TANG! For God's sake man...no TANG!!!!

But seriously, government investment in research and infrastructure has created BILLIONS in private capital and profit when private companies were able to blossom from the fertile ground laid by government research.

No internet - you get no EBay, no Google, no Amazon.com nor any other successful private company. And the internet came from our government and investment in research.

If profit is the sole motive for successful research, then you essentially make the claim that TWO AND HALF MEN is equivalent to DON GIOVANNI, or that a McDonald's cheeseburger is the same as Maine lobster and Kobe beef. TWO AND A HALF MEN and McDonald's are highly profitable. But they don't do anything to improve humanity or raise our standards.

Good research is about improving us as a species - not about a buck. You call for the McDonaldsization of the world; while I see a place for McDonald's, but call for a nation that continually attempts to improve life for its people through investment in grand ideas - ideas that will succeed and ideas that will sometimes fail.

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He just said, "weapons R&D".

Deuce said:

We invested in the Internet too. You didn't freak out about that. Why?

Do you think the government should only invest in projects that are guaranteed to be successful?

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I think the government should invest in sound companies. General Electric wouldn't have gone bankrupt. They do tons of research in green.

BTW, I'd be interested in how much and with whom we invested in the internet. When I look at government research, it is hands-down to nonprofits and universities. Some military research to private, but nothing else.

Edit:

Fans of tax-funded investment often cite the Internet as an example of the good that government can do. Sure, they say, the Net now has uncountable millions of components, from Web sites to computer networks large and small. But if it hadn’t been for those first critical investments by the government, we wouldn’t have the Internet today. Politicians from Vice President Al Gore to Speaker Newt Gingrich now call for more such investments by the government—and the taxes to fund them. We must find and identify promising new technologies and invest in them to build tomorrow’s information infrastructure, they tell us, a task too important to be left to private enterprise.

The actual history of the Internet suggests that this is far from accurate. The Internet today bears little resemblance either to what the government wanted to build or to what it actually built.. If anything, therefore, the Internet represents the success of spontaneous ordering over central planning, not the successful design of a new technology by the state.

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Does the Internet Prove the Need for Government Investment? | The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty

I have a feeling from this article that the funding provided for the internet was provided to our U.S. Military Complex. Not the Apple's of the world. Would be interesting to know.

iliveonramen said:

I don't understand this rabid anti-investment attitude. If this was 1950 alternative energy would be considered a national security problem and the government would of spent oodles of money to solve the problem. Like anything else there's failures and advancement but this Conservative obsession over every failure seems to point to this idea that the United States should get out of subsidizing research or something. Historical the US as subsidized more research than any other country in the world. It's why we were so more advanced on computers, the microchip, sattelite technology, the internet, etc.

It seems like you guys are so obsessed with taxes you just wanna hold your fistful of dollars while America slips into decline.

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If they had held onto their fistful of dollars they wouldnt be about 2.543 billion more in debt. And you have to admit...thats a whole lotta fistfuls.

But hey...Im going to build a plant and hire 2000 people and I will produce the world first fuel free battery. it will run houses, cars, planes, trains, and automobiles and it will be absolutely pollution free. All I need from you is 500 million in seed money. See you in 4 years.

Deuce said:

We invested in the Internet too. You didn't freak out about that. Why?

Do you think the government should only invest in projects that are guaranteed to be successful?

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The internet was developed mostly with universities working together. We can argue what the good and bad of that is BUT it is different than the government picking private companies and giving them millions upon millions of dollars putting them in a situation where there could be no competittion. What if I had a different idea on how to create solar panels? Another $500 million to me? What if someone else wants to get into the business?

The government should NEVER be picking private companies to fund giving them a huge advantage over others especially when the owners are major campaign donors.

1Perry said:

The internet was developed mostly with universities working together. We can argue what the good and bad of that is BUT it is different than the government picking private companies and giving them millions upon millions of dollars putting them in a situation where there could be no competittion. What if I had a different idea on how to create solar panels? Another $500 million to me? What if someone else wants to get into the business?

The government should NEVER be picking private companies to fund giving them a huge advantage over others especially when the owners are major campaign donors.

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Actually, you get it! We shouldn't be putting government dollars into private industry. That was the flaw of this program.

Private industry (when it comes to research to better humanity) is ALWAYS going to be corrupt. Profit is great for "luxury" items. It corrupts research meant to better us all.

Research money should be given to government agencies and public universities where the ownership of the results is OURS. Not someone who can then profit off of it. That's how you better a society.

Are we agreeing?