The Clean Energy Scam

Yes, another TIME magazine cover on ethanol.

But this time it’s a different tune.

Propelled by mounting anxieties over soaring oil costs and climate change, biofuels have become the vanguard of the green-tech revolution, the trendy way for politicians and corporations to show they’re serious about finding alternative sources of energy and in the process slowing global warming. The U.S. quintupled its production of ethanol–ethyl alcohol, a fuel distilled from plant matter–in the past decade, and Washington has just mandated another fivefold increase in renewable fuels over the next decade. Europe has similarly aggressive biofuel mandates and subsidies, and Brazil’s filling stations no longer even offer plain gasoline. Worldwide investment in biofuels rose from $5 billion in 1995 to $38 billion in 2005 and is expected to top $100 billion by 2010, thanks to investors like Richard Branson and George Soros, GE and BP, Ford and Shell, Cargill and the Carlyle Group. Renewable fuels has become one of those motherhood-and-apple-pie catchphrases, as unobjectionable as the troops or the middle class.

This is what happens when you let politicians determine what happens in the market. We see it over and over again and yet we somehow believe that this time it will be different.

The small print you can’t read in the cover shot above reads,

Politicians and Big Business are pushing biofuels as alternatives to oil. All they’re really doing is driving up food prices and making global warming worse–and you’re paying for it.

As always, isn’t it?

The subtitle to the article, which is hard to find online says,

Hyped as an eco-friendly fuel, ethanol increases global warming, destroys forests and inflates food prices. So why are we subsidizing it?

Why indeed?

Next, and in fact already happening, environmentalists will bemoan increased mercury levels from broken and trashed energy saving bulbs. Recently mandated by our government.

Sound familiar?

Nothing like government “efficiency”

More mailings by the state of Wisconsin with Social Security numbers possibly visible.

The Department of Administration printed, folded and mailed the letters for the state Department of Revenue. The federal government requires that the Social Security numbers be printed on the forms.

Are you sure you want the government involved in your lives any more than they are now?

Governmental common sense?

I’m sure by now, my readers have heard of either the case of Megan Coulter or Lea Muir’s daughter, both of whom were disciplined by their respective schools for hugging.

To many this is an overreaction. Punishment for hugging? As Ms. Muir said,

“What’s it going to come to next?,” she asked. “You can’t high five or touch anybody? You can’t brush by someone in the hallway?”

Megan Coulter’s mother Melissa said,

“It’s hilarious to the point of ridicule,” Coulter said. “I’m still dumbfounded that she’s having to do this.”

In defense of the school districts, the Supreme Court in a 1999 decision (See decision here, registration is required)

ruled schools could be held liable by ignoring claims of sexual harassment. Some say the ruling puts schools between a rock and a hard place. By not identifying all suspect behavior, they risk liability. But when they do, they often hear complaints from parents.

But really, government organizations, actually their employees, make “common sense” decisions?

You mean, like this one?

I think it would make the news if they actually did do something that made sense.

“If the government does it, it will save money”

Sound familiar?

State agencies will be paying off a questionable computer project for the next 20 years, according to a report by the state’s top computer official. That’s in spite of the fact the project was originally supposed to save the state millions of dollars over just a few years.

Yeah, that’s what some say about Healthy Wisconsin, et al.

(A tip of the conservative cap to Bruce at Badger Blogger)

Government efficiency 10/11/07

From NPR : Medicare Fraud Acute in South Florida

There’s a nationwide crime epidemic going on that rakes in $35 billion or more each year. Exactly how much is being stolen is impossible to say, because the federal government doesn’t try to measure it.

It’s Medicare fraud. The $368 billion federal program is a tempting target for crooks, and there are signs the problem is growing. It is particularly acute in South Florida, where it seems to be replacing drug trafficking as the crime of choice for those who want to get rich quick. [Emphasis mine]

Great. And people want to turn over the responsibility of our health care to our efficient government?

The government can do it more efficiently

Are these the folks you want to entrust your health care (in fact, most areas of your life) to?

First from the weekend’s Journal Sentinel,

State’s casino oversight falls short, audit says

[Wisconsin's] Division of Gaming failed to notice discrepancies in daily casino revenue figures between the state’s computer monitoring system and tallies done by the casinos, the Legislative Audit Bureau report says. The auditors found discrepancies in the numbers for every day of 2006, the report says. The report does not say how far off the numbers were or break them out by tribe or casino. [Emphasis mine.]

Review finds 9 children in imminent danger

A sweeping state review of more than 600 active cases under investigation by the Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare uncovered nine in which a child was in immediate danger, and child welfare workers were dispatched immediately to deal with the situation.

The review came after the May suffocation death of a toddler, Alicia Burgess, who was left in her home by child welfare workers despite warnings by two doctors that the child and her brother were in danger. Raul Arteaga, 34, the boyfriend of Alicia’s mother, is charged with first-degree reckless homicide.

“That’s a 1.5% measurement of cases that did not succeed,” said Reggie Bicha, the administrator of the Division of Children and Family Services, of the nine cases. “Anytime you have that kind of intense review and scrutiny, to have a 1.5% error rate is arguably not that bad - unless we are talking about kids.” [Emphasis mine.]

Now that’s an understatement. Extrapolate that 1.5% to 5.5 million Wisconsinites, or 300 million Americans.

And from the federal government (much too easy to find, most of the time)

Watch list hobbled by data errors: Technical gremlins, clashing rules undermine shared screening center

Four years after the federal government launched the interagency Terrorist Screening Center (TSC) and assigned it the daunting task of harmonizing more than a dozen separate watch lists, balky technology and quirky business practices still combine to introduce gaps and errors in the critical database. [Again emphasis is mine]

And this is for terrorists. Again we’re talking about a small percentage, but it grows to a large number when you include Wisconsinites or all Americans.

U.S. Says Company Bribed Officers for Work in Iraq

From the New York Times

An American-owned company paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to U.S. officers in efforts to win more than $11 million in contracts.

Do you think this could happen with health care?

Government efficiency in action

Pentagon Notices Million Dollar Bill For Shipping 38 Cent Item

[A] supplier of parts to the Pentagon billed them $998,798 to send 2 washers with a value of 38 cents to an Army installation in Texas, the tip of the iceberg in a Pentagon over-billing scam totaling over $20 million.

The two sisters who owned the company and lived ostentatiously on their criminal activities discovered a loophole in the Pentagon’s shipping system. Supplies to combat areas and military installations that had been labeled “priority” were paid automatically. Charlene Corley is the surviving sister and owner of C&D Distributors of Lexington, SC. She is being fined only $750,000 and “faces” 20 years on each count of an indictment for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to launder money. The government is hoping to recoup some of its $20.5 million by selling off “homes, beach property, jewelry and ‘high-end automobiles”. It cannot recover the money from their vacations — a Pentagon spokesperson said, “They took a lot of vacations.”

Government efficiency part 92*

State scrambles for tax workers

Here are the choice bits.

The state Department of Revenue fell far behind in processing tax refund checks this season, forcing the agency to pull about 100 workers from their regular duties so they could issue the checks on time.

So 100 workers are not getting their work done because of the backlog.

The delays were sparked by scanners that sometimes misread paper returns, said Revenue Secretary Roger Ervin. The machines often read commas as the number one, meaning they can turn income of $40,000 into income of $401,000, which carries a higher tax liability.

Nice. Oh, but there’s more.

Refund checks issued after July 17 had to include 9% interest, under state law. The state has not calculated how much that interest cost and how it compares with past years (emphasis mine).

Guess who pays this interest?