Venture capital

Once again, I would like to thank those who contribute to this site with comments. It helps to stimulate my thinking and gives me material to write about.

An Anonymous poster made the following comment on my Solyndra posting.

“Why did private equity firms put 1 Billion dollars into a loser then? The government had less that 1/3 overall in Solyndra and private venture capitalist had the rest. Why is that a failure of the government and not the private sector?

Can't have more nuclear power - looky here: https://lpo.energy.gov/?page_id=45
The top two are both nuclear related. By far the largest is the 8.1 Billion plant being supported by loans in the state of Georgia.

Solyndra was a mistake, but plenty of private sector firms got it wrong as well. In addition, the private sector firms doubled down about half way through the process.”

Venture capital is a risky business. This risk is acceptable to those who invest. This is their choice. Some people are willing to take much more risk than others. I do not consider myself to be one of those, but I HAVE put up venture capital on occasion. Have you? I’ll bet that President Obama has NEVER done so with his OWN money. Yet he is willing to do it with our money. I can find lots of places to invest venture capital with YOUR money. This is why it is a failure of government.

My nuclear power comment was a little misleading. Sorry. I was referring to the fact that NO new nuclear reactor permits had been issued in the United States between 1980 and 2001. This was because our government would not allow new ones to be built at all, no matter who paid for them. The situation had not improved much since 9/11 and certainly is not better since President Obama was elected. Personally, I believe that government should not be investing our money into nuclear power either. Regulation is not capital investment. Regulations inhibiting nuclear plant construction and development are so overbearing that they have the effect of crippling growth and development by raising costs to unmanageable levels that discourage all who would put up the capital investment.