Saturday, August 11, 2012

Romney and Ryan





Mitt Romney announced Paul Ryan as his running mate.  The race for the White House is on and no doubt the campaign will be about as dirty as it can get.  Ryan is interesting as he is a fiscal conservative but not a total ideologue.  He voted with Obama for the Federal government to save the auto companies.  You all remember Romney thought this was a bad idea.  Ryan voted for legislation to prevent discrimination against gays in the workplace.  He has put his neck out left and right and certainly has done something over the past 14 years since he was elected to Congress.  I have to say Romney and Ryan look like father and son.   Obama and Biden look like father and grandfather.

I wish I could say my Congresswoman did much but alas she did nothing and certainly did not use her position as the ranking democrat on the house committee for science, space, and technology to get my opinions based on thermodynamic fact heard in formulating energy policy.  Instead she blindly followed Nancy as a puppy dog of the liberal left.  I am thankful she is retiring and that new blood will be brought to the House to represent my Congressional district.   She has been in Congress since 1993 and she is leaving not a moment too soon.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_Woolsey


Enough about the two parties that are in collusion to do nothing while pretending to fight for your rights.  What happened in thermodynamics this week? 
Actually a bunch happened with a large Chinese auto parts company (Wanxiang) making a bid for my favorite dog of a company A 123.   http://articles.boston.com/2012-08-10/news/33119217_1_a123-china-of-sensitive-technology-clean-energy

A California PV company called MiaSole is laying off 200 workers in production and operations.  Mama Mia Sole was funded by the VC firm Kleiner Perkins of Bloom Energy and Fisker fame.  John Show Me the Doerr the host to President Obama’s dinner with Silicon Valley hot shots last year is on the board of directors of Mama Mia.  Even with all his political connections John could not compete with Chinese produced PV cells. http://gigaom.com/cleantech/solar-startup-miasole-to-lay-off-around-200/


Mama Mia drifted from silicon and went with CIGS and flexible substrate.  A dumb idea I have often written about.  In announcing the layoff of the entire production department, Mama Mia was quick to point out they did not receive tax payers’ money and only blew $500 million of private investors’ funding. 

Good job John you lost the money that state pension funds gave you to invest and you call this private investors’ money.    It is actually quite sickening to see how many of the States in our United States actually invest money with VCs.  The VC’s then give political donations to state official’s campaign funds.

John Doerr and family members gave money for the campaigns of Jack Markell back when he was running to be the treasurer of Delaware.  They also gave donations a couple of years later for Mr. Markell’s successful run to become governor of Delaware.  I have written extensively of the Bloom Energy project in Delaware.  Did these contributions pave the way for the Bloom project, or was John Doerr really interested in the political campaign for treasurer of one of the smallest states? 


Actually another John Doerr company Fisker has received over $400,000 of state funds in Delaware to pay for the electricity to keep the empty Fisker plant ready in case Fisker ever comes to town.  The reasoning is that the power must be kept on to keep the expensive paint booths from degrading.   Well Mr. Markell I got news for you the $400,000 of wasted electricity was about 4 million kilowatt hours of power and had approximately 5 million pounds of CO2 emissions. 

One could not make up these stories.  Fact is often stranger than fiction when the money hungry VC’s and power hungry politicians are involved.  I hope that Paul Ryan is not all about saving Private Ryan but is really about saving America as the pork in the barrel is overflowing and is chest high and soon we all drown in our collective debt. 

As a post script it is quite amazing Stevie Wonder Chu Chu train still has his job at the department of entropy.  I bet next year he will not be secretary of energy but will be running a think tank on how to solve the world’s energy crisis.  Arnie the governator just gave a bunch of money to USC to head his own think tank.  My question is how a guy without a brain can head a think tank?  It just takes a $20 million donation is the answer.  http://articles.latimes.com/2012/aug/02/local/la-me-0802-usc-gift-20120802


3 comments:

  1. Not an idealogue? Ah, a chacun son gout. While advocating the cutting of domestic programs in the name of fiscal responsibility, Ryan voted for Bush's wars, Bush's tax cuts, Medicare Part D, and the Bankers' Taxpayer Bonus for Doing a Bad Job known as TARP. And while the US defense budget has increased 100% since 9/11, he wants not a dime less when we're winding down said Bush wars. How to way for it? Seniors, students, the poor. Medicare elegibility goes up from 65 to 67, or you get a lump sum and figure it out on your own on the private market; cuts to Medicaid, Pell grants, and all areas of government expenditures many of which are investments in the future.

    It is true that he may see a father figure in Romney, as Ryan lost his at age 16. And was a beneficiary of his father's Social Security checks, a program he wishes to privatize (imagine SocSec privatized: good thing Ryan sr didn't pass in 2007).

    Ryan himself has some private sector experience, though he's really always been on the gov't payroll and its generous health benefits, except when he was a business consultant to his family's successful contruction business that did well building the Interestate Highway System (http://www.ryanfl.com/history_1952.htm), a project the likes of which the Ryan budget will all but completely eviscerate, along with air traffic control, meat inspections, biomedical research, and yes, research to try eek out something from the margins of the laws of thermodynamics, as you like to say, Lindsay.

    ReplyDelete
  2. TS glad to see you really dislike Not So Private Sector Ryan. OK you and my other liberal friends think he is a right wingnut. He probably does not give a hoot about me or my cause to educate Gringos to be green and not gangrene. But at least if Romney / Ryan defeat Obama / Biden I won't have to watch Chu invest in companies that keep losing to Chinese competition. Romney and Ryan will simply tell companies to move all their production to China. As for Biden is he still alive we have no seen boo or bah from him. He must either be in hiding or be too busy greasing the wheels for Bloom Energy in Delaware????

    ReplyDelete