Tag Archives: Spanish

News

How well did a government-run green energy policy work in Spain?

Leave a comment

Story here from Pajamas Media. (H/T Stuart Scheidernman)

Keep in mind that the socialists under Zapatero are running Spain now, and that’s where this green energy policy came from. Is it working out for socialist Spain?

Excerpt:

Pajamas Media has received a leaked internal assessment produced by Spain’s Zapatero administration. The assessment confirms the key charges previously made by non-governmental Spanish experts in a damning report exposing the catastrophic economic failure of Spain’s “green economy” initiatives.

[…]Unsurprisingly for a governmental take on a flagship program, the report takes pains to minimize the extent of the economic harm. Yet despite the soft-pedaling, the document reveals exactly why electricity rates “necessarily skyrocketed” in Spain, as did the public debt needed to underwrite the disaster. This internal assessment preceded the Zapatero administration’s recent acknowledgement that the “green economy” stunt must be abandoned, lest the experiment risk Spain becoming Greece.

The government report does not expressly confirm the highest-profile finding of the non-governmental report: that Spain’s “green economy” program cost the country 2.2 jobs for every job “created” by the state. However, the figures published in the government document indicate they arrived at a job-loss number even worse than the 2.2 figure from the independent study.

Spain is giving up their green energy / green jobs initiative. What does Obama learn from Spain’s failure?

Excerpt:

This document is not a public report. Spanish media has referred to its existence in recent weeks though, while Bloomberg and the Washington Examiner have noted the impact: Spain is now forced to jettison its plans — Obama’s model — for a “green economy.”

Remarkably, these items have received virtually no media attention.

An item which has been covered widely, however, is that President Obama is now pressuring Spain to turn off its spigot of public debt in the name of averting a situation similar to that of Greece.

Also covered widely is Obama’s promotion of the American Power Act — the legislation which would replicate Spain’s current situation in the United States.

Put simply, Obama is currently promoting a policy in the U.S. which is based on a policy that he wishes to see Spain abandon.

Why can’t we learn from Spain’s failure and avoid making the same mistakes they did? Is that too much to ask?

News

How green lobbyists shape energy policy in the Obama administration

Leave a comment

Story here at the Washington Times. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

In 2008 and 2009, Mr. Obama told Americans on no fewer than eight occasions to “think about what’s happening in countries like Spain [and] Germany” to see his model for successful “green jobs” policies, and what we should expect here.

Some Spanish academics and experts on that country’s wind- and solar-energy policies and outcomes took Mr. Obama up on his invitation, revealing Spain’s policies to be economic and employment disasters. The political embarrassment to the administration was obvious, with White House spokesman Robert Gibbs asked about the Spanish study at a press conference, and the president hurriedly substituted Denmark for Spain in his stump speech.

Team Obama was not amused, and they decided to do something about it. The crew that campaigned on change pulled out the oldest plan in the book – attack the messenger. The U.S. government’s response to foreign academics, assessing the impact in their own country of that foreign government’s policies, was to come after them in a move that internal e-mails say was unprecedented. They also show it was coordinated with the lobbyists for “Big Wind” and the left-wing Center for American Progress (CAP).

What emerged was an ideological hodgepodge of curious and unsupported claims published under the name of two young non-economist wind advocates. These taxpayer-funded employees offered green dogma in oddly strident terms and, along the way, a senior Obama political appointee may well have misled Congress.

[…]What is clear is that the Department of Energy then worked with Center for American Progress and the industry lobby AWEA to produce an attack that would serve all their interests.

First we had ClimateGate, and now we have WindLobbyGate.

News

Venezuela nationalizes Spanish-owned bank

Leave a comment

More communism from Obama’s communist buddy.

Excerpt:

President Hugo Chavez’s government assumed control of Venezuela’s third-largest bank on Friday – making the state the largest player in the nation’s banking system.

The purchase of the Spanish-owned Banco de Venezuela gives Chavez’s socialist government control over more than one-fifth of bank deposits as he tightens his grip over the economy.

The acquisition will “strengthen the public banking system,” which favors sectors including agriculture, energy, housing and tourism, Finance Minister Ali Rodriguez said in a statement.

…Combined with other state banks, the government will now control about 21 percent of deposits and 16 percent of loans, a payroll of 15,000 employees and 651 bank branches.

…Like the rest of the economy, Venezuela’s banking sector is already highly regulated, with the government dictating interest rates and commissions.

Under Chavez, Venezuela has nationalized major players in the steel, electricity and other sectors, including four major oil projects, since 2007.

The Venezuelan consulting firm Ecoanalitica calculates those nationalizations have cost Chavez’s government some $23 billion.

Things are so much more efficient when no one owns anything except the state bureaucrats. Look how well the Soviet Union did.