Letter to the WSJ Editor That Didn’t Make It

Last Saturday, Representative Ed Markey (D-MA) wrote a letter to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) entitled, “Clean Energy is Winning”. It was full of mistruths and half-truths which many in the public would not appreciate. I could not let him get away with this, so I wrote a letter to the editor refuting his points. Well, as of today it did not publish. Here is his letter and my retort.

His letter:
Regarding your editorial: A Better Idea for Green Jobs: (op-ed. Oct.15): Here are the facts. Employment in the U.S. solar industry has doubled in the last two years. Solar energy now employs more than 100,000 Americans, tens of thousands more that in coal mining. The wind industry employs 85,000. According to the Brookings Institutions, the clean economy now employs 2.7 million Americans, more than the fossil-fuel industry.
By comparison, Exxon-Mobil, BP, Shell, and Chevron, which made $546 billion in profits between 2005 and 2010, actually reduced their U.S. work forces by a combined 11,200 workers.
Despite rhetorical attacks, clean energy is winning. New wind projects are selling their power for as little as three cents per kilowatt-hour, cheaper than natural gas. America is currently a net exporter of solar technology. We have a renewable energy technology trade surplus with China. From 2007 to 2010, America constructed nearly 32,000 new megawatts of wind, solar and biomass electricity. That is more than three times the amount of new coal during that time. Yet the only clean-energy company that conservatives seem to be able to talk about is Solyndra.
Clean energy employs millions of Americans and provides power to millions more. Most Americans want to see their nation dominate a sector estimated to be worth $12 trillion over the next two decades.
Rep. Ed Markey (D., Mass)

My letter to the Editor:
Representative Ed Markey’s (D. Mass) letter in response to your editorial “A Better Idea for Green Jobs”, Oct. 15th once again illustrates how liberal Democrats will provide you with “facts” to make a point but don’t put the “facts” in perspective. The premise of his letter, “Clean Energy Is Winning in the U.S.”, is an extremely misleading thesis and far from the truth. The fact that the solar energy industry employs more than 100,000 Americans, slightly more than coal mining, he says, is nothing to brag about since with this administration many coal companies have been forced to shut down and new ones haven’t started as a conscious result of government regulations which makes it too expensive. He also asserts that 2.7 million people work in the “clean economy” more than what he calls the fossil-fuel industry. This is ridiculous, since more than 9 million are employed in the oil and gas industry alone. Also, he forgot to tell you that if you drive a school bus with a hybrid engine you are counted, by this administration, as working in the green energy industry. He also boosts that America is a net exporter of solar technology with a trade surplus with China. The reason is, there is no market in the U.S. because energy costs are among the lowest in the world, so solar is not competitive. Also, Mr. Markey, we will be soon hearing about many more fiascos’ like Solyandra, and if you would vote for more U.S. oil development and encourage shale-gas production, we would generate more than 1 million jobs almost instantly. You may think “clean energy” is winning, but we are losing because you are in the House of Representatives.
George Ahearn, Ph.D.
Naples, Florida

America’s Becoming a Robin Hood Republic

I heard something on the radio which really illustrates what is happening to this country, and it is quite disturbing. Apparently, Governor Cuomo of New York was a guest on the Today Show this past week and they showed a clip of his visit to a 2nd grade class in Jamaica, Queens , which is predominately an African-American neighborhood. Cuomo asked a young girl, probably a 7 year old, what she wanted to be when she grows up. She said “President”. Then he asked what would you do as President? “I would have the rich people give me their money so I could give it to the people who need it”, she said. Then Cuomo said, “What if the rich people didn’t want to give you their money?” The little girl answered, “Well then, they’re just greedy”.

I’m sure she will get an “A” from her teacher for that answer. Probably because the teacher believes that and the little girl likely heard her parents talking like that. Unless this little girl read “Robin Hood”, and I don’t think that’s required reading in the 2nd grade, where would she get that kind of a value system? When I was seven, I wanted to be a doctor, a fireman, or a baseball player, so I could make money and be successful. I knew that I had the freedom to be anything I wanted to be. I had the desire to improve myself, and the opportunity in this great country to achieve my dream, even though my family was far from rich. In addition, I had a support system, my parents, my teachers, and my friends encouraged me. That was the American culture we lived in, and that was the value system most of us had.

Is this the kind of culture we are building today? It certainly doesn’t look like America anymore and I’m beginning to be glad I’m 76, because I don’t want to live in that kind of America. I was not born in a Banana Republic, or Russia, or Sweden, where we have a state controlled government, a police state, or socialism, where the economies are stifled and you can predict what your future will be because you cannot control your destiny.

President Obama is a role model for kids, particularly black children, therefore everything he says influences their value system. This is what they hear from him….. It’s only fair to spread the money around and I get to decide what is fair, I pick the winners and the losers, I give you money and I decide who needs it.

This is tyranny, this is slavery, this is Un-American, and history tells us this will eventually end in failure and tragedy. America is a great country and no one can change us by force. The only way we can be defeated is from within. And unfortunately, we elected a President who brought in people , like him, who don’t really know or understand this country. Crony capitalism is not a substitute for a free market and fair competition. We must remove these people from our government, or else this successful 250 year experiment in democracy cannot be saved and the damage will be irreversible.

You can’t be complacent about this, it’s too important!

Now We Know the Problem – It’s Us!

Just yesterday President Obama finally gave us his scholarly analysis of the cause of our economic problems. I was eagerly waiting for this, since many economists have had conflicting views. In a radio interview in Orlando, Florida he said, “Well, we just got soft and complacent over the last two decades, and it just caught up with us”. Wow, is that deep! So we are the problem, we just got lazy and soft in the last 20 years. Boy, I’m glad it’s not him and his policies that kept this recession going.

I wonder where he’s been living for the last 20 years. Africa? Indonesia? South Chicago? What happened during those great Clinton years when we actually had a budget surplus? Those first seven years of the Bush administration, as the market boomed and corporate profits and growth was something never seen before in the free world. I guess we got soft, started giving loans to poor people just to bring them up to the status of rich people, and started thinking we could actually eradicate poverty.

We’re just too lazy to implement his economic plans, let’s get out there and get a job, “take off your bedroom slippers”, and get out there. Why should I, Mr. President? You keep giving me unemployment money and more food-stamps. And thanks for controlling those energy markets, so we can use those subsidized sources of energy, rather than that dirty oil and gas. Maybe you can manipulate the markets, so that the price of oil and gas increases and then I can change to solar, and windmills. But what’s going to happen when we can’t afford those subsidies? Like that Solandra company that was making solar panels for $6.00/ft and selling them for $3.00/ft in order to compete in the world market. I guess they were going to make it up on volume, except that the loan money you gave them ran out.

Anyway, I am glad Mr. President that you can do no wrong and the problem is us. The lazy American worker, who just built the greatest economy the world has even seen, and all of a sudden got soft, just before you got elected. What a coincidence, just your luck. I for one, hopes that your luck runs out in November, 2012.