No kidding it's serious.
Our representatives are lining up to sell us down the road of Euro-energy prices for the TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN NEW TAX REVENUE.
Not to mention lining the pockets of a few select liberals to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. Al Gore, and others, are chuckling all the way to their Swiss/offshore bank accounts.
Spotlight on Gore ‘s Dual Role As an Advocate and Investor
New York Times, Nov 3, 2009, By JOHN M. BRODER
Abstract: Al Gore finds himself in position of having to defend decision to invest, through his venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, in Silver Spring Networks, which produces hardware and software to make electricity grid more efficient.
Gore and his partners invested $75 million in Silver Spring, which wanted to expand its partnerships with utilities seeking to install millions of smart meters in home and businesses; deal appears to have paid off now that Energy Dept has announced $3.4 billion in smart grid grants, with $560 million going to Silver Spring.
Gore and his partners could reap great returns from investment and he is defending that investment against critics who say he stood to benefit personally from energy and climate policies he urged Congress to adopt. Gore contends his investmenet activities are consistent with his public advocacy. (snip)
Gore is a founder of Generation Investment Management, based in London and run by David Blood, a former head of Goldman Sachs Asset Management (the firm was quickly dubbed Blood and Gore).
Mr. Gore earns a partner’s salary at Kleiner Perkins. He has substantial personal finances invested at both firms, officials of the companies said. He also serves as an adviser to high-profile technology companies including Apple and Google, relationships that have paid him handsome dividends over the last eight years.
Mr. Gore‘s spokeswoman would not give a figure for his current net worth, but the scale of his wealth is evident in a single investment of $35 million in Capricorn Investment Group, a private equity fund started by his friend Jeffrey Skoll, the first president of eBay. Ion Yadigaroglu, a co-founder of Capricorn, said that Mr. Gore does not sit on the fund’s investment committee, but obviously agrees with the partners’ strategy of putting long-term money into promising ventures in energy, technology and health care around the globe.
“Aspirationally,” said Mr. Yadigaroglu, who holds a doctorate from Stanford in astrophysics, “we’re trying to make more money than others doing the same thing and do it in a way that is superior in ethics and impacts.”
Mr. Gore has said he invested in partnerships and funds that try to identify and support companies that are advancing cutting-edge green technologies and are paving the way toward a low-carbon economy.
He has a stake in the world’s pre-eminent carbon credit trading market and in an array of companies in bio-fuels, sustainable fish farming, electric vehicles and solar power.
Capricorn holds a major stake in Falcon Waterfree Technologies, the world’s leading maker of waterless urinals. Generation has holdings in Ausra, a solar energy company based in California, and Camco, a British firm that develops carbon dioxide emissions reduction projects.
Kleiner Perkins has a green ventures fund with nearly $1 billion invested in renewable energy and efficiency concerns.
Mr. Gore also has substantial interests in technology, media and biotechnology ventures that have no direct tie to his environmental advocacy, an aide said. (snip).
SOURCE http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/business/energy-environment/03gore.html
With the Chicago dark forces in the mix now, things are rapidly approaching the boiling over point like back in the late sixties, early seventies!!! I feel it approaching like a locomotive!!! (diesel-electric, of course)