Obama's green energy mania trumps his attacks on Wall Street
For years, Barack Obama has attacked the "fat cats" on Wall Street. For years his Democratic allies in Congress attacked "securitization" -the packaging of contracts into securities that could be traded. Securitization of mortgages was criticized as a high-falutin' concept that enriched Wall Street but led to financial Armageddon.
Now in one more ironic and hypocritical flip-flop by Obama (example #345,678) he and his team now seem to be on the verge of embracing a financing technique they spend years condemning: all for the sake of the Holy Grail of Green Energy.
The Wall Street Journal reports:
The Obama administration and some on Wall Street are laying the groundwork for bundling renewable-power contracts into securities, part of an effort to make it cheaper to finance alternative energy.
The initiative aims to extend to renewable energy a financial tool already used in the mortgage and credit-card industries. The securities could be sold to pension funds or other investors, who would receive a return funded by payments from users of electricity where solar panels or other equipment is installed.
As the EU and others have learned, "green energy" is just is not economically feasible and the push to develop "renewable" or "clean energy" has wasted tens of billions of taxpayers' dollars (Solyndra was just one example).
But the Obama team never learns. President Obama himself announced after his reelection that he intended to expand and deepen his commitment to green energy - apparently, regardless of the costs (since he never seems to consider the costs of anything which is what happens when one plays with Other People's Money).
But it is telling that these efforts are compelling him to work with "fat cats" on Wall Street that he previously has demonized -while collecting donations from them on the side.
Note these efforts constitute another end-run around Congress:
The actions fit with a broader strategy by the Obama administration to use executive authority to advance policy goals. Congress soured on government help for renewable-energy projects after the 2011 bankruptcy of U.S.-backed Solyndra LLC, and big-ticket spending programs have expired.
The Wall Street Journal article outlines the myriad green energy ventures have burned taxpayers and investors.
But, nevertheless, Obama is now willing to go to extraordinary lengths to again expose people to financial risks to please his well-heeled cronies peddling pie-in-the sky green schemes.
Caveat Emptor.