Democratic Nominee, Dan McCready: Patriot or Political Grifter?

Libtards from all over the country are targeting North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District. Tom Steyer, a California billionaire and crony capitalist, pledged $1 million to flip this patriotic bastion into Nancy Pelosi’s back pocket. 

He’s not alone. Local businessmen are also plotting to turn the 9th into a progressive fiefdom. Scion, Tim Belk; venture capitalist, Ric Elias; big banker, Hugh McColl Jr. and political grifter, Erskine Bowles have found a viable stalking horse for the Democratic Party: a 34 year old no one has ever heard of before. A young man named Dan McCready.


Who is Dan McCready? Where did he come from? And how in the hell did he get this kind of financial backing from the aforementioned luminaries?


What we do know is this Democratic nominee served in the Marine Corps and graduated from Harvard. He also co-owns a solar panel company called Double Time; but the finances are nebulous if not outright questionable. Here is an excerpt from Business North Carolina that should raise some red flags:


With Harvard and big-company backgrounds, McCready and Barcott knew people whose substantial incomes made solar investments attractive. Rogers, who left Duke in mid-2013, helped the duo make connections and became an adviser. Still, raising money was no snap. It took about 1,000 meetings with investors to raise their first fund of $8 million.


“Many of our investors were initially skeptical because they had heard of industry failures such as [California-based solar-panel maker Solyndra],” McCready says. “Everyone said that you can’t build an investment firm without investing experience. But we didn’t know any better.”

Once word spread, the money chase got easier. Double Time eventually collected about $80 million that has been invested in 36 projects across North Carolina, much of it in slow-growth rural areas. While several institutions including Prudential Financial Inc. put money into the company, most investors are individuals, McCready says.



McCready won’t share financial details, but Double Time’s initial funds have met their projections, according to two sources familiar with the company who asked to remain anonymous.



Can’t share financial details? Sources who asked to remain anonymous? What the hell is this? I can say without hesitation the whole green energy industry couldn’t exist without tax credits and government subsidies. The simple fact that McCready and his partner moved on to new ventures after North Carolina disbanded its solar energy policies should also raise red flags despite their assertions to the contrary. Here is another tell from Business North Carolina:


Double Time still manages its existing investments, which include some nonsolar businesses such as Raleigh-based WasteZero, which advises municipalities on reducing trash, and Lyft, the San Francisco-based ride-hailing company. But McCready and Barcott have moved on to new challenges, a decision unrelated to the end of state tax credits. Barcott formed With Honor, a nonprofit that encourages military veterans to run for political office as centrist candidates. McCready, 34, is heeding that call, running this year as a Democrat for the U.S. Congress in a district held by Republicans for more than 60 years.


These two know where the real money is at and that’s politics.


So, who is Dan McCready? Is he a patriot or a political grifter? I’m banking on the latter.


Source:

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/election/article209097664.html


http://businessnc.com/solar-investing-war-experience-spur-mccreadys-political-career/

N.C. Law Forces Higher Energy Prices onto Consumers

The green energy scam continues to cost North Carolinians.  Duke/Progress Energy is forced by the state to purchase renewable sources such as solar.  Of course, these pie-in-the-sky technologies are costly and inefficient.  The News and Observer reported the following:

At a time that Progress Energy is seeking a 14 percent rate increase for residential customers in North Carolina, the Raleigh power company wants to slash payments as much as 29 percent for electricity it buys from solar generators and other renewables producers. If approved by the N.C. Utilities Commission, the request would reduce rates the electric utility pays for green energy to levels not seen since 1984, when there was no green energy to speak of in North Carolina.

The power company’s request is tied to the plummeting cost of natural gas, which is lowering the market price of electricity nationwide. Progress contends that it is now overpaying for the green energy it has to buy under state law, and passing on those inflated costs to its customers, who ultimately bear the financial burden in their monthly bills.

The move to cut rates comes at a crucial time for solar power in the state as the industry has nearly weaned itself off a key subsidy.

Only a few years ago, power companies paid solar generators a premium of about 12 cents for every kilowatt hour of power, roughly twice as much in subsidy support as the solar producers made from selling electricity. Today, solar producers typically receive less than 1 cent a kilowatt hour as a subsidy.

The shrinking subsidy – known as a “renewable energy certificate” – had solar advocates congratulating themselves for creating a self-sustaining industry in relatively short order. With the subsidy expected to go away in the near future, North Carolina’s solar industry is operating on razor-thin margins and could come to a standstill if Progress significantly cuts payments for electricity, advocates warn.

“There would be a big curtailment,” said Richard Harkrader, chief executive at Carolina Solar Energy, a Durham developer. “The stuff under contract would go ahead, but it would be very difficult to build any new (solar projects).”

Earlier this year, a hearing was held in Charlotte.  Consumers blamed the energy companies of profiteering.  Unfortunately, these outraged citizens are unaware of a law that requires Duke/Progress to purchase a resource that is costly; a cost that is passed onto them.

 

 

 

The Democrats would have us believe that renewables will save the planet.  And that you should be happy to pay higher energy bills to save Mother Earth.  After all, you’re nothing compared to the environment.    

Source: http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/12/25/2565806/progress-duke-want-to-slash-payments.html#storylink=cpy

To Tariff, or not to Tariff: That is the Question

There is such a demand for renewable energy that two foreign owned companies are laying off workers.  Even a tax credit worth $84 million couldn’t help this pie-in the-sky fantasy.  The Heritage Foundation reported the following:

A pair of foreign-owned solar companies that benefited from a combined $84 million in Energy Department tax credits have announced they will lay off employees.

One of the companies, German-owned SolarWorld, was integral in the fight for tariffs against the importation of Chinese photovoltaic solar panels. The other, Chinese company SunTech, blamed those tariffs for its own layoffs.

Both companies benefited from the Energy Department’s stimulus-funded Advanced Energy Manufacturing (48C) Tax Credit. The 48C credit is worth up to 30% of the cost of manufacturing qualifying green energy projects.

SolarWorld received a credit worth $82 million, while SunTech’s was worth $2.1 million.

Both companies announced this week that they will shed some employees. SolarWorld, which announced a 47% revenue decline in the third quarter, blamed a potential 37 layoffs at its Oregon plant on “illegal” Chinese trade practices.

SunTech said the U.S. International Trade Commission’s 35.95% tariff on Chinese solar panels was partially responsible for the 50 impending layoffs at its Arizona production facilities.

To tariff, or not to tariff: that is the question.  I have a better one: why don’t we let the market place determine the worth of these companies?

Just think, we have four more years of these incompetent boobs running the country.  Isn’t that comforting?

Source: http://blog.heritage.org/2012/11/16/two-more-stimulus-backed-solar-companies-announce-layoffs/