U.S. Climate Action Partnership: Wall Street's Oscar the Cat

The Husaria: For Our Freedom and Yours ^ | 10/27/08 | Winged Hussar 1683

[Winged Hussar]

Kimberley Strassel's If the Cap Fits: Why our CEOs are warming to Kyoto shows that the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP or CAP for short) includes many companies that seek corporate welfare in the form of government-mandated purchases of their services or products. Many of USCAP's members do not, in fact, even claim to produce a product or service, and are dependent on donations or grants. The recent performance of USCAP's portfolio also suggests that the Climate Action Partnership is Wall Street's Oscar the Cat: a harbinger of bankruptcy, desperate mergers, and generally poor business performance.

...While several of CAP's members do have reputations for high-quality products, it is clear that many of the others have a lazy and indolent management attitude that they should be paid for merely existing, through government-mandated purchases of their products. The bottom line of this attitude is eminently clear in Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy, AIG's need for a government bailout, and GM's impending arrival at what looks like death's door. This reinforces our perception that the Climate Action Partnership is the stock market's Oscar the Cat, and that investors should take a good hard at its corporate members before investing.

Bottom line: If your "green" products save consumers and businesses money by using less energy, or producing energy from renewable resources, you don't need the government to force people to buy them. You need government mandates only when your products or services cannot justify themselves economically, which means perhaps that your company cannot justify its existence.

[Winged Hussar]

The U.S. Climate Action Partnership's members include AIG (needed a government bailout), Lehman Brothers (now out of business), General Motors (begging for government financing), General Electric (down 57% from its high in 2007), plus many foundations and nonprofits that do not have to produce any product or service whatsoever.

[steelyourfaith]

 

Beam me to Planet Gore !