General Electric is getting yet more taxpayer money, possibly laundered federal money, to subsidize its business.
A GE press release announced that the state of Michigan will provide GE with $60 million to build a $100 million “technology & software center” — what used to be known as an “office building.”
While the source of the Michigan subsidy could be Michigan taxpayers, given how strapped the state is from auto industry losses, it’s quite possible that the Obama administration is funneling U.S. taxpayer stimulus money through Michigan to GE.
Michigan’s budget problems are so severe, after all, that the state has offered to house prisoners from California’s burgeoning prisons.
We reported in May that GE received $55 million in taxpayer subsidies to build a hybrid locomotive battery plant in New York.
You can almost hear GE CEO Jeff Immelt, who sits on President Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, chanting to the President, “Give me the money.” In return, Immelt, the new corporate welfare queen, is helping Presdient Obama advance his global warming and health care agendas.
We need to keep one fact very much in the forefront of our thinking, the green energy solutions which GE is pushing with massive government subsidies are going to fail, GE knows that they are going to fail, GE wants want them to fail. The real money for GE will in the backup solutions when wind and solar fails or are inadequate and on-demand backup power or peek-power solutions are required. The only instant on-demand power solutions are hydro-electric generators and gas turbine electric generators. Given the hydro-electric is not available in many areas of the country and the greens want to rip down the dams where there are such facilities are available, gas turbine electric generators are the only viable backup solution when green power fails, Would anyone care to guess as to who the worlds largest manufacture of gas turbine electric generators is?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_turbine#Industrial_gas_turbines_for_electrical_generation
For extra credit, would anyone care to speculate as to which State has the largest green energy generation capacity and is also largest consumer of methane (i.e. natural gas) to run gas turbine electric generators. If you require another hint, the State will be bankrupt on July 1, 2009.
http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/states/electricity.cfm/state=CA#fuel
If Livingston & Penn are correct about current trends in Solar activity, I wonder how those of us living in the northern sections of the United States will be heating our homes by 2015 if natural gas is being used to backup green energy solutions.
Michael Ronayne
Nutley, NJ
I urge everyone to do what I do:
SHORT GE
GE has been dishonest with their shareholders about the prospects of wind energy, has blatantly put NBC in the tank for the Obama administration leaving anything resembling journalistic integrity or balanced reporting far behind, and they have blatantly pandered to the government for welfare payouts such as this. Well getting freebies is nice, but the market doesn’t play politics. What is the best market solution will survive, and what is not will fail. Corporate and investor failures are nothing more than a reflection of what side of the market you were on when judgement was handed down. Despite GEpositioning itself in every conceiveable way to be the beneficiary of Climate Change hooplah, nobody is buying either. In fact GE’s share price has dipped in the leadup to the recent energy bill despite their heavy bets on it, indicating that I’m not alone in my short position. With nobody buying up GE in the 11th hour, and with the the new Climate Bill sure to fail in the Senate (though it would be a worse disaster should it pass), it is clear that GE has painted itself into a corner while everyone is leaving the room with their backs turned.
Great job Jeff Immelt. You are on the verge of history. You are about to plunge one of Americas great companies into the depths of financial ruin the same way a crappy gambler loses the family home.