[TheFuture]

RIM bailout? That one I would believe.

Open government? Wow, I remember that one from 4 years ago.

Skilled immigration? They don't vote for Dems. Unskilled immigration is all he cares about.

Pour more money into failing "green" tech. Yes, let's build more Chevy Volts filled with toxic batteries.

Seriously, there is no tech agenda from this pres.

[incision]

Your snarky, unqualified dismissal reeks of sour grapes drawn from a sad place [1][2].

1: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4515939

2: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4515897

[TheFuture]

Reality is a sad place right now. People are so scared of it, they're willing to believe anything just to not have to think about what's going to happen when the music stops.

[potatolicious]

> "Skilled immigration? They don't vote for Dems. Unskilled immigration is all he cares about."

Uh...

Democrats own the minority vote, which constitute a huge portion of the skilled immigration this country sees - the two largest contributors are China and India after all.

Okay, so excluding minority immigrants, lets look at skilled, white immigrants - the bulk of whom are coming from openly socialist countries - UK, France, Germany, etc.

So skilled immigration is pretty guaranteed to increase the base for left-leaning folks and minorities, both of which are traditional strongholds for Democrats. Why wouldn't they do this?

Not to mention Democrats have, in this election at least, demonstrated that they are able to rally a substantial base of educated, working professionals to their side. So even with non-immigrants, "skilled labor" is hardly synonymous with Republicans.

[rayiner]

Here is the thing with investments into Green Tech. The economically proper thing to do would be to have Pigovian taxes on pollution, and let the market sort out how to achieve the lowest pollution levels. I think > $1 trillion in new taxes, even if they were offset by reductions in income tax, etc, wouldn't really go over well. But that's the Right Solution (TM).

So we're stuck with things like subsidizing Green Tech.

[TheFuture]

Why can't we just build new, safer nuclear power like India, China, Japan, and basically everyone else are building right now? Whoops, the left has demonized nuclear power so much in this country that people fear it more than coal!

It always sounds great to be "investing" in infrastructure or energy or whatever. But pols don't invest, they cater to voting blocks. Politics can't solve these problems.

[gte910h]

Taxes are dodge-able, additionally, they have a long lead time (accountants have to establish that YUP THIS IS PERMANENT and make recommendations to the business departments) then and only then do prices definitely stay in the place that makes green tech cheaper.

Additionally, if no green tech change occurs, then you're stuck with the job losses by lower consumption of the good you're taking, but don't get the job gains of the good you're hopping will spring up to replace it.

So from a economics perspective, seems like it might be the pure way to go. From a policy perspective, it's iffy.

[krzyk]

Subsidizing never, ever created a good solution. It always makes poor solutions, that cost more than they are worth. Compare to subsidizing medicaments. When they are subsidized then they cost more then when government lifts the subsidy.

If you want a good solution then make it fight for life in the current market, eventually it might win - in this case you will really get a good solution.

[patrickgzill]

You forgot to mention Solyndra : http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-10-17/taxpayers-recover-0...

[rayiner]

I worked for a DARPA contractor for years. Nerds all wank over how awesome DARPA is, and how great they are for putting money into all these blue-sky projects that may not pan out, etc. Yet the administration puts some money into technology that doesn't have an immediate benefit in killing people, and people flip their shit.

For context: DARPA has a budget of almost $3 billion. The risk-weighted investment into Solyndra was probably on the order of the low tens of millions.

[thetabyte]

So you're telling me risky investments in possibly revolutionary startups can fail? If we go back to writing by PG, failures like this are proof we are making risky a enough investments to actually make a big difference.

[guscost]

If I trusted the government-approved definition of "clean" I'd be a bit more enthusiastic about those subsidies.

[Evbn]

What better definition is there? BP's?

[bravoyankee]

To paraphrase Chris Hedges, we don't need more advances in technology, we need advances in morality.

[sixothree]

Wahhhh Wahhh Wahhh much?