Solyndra, Green Energy and a Facial

Men won’t be able to relate to this, but women will.  A month ago I was walking through a high end department story and stopped to look at a makeup display.  The saleswoman asked me if I would like a complimentary facial and makeover.  Since I was on a lark that day I said I’d love one and plopped myself down.  She then started working on me, both physically and figuratively.   All the time the saleswoman was cleansing, massaging and moisturizing my face she was also busy making me feel good about myself, my goals for eternal youth [Let’s be honest, that train isn’t returning to the station any time soon!] , and the quality of her makeup.  She hit all of the notes one is supposed to (all natural ingredients, no animal testing, skin care—not makeup!!!!) and when she was done I was sure I looked better than when she started.   All of this kept scrolling through my mind when I watched President Obama’s speech on the jobs plan.  Yup, he’s selling me makeup.  And just like me and the makeup, we are all probably going to buy something.

            Keep in mind that just like I need makeup our economy does need jobs.  We need both short and long term strategies to stimulate jobs creation.  There are things that the federal government can do to help, and things it should not do because they won’t help.  Thinking good thoughts is not an adequate response to this problem.  All of this became brilliantly clear this week when Solyndra went belly up in the clean energy fish tank operated by Secretary Chu’s badly run Department of Energy. 

            Solyndra was the first in a list of companies that the DOE pumped $18 billion worth of stimulus money to in 2009.  Solyndra got $535 million.  Evergreen Solar and Spectra Watt, similar companies with similar bad track records, also went swimming in the DOE tank, only to end up filing for bankruptcy as well.   These companies have used government money to temporarily employ people who hoped and planned for a financial future in cutting edge industries, only to find the company doors shut on all of their hopes and dreams.  In Solyndra’s case, the closing of the company is more noteworthy because (1) President Obama visited the company last May, touting its success (2) an Oklahoma oil man who was a donor to the Obama campaign, George Kaiser, was an investor in the project (3) their product design was new, expensive and almost universally agreed to be inefficient. 

            The DOE’s line on all of this, as well as Solyndra, itself, is that China and Germany are subsidizing their countries products to the point of unfair competition for our infant industries.  The last country that tried that shuffle was Japan with its steel industry in the 1970’s.  It just about destroyed the Japanese economy.  The fact is that a good product, smartly produced will find its market niche.  But the public has to want the product.  Therein lies the difference between the Obama administration and our real life economy.  He undoubtedly has whole choruses of advisors, who, between pilates class and Starbucks runs, sit around thinking of ways to remake the planet in their image.  These snooty souls are sure that the common man can’t possibly get it right, so their job is to create the right jobs, right thinking, and right attitudes.  To their shock and awe, you can’t create a demand for an inferior product.  Now we are all paying the price for it—and jobs that could be created in viable industries aren’t being given the seed money they need. 

            We can’t put lipstick on a pig, but we can keep the faith.