Why the Obama Administration Invested in Solyndra : The New Yorker
Industrial policy does have a checkered history, and in much of the developing world government intervention in the marketplace has translated mainly into crony capitalism.
...
Of course, some think the Solyndra failure shows that the government isn’t investing smartly. But, while government subsidies have built-in problems—most obviously, some money will go to projects that would have happened anyway—there’s little sign that the Department of Energy has handed out money recklessly: the vetting process, which relied on three thousand outside experts, was unusually rigorous. Solyndra was a wager that went wrong, but failure is integral to the business of investing in new companies...Solyndra was a big bet that happened to go bad. But we probably need to be making more bets like it.
Posts
3 comments:
Surowiecki needs to read his own book -- Wisdom of Crowds. He's apparently forgotten what he wrote.
There is simply no way that they had any project vetted by 3000 experts. It would be a challenge to find 3000 experts on anything in the US, unless simply breathing was the requirement.
These guys are blowing smoke, trying to say that everybody, all 3000, were wrong and do not know why, and that, thus, it's not their fault.
We should be making more bets like this? The government is not in the business of making bets, has no right to do so, and certainly should not be betting other people's hard earned (tax) money.
For sure, they ned to find a different set of experts; all 3000 obviously did not know what they were considering.
"3000 experts"
Perhaps they asked the IPCC?
Post a Comment