The Green Jobs Scam

[Conan71]

Last time I checked, the DMI plant in north Tulsa looked like a ghost town.  There is capacity to build wind towers here in the states, it's simply not happening.  The story on ABC last night pointed to workers in Pennsylvania laid off from wind power companies while WP companies in China are prospering.

Brought to you by the Federal Government using your hard-earned er confiscated wealth:

http://abcnews.go.com/WN/wind-power-equal-job-power/story?id=9759949

"Despite all the talk of green jobs, the overwhelming majority of stimulus money spent on wind power has gone to foreign companies, according to a new report by the Investigative Reporting Workshop at the American University's School of Communication in Washington, D.C.

Wind turbines are powered by strong prevailing winds in Palm Springs, Calif. The American Wind...
Wind turbines are powered by strong prevailing winds in Palm Springs, Calif. The American Wind Energy Association came out with a report last week that showed a drop in wind manufacturing jobs in the United States for last year. But during that time, enough wind farms have been built to power 2.4 million homes and create lots of new, green jobs.
(David McNew/Getty Images)Nearly $2 billion in money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has been spent on wind power, funding the creation of enough new wind farms to power 2.4 million homes over the past year. But the study found that nearly 80 percent of that money has gone to foreign manufacturers of wind turbines.

So Where Are the Jobs?

"Most of the jobs are going overseas," said Russ Choma at the Investigative Reporting Workshop. He analyzed which foreign firms had accepted the most stimulus money. "According to our estimates, about 6,000 jobs have been created overseas, and maybe a couple hundred have been created in the U.S."'

How Did This Happen?

Several of the large European turbine manufacturers had limited manufacturing facilities in the United States, but there was nothing in the stimulus plan that required that the turbines, or any other equipment needed for the wind farms, be made here, said Rogers. There are strict "Buy America" provisions in the Recovery Act, but this Green Energy Stimulus initiative turned the existing tax credits into cash grants, bypassing the "Buy America" provision.

Iberdrola, one of the largest operators of renewable energy worldwide, is based in Spain and has received the most U.S. stimulus dollars -- $577 million. It buys some of its turbines from another Spanish manufacturer, Gamesa, which has a U.S. connection. Gamesa has two facilities to manufacture turbine blades in Pennsylvania, but the company said the market forced it to temporarily lay off nearly 100 workers.

[Vision 2025]

You can't see the parking lot from the road, DMI is presently running two shifts, third shift was eliminated a year ago. 

Demand is there, loosen up the credit market and watch the towers roll out....

[we vs us]

Demand is there, loosen up the credit market and watch the towers roll out....

I've been wondering if there'll be a point where the government has to bypass the recalcitrant banking industry altogether and start offering low-cost loans to small and medium sized businesses.  I understand that there's a huge prevailing anti-government headwind out there right now, but it may come to a point where it's the only entity left willing to loan to smaller businesses. 

In this economy, I'd love it if they took mine and Conan's tax money and went ahead and loaned it to DMI rather than continue to backstop the banks till they feel all warm and comfortable enough to lend it out.

[Conan71]

I've been wondering if there'll be a point where the government has to bypass the recalcitrant banking industry altogether and start offering low-cost loans to small and medium sized businesses.  I understand that there's a huge prevailing anti-government headwind out there right now, but it may come to a point where it's the only entity left willing to loan to smaller businesses. 

In this economy, I'd love it if they took mine and Conan's tax money and went ahead and loaned it to DMI rather than continue to backstop the banks till they feel all warm and comfortable enough to lend it out.

Wevus,

I was about to ask if something had suddenly happened to SBA, a quick Google answered my question:

"Just before Thanksgiving last year, the U.S. Small Business Administration's flagship loan program, which provides banks with a government guarantee of up to 90 percent of the value of loans made to small businesses that fall just shy of qualifying for a standard bank loan, ran out of money.

SBA loan guarantees are arguably one of the most efficient uses of stimulus funds. The $325 million included in the Recovery Act of last February covered the cost of backing $16.5 billion in loans to small businesses. Yet, as loan volume spiked in the fall, reaching pre-recession levels, Congress let the pipeline run dry.

Within weeks, more than 1,000 small businesses found themselves in loan purgatory: their loans had been approved, but banks couldn't release the funds.

Such a turn of events seems unconscionable amid a recession. But it's about to happen again. An additional $125 million appropriated in December will run out toward the end of February unless the Senate moves quickly to approve legislation that would support SBA loan guarantees through the end of the year.

These days, all eyes are on small businesses, and for good reason. They've created the majority of new jobs over the last decade and, in past downturns, it's been small business growth that has pulled us out of recession."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stacy-mitchell/small-business-lending-bi_b_455839.html

[Gaspar]

Wevus,

I was about to ask if something had suddenly happened to SBA, a quick Google answered my question:

"Just before Thanksgiving last year, the U.S. Small Business Administration's flagship loan program, which provides banks with a government guarantee of up to 90 percent of the value of loans made to small businesses that fall just shy of qualifying for a standard bank loan, ran out of money.

SBA loan guarantees are arguably one of the most efficient uses of stimulus funds. The $325 million included in the Recovery Act of last February covered the cost of backing $16.5 billion in loans to small businesses. Yet, as loan volume spiked in the fall, reaching pre-recession levels, Congress let the pipeline run dry.

Within weeks, more than 1,000 small businesses found themselves in loan purgatory: their loans had been approved, but banks couldn't release the funds.

Such a turn of events seems unconscionable amid a recession. But it's about to happen again. An additional $125 million appropriated in December will run out toward the end of February unless the Senate moves quickly to approve legislation that would support SBA loan guarantees through the end of the year.

These days, all eyes are on small businesses, and for good reason. They've created the majority of new jobs over the last decade and, in past downturns, it's been small business growth that has pulled us out of recession."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stacy-mitchell/small-business-lending-bi_b_455839.html

Crap!  Beat me to it.

[we vs us]

I'm surprised by that, and disturbed.  To me, the SBA would seem a prime outlet for endrunning around the banks, which, at this point, are pretty useless.

Something tells me there's a story behind this, not just negligence.  It's enough of a glaring omission that it definitely raises a red flag.

[Gaspar]

I'm surprised by that, and disturbed.  To me, the SBA would seem a prime outlet for endrunning around the banks, which, at this point, are pretty useless.

Something tells me there's a story behind this, not just negligence.  It's enough of a glaring omission that it definitely raises a red flag.

Seek. 

[Conan71]

I'm surprised by that, and disturbed.  To me, the SBA would seem a prime outlet for endrunning around the banks, which, at this point, are pretty useless.

Something tells me there's a story behind this, not just negligence.  It's enough of a glaring omission that it definitely raises a red flag.

It's not an end-run around the banks, it's allows banks the opportunity to make money by lending to small business and their exposure, being that it's heavily guaranteed by the gov't, is incredibly low. 

I think the Senate entire DC establishment has lost sight of the real problems and priorities facing Americans right now.  Perhaps it's difficult for a bunch of millionaires drawing $174K per year plus bennies to have a grip on the realities of the current economic climate for the rest of the United States.

[Gaspar]

I thought President Obama fixed this

In the words of our Lord:

First of all, you should be aware that we have increased S.B.A. loans during the course of this year by 70 percent in some cases. So some of the key programs for businesses like yours we have massively increased their lending. And by the way, we've waived some of the fees and red tape that are associated with you getting a loan from the S.B.A.

Bla Bla Bla um Uh

The challenge that we've got is that even S.B.A. loans are generally run not by the S.B.A.; the S.B.A. essentially works with local banks, community banks, neighborhood banks, to process the loan. And essentially the S.B.A. underwrites the loan.

And so the S.B.A. does not have the infrastructure to go all across the country in every region and process loans to small businesses directly because they don't have enough people — somebody yelled, "Why not?" The S.B.A. doesn't have the staff to do it."

Keep in mind, a small-business loan of any sort, or a large-business loan of any sort, requires some sense of, what's the business plan? What are your projected earnings, etc., etc.? Somebody has got to do that. Now, if the S.B.A. were to suddenly take over that entire function, we'd have to stand up a massive bureaucracy — a huge one. And we'd have to train all those people, and it would take too long, and you'd be frustrated — why is it that this big government agency can't seem to run anything?

So what we've decided to do instead is to take $30 billion that was repaid by the banks and make that available under criteria that will encourage small banks to give those loans to you. And if we do that effectively, we can potentially get that money out the door more quickly.

But I am absolutely sympathetic to what you're saying because I'm hearing it everywhere I go. That's why I mentioned it last night in my speech. You've got a lot of small-business owners who are ready to grow, ready to hire, but they just can't get financing. So we're going to use the S.B.A. as one tool; this $30 billion is going to help. Ultimately, though, the vast majority of small businesses, their loans are going to come from the private sector. And we've got to get the private sector to think differently.

What happened here was that everybody was making loans without thinking of the risk at all. They were just sending out money out the door. That's how a lot of overdevelopment happened here in Florida, in Nevada, in California — because people were just saying, "You know what, we're making money, we're not going to ask a lot of questions." Suddenly the bottom falls out, and the pendulum has shifted too far in the other direction so that even if you've got a good business plan, you've got a good model and you're making profits and a good product, now banks are reluctant to lend at all.

And what we're trying to do is to encourage them to get that happy medium, where they're not taking such exorbitant risks that they threaten the entire system, but they're also open to enough risk that America's dynamic free enterprise system is actually able to work.

One aspect of this is also getting regulators who oversee the banks — which aren't under my supervision; these are independent bank regulators — to at least take a closer look at their policies, because a lot of bankers will tell you they want to loan you the money but they suffered all these losses because of some of the mortgage stuff going belly up. So what they'll tell you is, "I've got a bank regulator breathing down my neck making sure that I'm keeping my capital levels high enough." And we're going to have to make some adjustments there. But that's not something the administration can do directly. We can just encourage these independent regulators to take a closer look at it.

I'm confident you're going to succeed, though. And you can give Reggie Love here your business card so we can find out about your terrific business. [Applause.  Woman faints. Blind man regains sight.]


Problem solved.  I feel better now.

[USRufnex]

I thought President Obama fixed this

In the words of our Lord:

-10

Typical Gaspar blather.... thanks for reminding me why I continue to believe you have zero credibility on national politics.

[Cats Cats Cats]

Using less power and less fuel makes our economy more efficient.  If we are able to pioneer this technology the US will have something to export again.  We need to do all we can to be the leaders in "green" (AKA: not spending money companies don't have to) technology.

[Conan71]

Using less power and less fuel makes our economy more efficient.  If we are able to pioneer this technology the US will have something to export again.  We need to do all we can to be the leaders in "green" (AKA: not spending money companies don't have to) technology.

We already do have something to export along these lines: jobs 

[Vision 2025]

Using less power and less fuel makes our economy more efficient.  If we are able to pioneer this technology the US will have something to export again.  We need to do all we can to be the leaders in "green" (AKA: not spending money companies don't have to) technology.

Unfortunately, the US is well behind other countries on much of the technology for state of the art wind generation which is why overseas corporations are reaping much benefit from US investment.  Don't get me wrong, there are still significant green energy jobs in the US and I believe many more will be created because shipping is everything when it comes to the components of wind generation... because the pieces are BIG and only going to get BIGGER therefore manufacturing close to demand will become a reality!