California's Destructive Green Jobs Lobby (Silicon Valley companies now doing feel-good projects)

Silicon Valley, once synonymous with productivity-enhancing innovation, is now looking to make money on feel-good government handouts.

California officials acknowledged last Thursday that the state faces $20 billion deficits every year from now to 2016. At the same time, California's state Treasurer entered bond markets to sell some $14 billion in "revenue anticipation notes" over the next two weeks. Worst of all, economic sanity lost out in what may have been the most important election on Nov. 2—and, no, I'm not talking about the gubernatorial or senate races.

This was the California referendum to repeal Assembly Bill 32, the so-called Global Warming Solutions Act, which ratchets the state's economy back to 1990 levels of greenhouse gases by 2020. That's a 30% drop followed by a mandated 80% overall drop by 2050. Together with $500 billion public-pension overhang, the new energy cap dooms the state to bankruptcy.

Conservative pundits have lavished mock pity on the state. But as America's chief fount of technology, California cannot go down the drain without dragging the rest of the country with it.

The irony is that a century-long trend of advance in conventional "non-renewable" energy—from wood to oil to natural gas and nuclear—has already wrought roughly 60% drop in carbon emissions per watt. Thus the long-term California targets might well be achieved globally in the normal course of technological advance. The obvious next step is aggressive exploitation of the trillions of cubic feet of low-carbon natural gas discovered over the last two years, essentially ending the U.S. energy crisis.

The massive vote against repeal of the California law—62% to 38%—supports an economy-crushing drive to suppress CO2 emissions from natural gas and everything else. In a parody of supply-side economics, advocates of AB 32 envisage the substitution of alternative energy sources that create new revenue sources,

Sometimes, bright and intelligent people can be duped into following a foolish trend....

CONSIDER:

* Led by Al Gore’s investment affiliate, Kleiner Perkins Caulfield and Byers, the campaign to save AB 32 raised $31 million—more than three times the $10 million that the oil companies raised for repeal.

* Pouring in millions were such venture capitalists as John Doerr and Vinod Khosla of Kleiner Perkins, Eric Schmidt and Sergei Brin of Google, and the legendary Gordon Moore and Andrew Grove of Intel.

* The campaign even managed to shake down a contribution from the state’s public utility, Pacific Gas and Electric,

* The campaign gained the backing of the GOP’s eBay billionaire gubernatorial candidate, Meg Whitman.

Which goes to show.... high IQ does not necessarily equate to Wisdom.

The trend in Silicon Valley seems to be to put money into GREEN ventures. Why? Well, you have lots of tax payer money coming in as your “partner” if you fund such ventures. Can’t let all that “free” money go away when it’s all there for the taking.

NOTICE:

In the past, Kleiner Perkins funded scores of vital ventures, from Apple and Applied Materials to Amazon and Google.

But now Kleiner is moving on to such government- dependent firms as Miasole, Amyris Biofuels, Segway and Upwind Solutions. Many have ingenious technology and employ thousands of brilliant engineers, but they are mostly wasted on pork catchers.

California’s sorry state a major threat to U.S.

Think Greece is a drag on Europe? That’s nothing

California is to the United States what Greece is to Europe - and not just because of its abundance of sun and sea.

Busted budgets and dysfunctional politics have also made them kindred spirits.

And just as Europe is reluctantly looking at coming to Greece’s financial rescue, the day may soon come when California’s financial woes become a problem for all Americans.

In some ways, California may prove to be the bigger headache. Were it a country, the state’s economy would rank eighth in the world - roughly the size of France and much larger than any of the so-called PIIGS of Europe: Portugal (No. 50), Ireland (No. 56), Italy (No. 11), Greece (No. 34) and Spain (No. 13).

California also makes up a larger relative share of the U.S. economy, at 13 per cent of U.S. gross domestic product. Greece accounts for just 2 per cent of Europe’s GDP.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/commentary/californias-sorry-state-a-major-threat-to-us/article1469347/

Beyond reckless / Sacramento, Washington pile up the debt

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2009/dec/24/beyond-reckless-sacramento-washington-pile-debt/

The job growth for state workers contrasts with the loss of 759,000
jobs in California’s private industry in the past 12 months

http://www.mercurynews.com/topstories/ci_12984385?nclick_check=1&forced=true

not to mention gubermint employees and their pensions:

Reform advocates are spotlighting those with extravagant pensions
— $100,000 or more — as a way to get the public’s attention and
emphasize that the current system is unsustainable.

http://www.modbee.com/editorials/story/803636.html

Porkulus:

State Fiscal Stabilization Fund $4,387,948,882
Grants to States for the Education of Children with Disabilities $1,226,944,052
Title I - Grants to LEAs $1,124,920,473
State Fiscal Stabilization Fund - Government Services $1,084,768,673
WIA Youth, Adult, and Dislocated Worker Formula Combined. $488,646,876
Tax Credit Assistance Program (TCAP) (Recovery Act Funded) $325,877,114
ARRA State Revolving Fund $280,285,800
California’s State Energy Program $226,093,000
Child Care and Development Block Grant $220,273,864

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