Obama’s Green Barons make the Robber Barons of the 19th century look like a bunch of pikers. First of all, the derogatory term “Robber Baron” was used to portray early American capitalist as a bunch of heartless thieves exploiting the American people as if they were nothing but mere chattel. That kind of depiction is overall, historically inaccurate and has been a recurring anthem from the anti-capitalist and anti-corporatist to this day.
Author Thomas J. DiLorenzo writes:
It is a staple of history books to attach this derogatory phrase to such figures as John D. Rockefeller, Cornelius Vanderbilt, and the great nineteenth-century railroad operators — Grenville Dodge, Leland Stanford, Henry Villard, James J. Hill, and others. To most historians writing on this period, these entrepreneurs committed thinly veiled acts of larceny to enrich themselves at the expense of their customers. Once again we see the image of the greedy, exploitative capitalist, but in many cases this is a distortion of the truth.
As common as it is to speak of "robber barons," most who use that term are confused about the role of capitalism in the American economy and fail to make an important distinction — the distinction between what might be called a market entrepreneur and a political entrepreneur. A pure market entrepreneur, or capitalist, succeeds financially by selling a newer, better, or less expensive product on the free market without any government subsidies, direct or indirect. The key to his success as a capitalist is his ability to please the consumer, for in a capitalist society the consumer ultimately calls the economic shots. By contrast, a political entrepreneur succeeds primarily by influencing government to subsidize his business or industry, or to enact legislation or regulation that harms his competitors.
And there is no doubt that political entrepreneurs infest the Obama administration. The whole renewable energy movement is subsidized by the American taxpayers through DOE guaranteed loans. Many of these companies have filed bankruptcy. The corruption is so severe that analyst state a tsunami of green failures is heading our way. Peter Schweizer’s book, Throw Them All Out goes into detail on how crony capitalism has gone wild at the White House. Big Government.com writes:
The details of how the DOE loan scheme was apparently conducted are almost as shocking as the billions bagged by Obama’s backers.
Instead of appointing a team of scientists or engineers to direct the DOE’s loan program office, Schweizer contends, the Obama administration placed some of the president’s biggest fundraisers in control. For example, Steve Spinner, who served on the Obama campaign’s National Finance Committee and was himself a top bundler, was tapped as the “chief strategic operations officer” for the DOE’s loan programs. Spinner was joined at DOE by another Obama fundraiser, Sanjay Wagle, and by Democrat donor Jonathan Silver, who would serve as executive director of the program.
With the scientists and engineers effectively out of the way, and the President’s top backers at the levers of the DOE’s loan program, the Obama administration was able to funnel billions of taxpayer dollars back to green energy companies associated with the President’s political and financial patrons.
For members of Obama’s national finance committee, the returns on investing in Obama’s 2008 campaign were incredibly lucrative, according to Schweizer. For every dollar committee members raised, they received $24,783 in return in the form of DOE sweetheart loans, on average.
