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    “Green Energy,” Crony Capitalism, and Nicholas Nickleby

    Posted by David Foster on January 14th, 2012 (All posts by )

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    …an interesting piece here.

     

    This entry was posted on Saturday, January 14th, 2012 at 9:02 am and is filed under Book Notes, Britain, Business, Economics & Finance, Political Philosophy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

    7 Responses to ““Green Energy,” Crony Capitalism, and Nicholas Nickleby”

    1. Jonathan Says:
      January 14th, 2012 at 9:08 am

      David, there’s a problem with your link.

    2. David Foster Says:
      January 14th, 2012 at 9:24 am

      Fixed…thanks!

    3. Dan from Madison Says:
      January 14th, 2012 at 9:46 am

      Interesting piece, but Shannon Love pretty much blew up the myth of the Great Railroad Land Giveaway:
      http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/25289.html

    4. David Foster Says:
      January 14th, 2012 at 2:45 pm

      The actions of the city government of Atlanta, in handing all vending on public property to a single company, bear a nontrivial resemblance to the muffin and crumpet operation of which Dickens wrote.

    5. Bill Brandt Says:
      January 14th, 2012 at 3:30 pm

      There as always been some “crony capitalism” as long as there have been governments. But with the spending this govt has been doing the problem has become accentuated.

      Look at defense contracts. The Navy, because of their good experience with Grumman aircraft (they were known as the “Grumman Iron Works” ) – always favored Grumman when they needed a new plane. Would that be considered crony capitalism?

      I suppose that could be differentiated from , say, making a nice political contribution to getting a nice 500 million loan.

    6. Tatyana Says:
      January 14th, 2012 at 4:25 pm

      Bill, for any contract there exist -theoretically – very detailed and transparent procedure of bidding. In private business “cronies” also happen, even when bidding requirements are followed to a “t”. There are several requirements to bidding companies before the bidding process starts that serve to filter out undesirables, from Owner’s point of view -the companies with insufficient insurance, those with less experience with similar projects, those with complains on their licenses or absent/fraudulent references. When government is in the role of the Owner, though, there appears whole different set of barriers, f.i. a Co has to be “shortlisted” before they are allowed to bid. Which in practice means lobbying of the most shameless kind. [I am trying to use neutral words here, you'd notice]

    7. Michael Kennedy Says:
      January 14th, 2012 at 4:46 pm

      Douglas also built a lot of Navy planes. The famous SBD, the A3D and A4D when I worked for the company. McCain was flying an A4D when he was shot down.

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