Today, a post from ThinkProgress announced that the US Department of Energy plans to devote $4 billion to alternative energy projects. $4 billion is a trifling amount in the American scheme of things. I did some quick, back-of-the-envelope info-gathering to give myself a better sense of the size of $4 billion. Heres what I learned: JPM/Chase lost $6 billion on a single speculative trade about 2 years ago. The banks CEO called the loss, A tempest in a teapot. The US spent $718 billion on defense in 2011, $159 billion of which went to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which accomplished nothing positive for any Americans except defense contractors and killed far more civilians than combatants or insurgents. We might as well have thrown those billions onto a bonfire, saving countless lives from death and PTSD and creating far less pollution of the atmosphere. In 2011, Americans spent about $2.1 TRILLION on consumer electronics, software, and services for connecting to the Internet. (1 trillion = 1000 billion). Not only is $4 billion a small amount in terms of government expenses, corporate profits, and consumer spending in the US, but that money is not going into public infrastructure or research and development. Instead, it is going to [A] Loan Guarantee Program..designed to encourage private investment while minimizing risk to taxpayers. It doesn’t provide direct financing but rather brings down lending rates to help spur private investment. In plain English, I think the above statement means that taxpayer dollars will be given to private investors in the form of low-cost loans. If a private investor puts money into a venture that fails to generate enough money to pay back the loan, taxpayers will pay back the loan, and the private investor will lose little, if any, money. But if the venture does well, private investors will be able to pay off the taxpayer-insured, low cost loan and pocket the profits. Hmmm.
Posted on: Fri, 04 Jul 2014 05:21:37 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015