Great Line from an article in today's OC Register.

Obama’s prediction of 1.9 million new jobs will result in the creation of 92,000 new jobs, mostly in the Federal Department of Green Jobs Grant Applications.

The Circle of (Government) Life for Green Job Employees
by Scott Lincicome
http://lincicome.blogspot.com/2011/09/circle-of-government-life.html

Ex-employees of the failed solar panel company Solyndra have applied for aid under the federal government’s Trade Adjustment Assistance program, the Labor Department has confirmed.

If approved, the employees of what was once touted as a leading exemplar of the White House’s green jobs program will be eligible for more federal funds to enable them to be retrained for other jobs.

It would be an ironic coda to the saga of Solyndra, which manufactured solar panels and received $527 million in loan guarantees from the Energy Department and praise from President Obama during visits to the firm’s California headquarters.

Now those green workers will be seeking the government’s help to find work again and not necessarily in the conservation jobs sector. A source at the department confirmed the request for assistance was received on Sept. 2, just two days after the company filed bankruptcy, placing all 1,100 employees out of work....

The company’s failure was based in part on competition from China, which has been able to produce the panels at a far lower cost than U.S. manufacturers. The request was made by a representative of the 1,100 ex-employees and covers all of them. The department estimates the aid will cost $13,000 per worker for the coming year.

The TAA program offers help to domestic workers who have lost their jobs due to the trade practices of foreign countries. The assistance includes job retraining, allowances for job searching, health benefits and up to 130 weeks of income support.
So to recap: massive government subsidies created 1,100 "green jobs" that never would've existed but for those massive government subsidies. And when those fake jobs disappeared because the subsidized employer-company inevitably couldn't compete in the market, the dislocated workers blamed China (instead of what's easily one of the worst business plans ever drafted) in order to receive... wait for it... more government subsidies.

Behold, the Circle of Government Life.

The Green Jobs scandal just keeps growing and growing.

The LA TImes today published an article with these statements.

Long before the politically connected California solar firm Solyndra went bankrupt, President Obama was warned by his top economic advisors about the financial and political risks of the Energy Department loan guarantee program that boosted the company's rapid ascent.

Barack was too busy drinking his own "Green Energy will save the world" Kool-Aid.

Lawrence H. Summers, then director of the National Economic Council, and Timothy F. Geithner, the Treasury secretary, expressed concerns that the selection process for federal loan guarantees wasn't rigorous enough and raised the risk that funds could be going to the wrong companies, including ones that didn't need the help.

Skeptics, noting that taxpayers could now be on the hook for $527 million the federal government loaned Solyndra, said the administration would have been better off making greater use of market incentives, not individual company loan guarantees.

Obama, using free market incentives, God forbid!

An elite Obama fundraiser hired to help oversee the administration's energy loan program pushed and prodded career Department of Energy officials to move faster in approving a loan guarantee for Solyndra, even as his wife's law firm was representing the California solar company, according to internal emails made public late Friday.

"How hard is this? What is he waiting for?" wrote Steven J. Spinner, a high-tech consultant and energy investor who raised at least $500,000 for the candidate before being appointed to a key job helping oversee the energy loan guarantee program. "I have OVP [the Office of the Vice President] and WH [the White House] breathing down my neck on this."

Many of the emails were written just days after Spinner accepted a three-page ethics agreement in which he pledged he would "not participate in any discussion regarding any application involving [his wife's law firm] Wilson [Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati]."

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/obama-fundraiser-pushed-solyndra-deal-inside/story?id=14691618

Two House committees are seeking details about the $4.75 loans given to First Solar, SunPower Corp., ProLogis, and other solar companies. Of those three companies, troubling financial revelations have emerged about SunPower, which sponsored a solar project that received a $1.2 billion loan, more than twice the money approved for Solyndra, which filed for bankruptcy last month after receiving a $528 million loan.
The Energy Department says on its website that the $1.2 billion loan to help build the California Valley Solar Ranch in San Luis Obispo County, a project that will help create 15 permanent jobs, which adds up to the equivalent of $80 million in taxpayer money for each job.

Before his American Jobs Act failed to pass a Senate cloture vote Tuesday, President Barack Obama made a last-ditch speech to talk up his troubled bill. Not once did Obama mention "green jobs" -- his erstwhile jobs of the future.

Smart move. Obama's 2009 $787 billion stimulus package included $500 million for training programs that were supposed to create new green jobs for thousands of middle-class Americans. Last month, however, the Department of Labor's inspector general conducted an audit that found that as of June 30 -- with one-third of the funds spent and more than 50,000 participants -- only 10 percent of trainees were placed in jobs. And only 1,336 participants, or 2 percent, had held jobs for six months or longer.

The audit reported that grant recipients "expressed concerns that green jobs had not materialized and job placements into subsidized employment had been much less than expected." The inspector general recommended that the Labor Department cut its losses and run -- in Washington-speak. The audit advised that the department reassess grants and "obtain an estimate of funds each grantee will realistically spend given the current demand for green job-related skills" so that whatever is left of the remaining $327 million can be put to better use.

Excellent article in the Las Vegas Sun Journal.

Exploding the promise of 'green jobs'

Can we finally put to rest the idea that government creates jobs? Can everyone finally agree that "green jobs" will never be part of an economic recovery -- in Nevada or anywhere else?

There is simply no spinning or distorting the failure of one of President Obama's biggest initiatives and campaign promises. "Hope" and "Change" hinged on creating 5 million green jobs in 10 years. As a down payment, the stimulus abomination set aside billions of dollars, including a $500 million grant to train 125,000 people for the noble work of the future.

As of this summer, of the nearly 53,000 people who had completed the training at a cost of $163 million, barely 8,000 had found work. Only 1,000 had held a job for more than six months, according to a report released this month by the Labor Department's inspector general.

Last month, in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, "Attention Deficit Democracy" author James Bovard pointed out that the federal government has rolled out job-training programs for half a century. "The record is one of failure and scandal," resulting in actual earnings losses for many participants.

"If federal job training efforts worked, Congress would not have thrown out the programs it has created every decade or so and enacted new ones," Bovard wrote. "In reality, government training has always been driven by bureaucratic convenience, or politicians' re-election considerations. There is no reason to believe the latest round of proposals will be any different."

Want to create permanent jobs? Get government out of the way.

Green Jobs is Obama's wet dream when you think about it.
He and other environmentalists can put forth the false choice that if you are against Green Jobs you are for the destruction of the planet.
Following this logic Obama/Statists/Environmental Extremists (not true environmentalist) can claim that they have a right, really a duty, to raise your taxes and spend the revenue to save you basically from you.
Their creation of a duty out of a false choice would make sophists in Athen's Golden Age proud.

Now followed by Obama's Student Loan Fiasco.

It seems that our President isn't interested in colleges teaching students anything that will enable them to pay back their student loans.

Americans now owe more on student loans than on credit cards. As USA Today reported, America's student loan debt is expected to exceed $1 trillion this year. Rising costs have left many graduates in a deep hole. Many of last year's graduates walked away with a diploma and, on average, $24,000 in student loans. The default rate on student loans rose to 8.8 percent in 2009.

Obama wants to cap some student loan payments at 15 percent of a graduate's discretionary income and to forgive the balance after 25 years. On Thursday, Obama pledged to lower the cap to 10 percent of discretionary income -- with forgiveness after 20 years.

I guess it's okay for the "taxpayers" (minus anyone with a student loan) to pay for educators who don't educate despite their relentlessly rising bills for what they say is education.

Why didn't we pay off student loans with all that money we wasted on Solar and the other green job boondoggles?

The Department of Energy's Inspector General said Wednesday that the 2009 stimulus program for green energy was so at odds with the realities on the ground that it was akin to "attaching a lawn mower to a fire hydrant."

Inspector General Gregory Friedman, testifying to the House Energy and Commerce Committee's panel on stimulus oversight, outlined a range of problems, from a flood of $35 billion in stimulus money that overwhelmed the department's $27 billion annual budget to weatherization programs of such shoddy quality that more than half of those audited failed inspection because of substandard workmanship.

Even as the Energy Department hired new workers to manage the sudden inflow of funds, Friedman said, the state and local governments responsible for spending the money were laying off workers and were "simply put, overwhelmed."

Now that the stimulus is ending, he said, the Energy Department "now confronts the unpleasant task of laying off significant numbers of the contractor workforce, many of whom had just recently been hired."

Because of course Green Energy isn't profitable and can't produce sustainable jobs.
Obama's Green Energy boondoggle wasted tens of billions of dollars that could have created real jobs.
Only 11 months left of the failed Obama experiment.

Better to lose money on solar power than make it by building a pipeline from the tar sands to Texas, which will speed up global warming and destroy whole ecosystems.

Tettleton,

This thread has been essentially just you for over a month. Stop masterbating and let it die.

China spent tens of billions on high speed rail that Obama admired.

In a report on a massive new government bailout for the Railway Ministry and its high-speed rail debacle, Gordon Chang notes:

Chinese officials decreed the construction of most of the infrastructure built in the last three years because they wanted to create GDP. Now, however, they are busy thinking about how they will pay for all the "ghost cities" and train tracks to nowhere they have just built for this purpose.

Olivia Chung describes why the most notorious of the Chinese ghost cities, Kangbashi New Central District in the Inner Mongolian mining boomtown of Ordos, was built. "The new district was initiated in 2006 to drive up measurable gross domestic product (GDP) growth--a yardstick for evaluation of the performance of local officials."

Nothing like Keynesian economics to give you a system that is easily fooled and wastes more money than any other in history.

Dont you ever have chafing issues?

Obama fundraiser George Kaiser and his business associates discussed lobbying the White House to help Solyndra, the solar panel company that failed in August, newly released e-mails show.

Records made public Wednesday by House Republicans show Kaiser’s associates were interested in winning White House assistance in selling its panels to the government, and that they discussed Solyndra with Obama Administration officials in charge of stimulus funding.Solyndra’s biggest investor was a fund linked to the family foundation of George Kaiser, a Tulsa billionaire and bundler for Obama’s presidential campaign.

Kaiser was involved in e-mail correspondence with his business colleagues about an upcoming White House meeting to get the administration’s help in selling its panels, and in seeking a second energy department loan, which if awarded would have been in addition to a $535 million loan the company received in 2009.

Kaiser’s representatives have previously said Kaiser did not personally lobby the White House on behalf of Solyndra’s loan. Kaiser’s foundation told the Washington Post on Sept. 2 that Kaiser had no conversations with the administration about the loan and was not involved in the loan process.

When you see a Washington Post story like this you know that Obama's Green Energy corruption is going to see the light of day and really cost the corrupt Democrats in power.
Can you say "special prosecutor?"

Solyndra: Energy Dept. pushed firm to keep layoffs quiet until after midterms
By Carol D. Leonnig and Joe Stephens, Tuesday, November 15, 7:46 AM

The Obama administration urged officers of the struggling solar company Solyndra to postpone announcing planned layoffs until after the November 2010 midterm elections, newly released e-mails show.

Solyndra, the now-shuttered California company, had been a poster child of President Obama’s initiative to invest in clean energies and received the administration’s first energy loan of $535 million. But a year ago, in October 2010, the solar panel manufacturer was quickly running out of money and had warned the Energy Department it would need emergency cash to avoid having to shut down.
The new e-mails about the layoff announcement were released Tuesday morning as part of a House Energy and Commerce committee memo, provided in advance of Energy Secretary Steven Chu’s scheduled testimony before the investigative committee Thursday.

Solyndra’s chief executive warned the Energy Department on Oct. 25, 2010, that he intended to announce worker layoffs Oct. 28. He said he was spurred by numerous calls from reporters and potential investors about rumors the firm was in financial trouble and was planning to lay off workers and close one of its two plants.

But in an Oct. 30, 2010, e-mail, advisers to Solyndra’s primary investor, Argonaut Equity, explain that the Energy Department had strongly urged the company to put off the layoff announcement until Nov. 3. The midterm elections were held Nov. 2, and led to Republicans taking control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

“DOE continues to be cooperative and have indicated that they will fund the November draw on our loan (app. $40 million) but have not committed to December yet,” a Solyndra investor adviser wrote Oct. 30. “They did push very hard for us to hold our announcement of the consolidation to employees and vendors to Nov. 3rd – oddly they didn’t give a reason for that date.”

Solyndra has become a rallying cry for Republicans who argue Obama used his clean energy initiative to steer valuable loans to benefit his friends and donors. Argonaut is a private equity firm of George Kaiser, who advised his investor deputies on how to approach the White House to help Solyndra with its financial problems.

Earlier in October, Solyndra executives and its investors had warned the agency that they needed emergency financing to keep the company operating after December, and were working with the agency to restructure and ease the terms of its half-billion-dollar federal loan.

On Oct. 25, 2010, Solyndra chief executive Brian Harrison e-mailed the energy department’s loan staff to explain that Solyndra “has received some press inquiries about rumors of problems (one of them with quite accurate information) and we have received in bound calls from potential investors. Both of these data points indicate the story is starting to leak outside Solyndra.”

Harrison went on to state that he would “like to go forward with the internal communication [to employees regarding layoffs] on Thursday, October 28.”

Harrison’s e-mail was forwarded to program director, Jonathan Silver, who then alerted White House climate change czar Carol Browner and Vice President Biden’s point person on stimulus, Ron Klain. Browner asked for more information about the announcement, and Chu’s chief of staff explained he had left a voicemail message on her cellphone.

On Nov. 3, 2010, Solyndra announced it would lay off 40 workers and 150 contractors and shut down its Fab 1 factory. The department agreed to continue giving Solyndra installments of its federal loan despite the company’s failure to meet key terms of the loan, and in February restructured its loan to give investors a chance to recover $75 million in new money they put into the company before taxpayers would be repaid.

Silver resigned from the agency last month.

I find that none of this ever should have happened. The government should not have interfered in the least with matters in the private sector. George Kaiser probably wouldn't have donated because that would be something GOOD coming out of the private sector without his administration having ultimate power over investments and management. Whether the Walton family would have invested or not, I am not qualified to place an opinion. If they had, the losses would not have been the taxpayers', and this would not be a big deal. Whether the Republicans or the Democrats brought the loan into existence, the same beliefs are at work.
As far as whether Bush or Obama is responsible for the "scandal", there was a time in which Bush was responsible. Obama had a chance to minimize the taxpayers' losses, but failed to do so. Bush was responsible for the initial deal, and President Obama is responsible for the difference (while he ultimately made the worse decision because he had more information than Bush).
I had a feeling you would be here, Putin. I don't blame you.
Again, I stress rationality rather than name-calling, cursing, or the use of emotion to convey your point. There are times for emotion, but this is not one of them.

Ahem...

Just clearing this up:

If pro is opposite of con, then what is the opposite of progress?
"Obama is the opposite of progress. "

Incorrect.

If pro is the opposite of con, what is the opposite of progress?
Congress.

Yeah.

So the Democrats control half of Congress and all the executive branch the last two years, and all of Congress and the executive the two years before that, and all of Congress the two years before that.

So when you say that the problem is Congress you should realize the truth, that the Democrats have controlled five/sixths of Congress for the last six years and two-thirds of the Executive over the last six years.

Facts just really get in the way of fantasy.

I know right, these meddling facts seem to destroy your fantasy every time TC...

That doesn't even work. He's right, you know.