"The welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants" - Albert Camus

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Move Over Solargate: More Crony Capitalist Corruption

I was starting to wonder that although a week had passed since the latest Administration scandal hit the news, no new scandal was raising its ugly head from the cess pool that is the Obama Administration.  Multitudinous non-energy related scandals aside, could it be that we would not be treated to another Solyndra, SunPower, or other failures associated with this Administration's obsession with green initiatives (like Evergreen, SolarCity, Solexel, Majave Solar, LightSquared, Tesla, and GE among others)?  Well, I was not let down as this is the Administration that keeps on giving.

The latest scandalous story unearthed by ABC news revolves around another Obama supporting crony investor who took the tax payers for another half a billion dollar ride.
Yes students, the corrupt crony capitalist of the week is Henrik Fisker

Fisker, a car company backed by a prominent venture capital firm Gore is a partner at, and pumped by Vice President Biden, took over half a billion dollars from the federal loan guarantee program I discussed in earlier posts.  Vice President Biden heralded the Energy Department’s $529 million loan to the start-up electric car company as a bright new path to thousands of American manufacturing jobs. But two years after the loan was announced, the job of assembling the flashy electric Fisker Karma sports car has been outsourced to Finland.  The reason?  There are no facilities in the U.S. that can do the job!

Furthermore, Fisker Karma is not only behind schedule but its touted fuel economy is a sham.  Like Tesla - the other electric car company U.S. tax payers are on the hook for - it stands almost no chance to compete in the market place against other cars.  How do I know it?  Just look at GM's Volt that is only selling between 100-200 cars per month.  At a much steeper cost of over $90 thousand, the Karma is sure to be a bust.  So is Fisker as an entity American taxpayers are unwittingly betting on. 

The immediate question that comes to mind is, why did the DOE not know any of this before backing a massive loan for purposes that had no prayer of being realized in this country (or anywhere else in my opinion)?  A second question is how much did the fact that the principal of the company is not only a heavy Democrat contributor but has connections in high places play in securing the loan guarantee?
 
Despite the unconvincing DOE attempt to defend their policies, the tens of billions of dollars poured down the drain on green energy related ventures is as good as gone.  The question remains, will this Administration ever be held accountable.  I am not betting o it.

1 comment:

THE ANTI LIBERAL ZONE said...

Anyone connected should be put on trial and if convicted, they go to jail, their assets seized, and sold to repay what they illegally lost!