Obama Knows How To Pick ‘Em

Remember in the debate how Romney said that when it comes to picking winners and losers, Obama only picks losers?

Yeah.  He was totally right about that.

According to the sourcelink, Compact Power in Holland, MI, a company run by LG Chem, has “furloughed” its workers on a rotating basis, so that they’re only working 3 weeks out of each month , because demand for the lithium-ion batteries that the company manufactures is basically nonexistent.  These batteries are supposed to be made for the Chevy Volt as well as the Ford Focus.

Back in 2010, Obama boasted about Compact Power during its groundbreaking ceremony.  He said, “You are leading the way in showing how manufacturing jobs are coming right back here to the United States of America.  Our goal has never been to create a government program, but rather to unleash private-sector growth. And we're seeing results.” I find that positively hilarious, given that the entire reason he was AT their groundbreaking ceremony was because he’d just given them $150 million in taxpayer money.  Yeah – WAY TO UNLEASH private sector growth, Barry.   

You wanna know how many batteries Compact Power has manufactured?

ZERO.

You wanna know why? 

Because NO ONE WANTS ELECTRIC CARS.  It doesn’t matter that Obama WANTS people to want them.  It doesn’t matter that he keeps using our money to fund companies who either build electric cars or build parts for electric cars.  PEOPLE WITH BRAINS understand that electric cars still ultimately use ELECTRICITY, which has to come from somewhere.  It’s not like it just magically appears out of nowhere. According to this, it costs around $30 monthly to CHARGE the batteries.  So what you might be saving on gas, you make up for in charging the batteries, which then need to be totally replaced in 8 years, at a cost of $8000, according to some estimates. BRILLIANT.

But back to Compact Power.  You’re probably wondering, like I was, what the heck those workers are doing even three weeks a month if they haven’t actually created a single solitary battery.   According to the parent company’s spokesperson, they have been spending the last two years “building infrastructure and conducting pre-production test runs.”  Spoken just like a government-run operation, huh?  The spokesperson said, “The market conditions haven’t been as favorable, but this hasn’t slowed down plans one bit.”

Right.  Because when failure is staring you right in the face, what should you do?  THE SAME THING OVER AND OVER AGAIN, of course. 

And just in case all of this information hasn’t made you already shake your head in disgust, let me just remind you that BILLIONS AND BILLIONS of dollars in tax subsidies and loans were put into research to make these stupid cars.  The only reason companies like LG Chem (and Compact Power) exist is because they had access to taxpayer money.  That’s it.  And now their 200 workers who work 3 weeks out of each month, and collect unemployment the other week, are busying themselves conducting “pre-production test runs” on batteries that no one is ever going to buy. 

GENIUS.

Thanks, Obama, for all of your help unleashing private sector growth.