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The U.S. Department of Energy will put up for auction this week a $50 million loan awarded to the now-closed Vehicle Production Group LLC, an unusual move by the DOE that may give U.S. taxpayers a chance to recoup a portion of their investment. The auction may also mark a path for the government to offload non-performing loans made to other troubled, taxpayer-backed companies, including hybrid sports car maker Fisker Automotive, which owes the DOE $192 million and has so far failed to secure a buyer. "I just don't see a great argument for making the bid and resurrecting either...

An audit by theDepartment of Energy’s Inspector General found that the persistent weak demand for electric vehicles harmed the deployment and timeliness of a $135 million-plus taxpayer funded charging network, which spun a cycle of excessive grants and project expansion, that led to an enormous waste of public money. The investigators, led by IG Gregory Friedman, determined that conditions for reimbursement to Ecotality, Inc. (and its subsidiaries) for the EV charging demonstration project were “very generous,” although not explicitly prohibited under federal regulations. “While we acknowledge that the Department had maintained and archived award documentation, an independent reviewer cannot understand...

Despite little news over the past nine months since its last-minute abandonment of an initial public offering that was supposed to raise $76 million in cash, stimulus recipient Smith Electric Vehicles is showing little evidence it can inspire demand for its commercial trucks, like its plug-in car counterparts. Smith’s selling point for its step vans was that, unlike electric automobiles, delivery routes in urban areas did not require a long range between refueling (or, recharging). Frequent stops and short distances alleviated the “range anxiety” that accompanies cars like the Nissan Leaf. Frito-Lay, Coca-Cola and Staples were cited as early adopters...

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The big story yesterday was supposed to be Ben Bernanke’s signal to the markets about future Fed policy — whether he’ll scale it back, or just go on printing money to keep interest rates super-low and inflate the economy. But that’s basically a false drama, fueled largely by jittery traders who know their life blood could be in danger when the Fed finally starts to raise rates and roll backits “quantitative easing” program of buying massive amounts of bonds to infuse the economy and the markets with cash. No, the real story is that Bernanke — and whoever replaces him...

This ought to make your day. Barack Obama’s massive “mother of all databases” includes information on your children.Barack Obama reads a book about himself to a group of children ages 3 to 5 back in 2011. (USA Today) Tea Party Nation reported: Speaking of databases, there’s one out there that’s more than a little bit disturbing. It’s but one more devious plan created by none other than Barack Hussein Obama to store personal information on our children. No wonder Maxine Waters spouted off that Obama’s database knew everything about everybody – this is one of the few times that Maxine...

The Energy Department helped a struggling government-backed clean coal power plant in California secure a new owner in a donor to President Barack Obama and agreed to revised terms that raised the risk of taxpayer losses, government investigators have found. The Department's Office of Inspector General said that officials helped keep Hydrogen Energy California afloat after its initial backers moved to terminate their DOE contract in the face of fading commercial prospects. The project was acquired by Massachusetts-based SCS Energy, headed by Democratic donor James Croyle, in 2011. He gave $2,300 to President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign and $31,400 to...

* VIX up over 8 pct as anxiety rises over central banks' policies * S&P consumer and financial sectors lead the decline * Dow off 0.8 pct; S&P 500 down 0.8 pct; Nasdaq off 1.1 pct NEW YORK, June 12 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks fell on Wednesday, with the Dow tumbling more than 100 points on a wildly volatile day as traders extended a selloff driven by concern about the winding down of central banks' stimulus measures. The S&P 500 was caught between support near its 50-day moving average and resistance at the 14-day moving average. The S&P 500 has...

BART's top-paid worker of 2012 never worked a day With a gross salary of more than $333,000, BART's highest-paid employee last year wasn't its general manager, police chief or a worker who racked up gobs of overtime scrubbing grime from filthy train seats. It was someone who did no work at all for BART in 2012: Dorothy Dugger, the agency's former general manager who resigned under pressure more than two years ago. Under a lucrative retirement scheme, Dugger, 57, quietly stayed on the books, burning off nearly 80 weeks of unused vacation time, drawing paychecks and full benefits for more...

What do Carbon Motors' BMW-powered police car, Aptera Motors' electric three wheeler, and Fisker's luxury sedan have in common? Two things: they asked the government for loans, and they're dead, as are more than half of the car companies who sought loans, according to documents obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request by Jalopnik. Of the 18 existing or would-be carmakers we identified as having applied for loans under the U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing program, 10 have since faded into bankruptcy or ceased operations. Numerous car companies, startups and parts manufacturers have applied for the...

...It is unclear why the bridge was allowed to fall in a state of repair which allowed a catastrophic collapse, since the Obama administration pushed through a $787 billion economic stimulus package as one of his first acts. The stimulus was criticized by many for failing to address the underlying problems with the economy at the time, and many feared the money would have been better spent in the private sector. Titled, the “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act,” Obama touted the virtue of the act, as a way of providing “shovel ready” jobs to Americans, who were struggling during an...

DEAD SEA, Jordan – US Secretary of State John Kerry unveiled on Sunday a $4 billion economic plan to revitalize the Palestinian economy, as he called on Israelis and Palestinians to forgive past wrongs and return to the negotiating table. “The plan for the Palestinian economy is bigger and bolder and more ambitious than anything proposed since Oslo more than 20 years ago,” said Kerry as he spoke at the closing session of the World Economic Forum by the Dead Sea in Jordan.

Biden: 'I'm Proudest' of the Stimulus Daniel Halper May 10, 2013 7:36 AM Vice President Joe Biden says that of first term accomplishments, he's "proudest" of the stimulus. He made the comment in an interview to Rolling Stone magazine. "The thing I'm proudest of that we were able to get done in the first term was the Recovery Act," said Biden. The "Recovery Act" is also known as the stimulus. The vice president went on to say that he's particularly proud of the "clean-energy programs" that were part of the the stimulus. "It had $90 billion in clean-energy programs. We...

Federal Reserve officials have mapped out a strategy for winding down an unprecedented $85 billion-a-month bond-buying program meant to spur the economy—an effort to preserve flexibility and manage highly unpredictable market expectations. Officials say they plan to reduce the amount of bonds they buy in careful and potentially halting steps, varying their purchases as their confidence about the job market and inflation evolves. The timing on when to start is still being debated. Enlarge Image image image The Fed's strategy for how and when to wind down the program is of intense interest in financial markets. While the strategy being...

Kim Jong Un building 'mini world' with replica Big Ben and Eiffel Tower Chubby tyrant Kim Jong Un is building a “miniature world” in North Korea – with a replica of London's Big Ben at its heart. The dictator is set to open the theme park in capital Pyongyang – and has included the iconic clock tower. The new attraction, which opens this year, will also boast a copy of Paris’ Eiffel Tower. The secretive state famously doesn’t allow its citizens to leave the country – so it appears Jong Un has decided to bring the world to his people....

As the Department of Energy seized the last of Fisker Automotive’s reserves in lieu of an unknown amount that it was due to repay this week, what’s left of the lame electric automaker clings to the slim hope it can survive. While CEO Tony Posawatz and his team may need an intervention, a hearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee yesterday revealed that DOE and committee Democrats (as well as those in the Obama administration) are hopelessly stuck in an alternate universe, where losing millions of taxpayer dollars is considered a good record. Republicans had called officials from...

For the past five years, a fierce war of words and policies has been fought in America and other economically challenged countries around the world. On one side were economists and politicians who wanted to increase government spending to offset weakness in the private sector. This "stimulus" spending, economists like Paul Krugman argued, would help reduce unemployment and prop up economic growth until the private sector healed itself and began to spend again. On the other side were economists and politicians who wanted to cut spending to reduce deficits and "restore confidence." Government stimulus, these folks argued, would only increase...

Laugh all you want about Texas Gov. Rick Perry's campaign to recruit businesses from Illinois to the Lone Star State. We don't know whether Perry will succeed in prompting a commercial exodus from the Land of Lincoln to the land of droughts, fire ants and deadly fertilizer-plant explosions. Yet Perry's stunt is another serious wake-up call for Illinois politicians and the inhospitable business climate they've created. Perry can boast to Illinois business leaders of a Texas unemployment rate that has fallen to 6.4 percent. That's an excellent barometer of his state's economic health. By contrast, the unemployment rate in Illinois...

“Ineptocracy” is a new Internet-popularized word in wide circulation, which came to my inbox with the following definition: “A system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.” Clearly the word’s creation was inspired by the current presidential administration, where the ineptocrats abound. And as NLPC has documented for 4+ years, nowhere has that been more evident than in President Obama’sDepartment...

If you want to see where a little bit of your $833 billion stimulus went, head south from St. Louis on Interstate 44 until you reach the Mark Twain National Forest. On March 13, 2009, less than a month after President Barack Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) into law, the federal government awarded $462,912.30 to a Spokane, Washington, construction firm called CXT Incorporated to build and install 22 “precast concrete toilets” in the park. These bunker-style commodes did not add to the number of bathrooms in the forest; they replaced existing toilets that didn’t meet Forest Service...