Tom Carnahan, somehow managing to spend $300 million despite erecting the windmills himself.

Moe Lane points out that the success of Tom Carnahan’s Wind Capital Group project depends to a great extent on both stimulus money and the passage of cap-and-trade legislation, and wonders:

I’d ask why Russ Carnahan felt comfortable voting for legislation that would directly benefit his brother, except that I already know that Democratic legacy politicians typically don’t believe that they have to obey the rules that they expect the rest of us to follow. Given the incredible amounts of deference that the rest of their party gives them, they may unfortunately have a bit of a point.

Don’t forget that sis might be in the Senate soon, too.

UPDATE: From the comments, Mitch writes:

OK, let’s see if I can connect the dots. Tom Carnahan gets enough money to finance a windmill farm (whered he get the financing?) Then uses his family connections to legislate that the electric company buy his electricity at above market rates. Sounds like a good business plan!

From Bloomberg news, via the STL Post-Dispatch:

Emerson CEO David Farr said that the U.S. government was hurting manufacturers with regulation and taxes and that his company would continue to focus on growth overseas. “Washington is doing everything in their manpower, capability, to destroy U.S. manufacturing,” Farr said Wednesday in Chicago at a Baird Industrial Outlook conference. “Cap and trade, medical reform, labor rules.”

UPDATE: You should read the comments on the article posted at stltoday.com. The economic illiteracy (and a fair share of regular illiteracy, too) is staggering.

Carbon-neutral styling.

From a fawning, self-contradicting article in the New York Times (emphasis added):

Mr. Gore is not a lobbyist, and he has never asked Congress or the administration for an earmark or policy decision that would directly benefit one of his investments. But he has been a tireless advocate for policies that would move the country away from the use of coal and oil, and he has begun a $300 million campaign to end the use of fossil fuels in electricity production in 10 years.

But Marc Morano, a climate change skeptic who until recently was a top aide to Senator James M. Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, said that what he saw as Mr. Gore’s alarmism and occasional exaggerations distorted the debate and also served his personal financial interests.

Mr. Gore has testified numerous times in support of legislation to address climate change and to revamp the nation’s energy policies.

He appeared before the House Energy and Commerce Committee in April to support an energy and climate change bill that was intended to reduce global warming emissions through a cap-and-trade program for major polluting industries.

Umm… really? Here are a couple facts that are– what’s the word– oh yeah, inconvenient:

1. One of Al Gore’s companies, Generation Investment Management, purchased a 9.5 percent stake in Camco International Ltd, a “carbon asset developer” (whatever the hell that is– maybe Jeffrey Skilling knows). Camco has “one of the world’s largest carbon credit portfolios” and coordinates the sale and delivery of carbon credits. I guess Camco will completely sit out the pending “cap-and-trade” legislation, in order to preserve Gore’s putative independence?
2. Just browse the “Greentech” portfolio companies at venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins (of which Al Gore is a partner). Solar technology, fuel cells, energy management solutions, geothermal energy… None of these firms would benefit directly from new legislation mandating a reduction in carbon emissions?

Listen, I’ve got no problem with Al Gore getting stinking filthy rich on his ideas for Hope-powered zeppelins and magical-fantastical windmills. But can we stop pretending like this guy is a selfless saint?

Jesus Christ. These new green jobs suck.

It is undeniable that the contemplated carbon tax/”cap-and-trade” legislation will create jobs. But the question should not be whether it will create jobs, but rather what kinds of jobs? How many? And, at what cost?

Here is Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), the chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, describing how the legislation could be a jobs windfall for her home state:

Moving forward with the climate bill, Boxer said, would “allow this economy to take off, because it would draw, not federal funds, but private funds.”

She said that venture capitalists in her home state of California have told her that the bill would signal a good time to invest in green technologies, which Boxer said she hoped would create jobs.

If the government makes it inordinately expense or difficult, or both, to do business, it is likely that entrepeneurs and investors will divert resources to emergent industries that solve (or circumvent) those challenges. At least as long as we practice some semblance of capitalism, that’s what will happen. And it will clearly create some jobs. But something else will happen, too– dirty, boring industrial jobs that Barbara Boxer and Kleiner Perkins don’t have any interest in may evaporate or move to China or India forever.

I can’t help wondering what other legislation might create new, sexy, “green collar jobs,” whatever the hell that means:

• Grounded-for-Good. It is illegal to fly on an airplane unless you are a Congressperson, or one of the 25 amazing American patriots that each Congressperson is allowed to pick. Source of new jobs: solar-powered zeppelins, hang-gliding insurance, graft
• No-More-Guzzlers. The internal combustion engine is illegal. It is also illegal to talk disparagingly about the imminent Fisker Automotive IPO, or billionaires from Tennessee. Source of new jobs: Self-congratulatory Tesla and Fisker merchandise
• Alpacas-All-The-Time. It is discovered that the alpaca has a substantially smaller carbon footprint than cows, pigs and other livestock animals– which are all, naturally, now illegal. Source of new jobs: Alpaca psychics, one-way zeppelin flights out of the USA