I've spent a very frustrating three weeks dealing with the Federal government on trying to get funding for two projects I'm working on. The first is a green energy project targeted towards helping homeowners generate some of their own electric power. Because of it's nature and how it connects with the power grid, it requires government involvement. I was looking for a grant. The second is a program to help high school graduates increase their chances of getting hired. It involves educating these inner-city kids and one-on-one counseling. I was looking for an appropriation from my Congressman. Now, I am an experienced businessman and I have a track record of getting things done. I have two Engineering degrees and can do a proof-of-concept. And I have, in the past, called my Democratic congressman and expressed my support for some of my Congressman's House votes. I have sincerely believed that he is a good guy. Let me cut to the chase and summarize why I am not getting a grant or appropriation: 1. I am not part of the Democratic machine 2. I will not be employing union workers 3. The Democrats do not owe me any favors 4. I am not a political insider Without 1-4, my only recourse is to - you guessed it - hire a lobbyist (who I already know operate via political contributions & kickbacks) Read what is highlighted in blue here. This is the present system and it is rigged. Understand, that no one came right out and said any of these things. Damn, I thought I was good at language, but these people are brilliant. I can't point to any particular sentence that damns their agenda - it was more a pattern of behavior. I was told "appropriations take 18 months and most people are rejected". I was told, "to get a grant you need to be a non-profit, and you are not" (how did he know that???) When I told him I was already starting the paperwork to incorporate as a non-profit, he told me that I should go through an organization in my area that already receives grants for helping kids. When I looked into that organization, I saw that it's management are all Boston Democratic bigwigs who seem to be living lives of luxury. What was more than a little scary was that, between the time I first made contact to the time I spoke to someone two days later, I got the feeling that I had been checked out. I will freely admit that I am more than a little afraid of these people and this whole experience has made me feel nauseous and foolishly naive. I have a friend in Florida with no political connections that has no problems getting federal grants for supplying green hot water heaters for schools. His congressman is a Republican and his grant requests take only six months for approval.
It seems to me that, for people like you and I, it's easier to earn money than to get it from the government. "Suck off the teats of government" businesses can be very profitable, but I just can't convince myself to become involved with them. Success in that field requires a different kind of person than I am, and I suspect you are quite similar to me in that regard. Leave the looting to the looters, you'll never beat them at their own game.
The Unofficial debt figure of USA is over 30 trillion dollars which your government is not in a position to repay. Obama needs to accept this fact as early as possible and chalk out a plan to forgive all debts , drop paper based currency and start a new metal based currency (which is not as fake as paper currency). The economy which got royally screwed up because of unimaginable corruption and greed of the american corporates cannot be recovered. It need to be thrown out and replaced with an altogether new economy system.
Well, for my program of helping high school graduates learn job skills, this isn't a profit-making business. I see in my neighborhood smart kids with no hope. It used to be that, if you had a high school education you could get a job in manufacturing building cars, toasters, anything. Now, these kids have no future and instead of me whining about it I've been helping some of them at the local coffee shop prepare for job interviews. I thought I would do a more formal program. Obviously, this would be free for the kids and not generate income, so it must be funded as a non-profit. Silly me, I thought the government would be interested in helping kids get jobs. 15 years ago this was the type of optimistic endeavor that Washington wanted to fund, before they decided to give away $50 Million grants towards companies developing solar panels that will never be practical. My green energy project would also not make a profit. Nobody would be suckling off the government teat. But it's all an insider's game, with Democrats shoveling money to other insiders. Compare this to the recent CNBC special where they showed research companies raking in hundreds of millions of dollars in government grants and spending them on attempting to build a type of solar panel that any first-year engineering student would tell you is impossible to build. The morals here seems to be: 1. You can't use the bailout money to do anything practical 2. The bailout money is all for the Democrats and their friends 3. If the appropriations process takes 18 months, then these half-a-billion-dollar bills we've been seeing have been a LONG time planning.
The U.S. had a system that rocketed them from nowhere to being the largest economic superpower on Earth in under two hundred years. But they gave that system up because socialism was "better" and now look at the mess they are in. The kids just don't have the political pull. I bet they don't even have their own lobbyist. Job interviewing skills will only help them to compete better with each other. The ugly reality is that the governments economic decisions have squashed economic growth and there just may be no jobs for those kids except for the jobs vacated by Mexican immigrants who went home. Probably it's not worth doing then. We have to focus on projects with direct benefits to end customers. Yeah, but those are people who can afford their own Congressman. You really have to invest for that.
It was Bill Clinton's old Treasury Secretary Robert Reich who said on Jon Stewart, "We have socialism for the rich, and capitalism for everyone else". Based on my experience, I think our corporate system is broken. It was based on the principle of corporate officers wanting their company to prosper, but it's evolved into a model where incompetent corporate officers can become wealthy by tanking the company and firing most of the employees. That's because corporate officers now no longer have their compensation tied to their company's profits. But you are very right, Will, it's really necessary to invest in a Congressman