The American Spectator

As noted below, GE’s Jeff Immelt is at it again, fresh from sitting across from the president at the state dinner for other GE pal China (Mrs. Immelt was reportedly perched at Obama’s left elbow, rather rude given how little room there is on his left).

Politico’s Morning Energy reports the following, with English-to-English translation below:

‘CLEAN ENERGY ECONOMY’ - Expect those words to get plenty of play this afternoon when President Obama arrives in Schenectady, N.Y., to tour General Electric’s largest energy division. The president is slated to deliver remarks at 1:05 p.m. on the “importance of growing the economy and making America more competitive by investing in jobs, innovation and clean energy.”

The president has made similar remarks at similarly energy-themed locations in the past but this afternoon’s event will take on added weight given that he’ll be accompanied by GE chairman and chief executive Jeffrey Immelt - who Obama will tap today to lead a new economy task force.

WELL, THAT’S CONVENIENT - Obama will sign an executive order today that will create the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, which Immelt will lead. …[The] site that Obama is set to tour today is home to the company’s future advanced battery facility and the division also includes steam turbines, generators, and wind and solar, and Immelt is a strong supporter of clean energy.

IMMELT OP-ED - Immelt writes in the Washington Post this morning of the need for the U.S. to focus on manufacturing and innovation in order to transition from “recovery to long-term growth.” And in what is sure to delight the clean energy crowd, the CEO trumpets his company’s energy investments. http://wapo.st/fCR1j4

Graph 7: “Businesses should invest more of their cash and resources in advanced products and technologies that will create jobs in the United States, and government should incentivize this investment in innovation. …

AND A DROP MORE - Graph 8: “A sound and competitive tax system and a partnership between business and government on education and innovation in areas where America can lead, such as clean energy, are essential to sustainable growth.”

Translation, the hundreds of billions to date still haven’t done it so the government should rearrange things so as to (further) underwrite the agenda — and further distort it to meet political, not technological or economic drivers — and we would then further distort our decisions with politics, pouring more into things this administration and its supporters want us to spend money on.

This affirms the obvious, that Tuesday’s State of the Union speech will see Obama’s fourth call (including all three such January addresses, and his first at the UN) for legislation “making clean energy the profitable kind.” How obscenely direct, and even more garishly ignored each time by the media. He wants laws to make the uneconomic profitable for a politically selected class of people making politically selected gadgets, by taking your wealth and giving it to them which is something, as is clear in that fact this requires the force of the federal government, you would never do.

Make the uneconomic — key word — ‘profitable’. Because markets, driven by economics, will not. Only politicians can put your dollars to use to make the uneconomic ‘profitable’. And we know (and they again admit) that technology is not going to make these things what they would need to be to be profitable. Only state-imposed wealth transfers.

This nauseating display of crony capitalism is a reprisal of Obama and Immelt’s earlier buddy-flick. As I wrote in Power Grab:

While palling around together on Obama’s [Economic Advisory Board, ‘green economy’ speculators] Immelt and [Al Gore partner at Kleiner Perkins, John] Doerr took to the pages of the Washington Post on the need for the U.S. to implement low carbon policies to fix America’s “competitiveness crisis.” Did you know that America is losing its edge because its energy prices are too low, and it has too few wealth transfers and governmental intrusions into the economy? Well, you do now, as the long and the short of this public relations coup for Obama’s agenda was that these guys agreed that the U.S. needs new policies so that Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and GE can make more money. Ah, fresh ideas and “change.”

Among the claims and admissions in the Post item was that “Kleiner Perkins has invested $680 million in 48 of the most compelling new clean-energy technologies, with $1.1 billion more to invest.” These gambles haven’t paid off for one simple reason: “our government’s energy and climate policies are our principal obstacle to success.”

Not policies that are actually obstructing them to innovate and create wealth; though we certainly have those, this isn’t of what these gents speak. What they mean is the absence of certain policies is what stands between them and their fortune. But here you see the clever use of language in Obama’s service toward energy rationing and old-school Progressivism.