World Bank support for China solar and wind power may have cost U.S. jobs

Washington Post ^ | 10/14/2013 | Howard Schneider

[TexGrill]

As investment in alternative energy rebounded in 2011, U.S. wind and solar companies found stiff new competition — Chinese firms dominating the green industries that American officials looked to for growth.

Supporting those Chinese companies was a surprising patron: the World Bank, a Washington-based development agency whose steady counsel and financing have helped China challenge U.S. economic dominance, and in this case may have cost the United States jobs.

Sometimes criticized as a tool of U.S. foreign influence, the bank’s 30-year engagement in China may actually tell an opposite tale — of an institution that helped lay the foundation for some of the policies and industries cited by the United States as unfair to its firms and workers, and corrosive to the global economic system. Bank programs have provided Chinese companies with direct loans to build their expertise and become more competitive; separately, World Bank contracts have provided tens of billions of dollars in business for Chinese firms that have won work from the bank at a pace unmatched by other countries.

For U.S. firms such as Solar World, the impact of bank programs in China became obvious as they watched imports from the world’s second-largest economy gobble U.S. market share.

[TexGrill]

Global business tip

[Kolath]

Considering that China produces 97% of rare earths, is this really a bombshell?

The US can mine rare earths if they can ever get over the “Thorium issue”

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks TexGrill.

The Obama Tax Hike

to go with

The Obama Recession