Hey Texas...feeling is mutual! Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out!
Shrubya II aka Gov Perry backs off his calls for secession. Damn it! What a wuss!! Well to hell with him, we should host a plebiscite and just kick ‘em out! And we can build the wall/fence/flashing lights border thingie between us and The Baptist Republic of Texas!
For the record, I don’t favor having the Government at any level act as a VC for technology companies. If for one reason or another we have a strategic interest in having something happen – like decreasing our reliance on fossil fuels while increasing our usage of renewable energy – then I’d rather the Government take some specific steps around reducing demand through taxes on the undesirable and reduced taxes or mandates on usage to promote the desirable – with every intervention specifically time-bombed and diminished over time.
So I also look askance on Obama’s loan guarantees to Solyndra (and the socializing the failure thereof).
However, the real issue here is that the Chinese massively subsidize their solar industry and are dumping their panels below cost in the U.S. market. How could Solyndra (or other non-Obama VC’d manufacturers) compete? This is yet another industry that the heavy guns of the state-controlled Chinese companies have chosen to wipe out (and are in the process of doing so).
The Reactionaries, of course, who would normally love to take an opportunity to criticize China, seem rather pleased to watch Solyndra fail as it makes their nemesis Obama look bad. Same thinking that makes them delight in the still-crappy economy – they’d rather watch a failed America run by fellow Reactionaries than a successful one run by Liberals – positively Miltonian!
…but when Bachmann says “regulations were overburdening food producers” you gotta wonder if she ever gave concept of the relative ’overburden’ (consumer+ ecoli = death, versus business + regulations = lower profits) of the parties involved. Worse, you gotta wonder about the brains or sanity of somebody who’d be stupid enough to vote for her (excepting the small percentage of voters who are executives in large food producing businesses).
Seems like the current batch of reactionary loons in the House just can’t seem to help themselves from dancing on the edge of the cliff. A government shutdown seems inevitable. Didn’t Gingrich warn them?
The tea-leaf readers infer that Rick Perry’s secret plan regarding the future of the program is to save Social Security by destroying it. Similar to what the Reactionaries did so successfully with unions – create a multi-tiered benefit system. The strategy is simple – scare the seniors and the soon-to-retire Baby Boomers by calling Social Security a ‘Ponzi Scheme,’ then buy them off by guaranteeing that their benefits remain sacrosanct in exchange for creating a new tier of lousy benefits for those dumb young workers who don’t bother to vote. Quite the opposite of what Perry’s forked-tongue campaign manager claims:
“”I think he’s been clear that those who are on Social Security now, it’s not going to be scrapped,” said Perry’s campaign manager, Rob Johnson. “We’ve got to start the conversation for the younger generation so that there is a program for them.”
To decode Reactionary Speak here is the translation:
“We’re gonna buy off the seniors who vote and rely on the fact that young people don’t bother to vote, or even to read the news. Hey kids! I got your Social Security program right here [Grabbing crotch for visual effect]!”
Unless we Libs get off our asses and raise some consciousness among ‘the young’, the Rich will be able to chalk up another win in the Class War.