By Tim Fullerton
Last time I wrote about companies (even industries) should not be considered too big to fail. The next logical progression: small companies or industries too “important” to fail.
We all know about “Green” jobs. Those new technologies designed to provide a clean, natural way of generating energy. I was amused as I read a special edition of US News & World Report a few months back that highlighted all the green industries that are going to save our planet from us. Each and every industry or company profiled by the magazine: ethanol, wind, solar, and a host of others, all had one thing in common. They all were either getting or wanted to get some federal subsidy. Cash from you and me to get their product to market at an affordable price (or just get it out of the testing lab).
In my mind, this makes all of these simply, “Too costly to Succeed!”
If these industries cannot provide a safe, effective, efficient, necessary product, what are they doing in business in the first place? Just to suck up our tax dollars?
Again, the government is picking winners and losers.
Take ethanol (drinking alcohol, usually made from corn), for example. Did you know that Methanol (so called wood alcohol) has fewer of those nasty carbon atoms everyone is so concerned about? That it is less costly to produce? And has more energy than ethanol? But the government has determined that only ethanol is worthy of pursuing. Why? I don't know, but it might have something to do with Iowa corn farmers. Ethanol has to be heavily subsidized since it costs more to make a gallon of ethanol than it can be sold for (they want its price to be comparable with gasoline).
Your tax dollars at work.
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