Earlier this year I was at a dinner party with a VC(of course main office NoCa) and a top exec from your favorite tech company that you bash all the time. VC guy did state that deal making was being discussed at a fervent pace, but that his firm was very cautious. We talked about the wisdom of the Stuyvesant Town—Peter Cooper Village $5B debacle that Tishman Speyer and BlackRock walked away from this year. BTW, CALPERS invested and (probably lost) $600M in this project with their VC allotment to this project. Its obvious that Tishman and BlackRock folks are brilliant, we Piggs should bow to them. (maybe they didn’t read the fine print, which said $5.4Billion USD)
When the guy mentioned that Green tech is where VC money is looking, I went on a tirade, Piggington style. Let’s just say that these brilliant VC folks founding Tesla, etc are looking for the massive subsidy(handout, free cheese,etc) These “Green” firms are being planned and funded ONLY because of Govt subsidies, unlike the VC funded firms of the past that were privately funded. These “Green” firms can’t defy simple laws of physics and chemistry, their firms are not viable (by factor of 2-3 times, not 20-30%) without flu’s tax dollars. Its one thing to subsidize hybrid research, but quite another to subsidize questionable technologies such as ethanol, switchgrass, etc. Follow money back to lobby and that drives the funding, not science.
So the only people deluded are the ones that worship at the alter of the new VC crowd that now prey upon gullible Govt pension fund managers and figure out how to fleece taxpayers. But they may create high paying jobs, what the heck do I know?
Isn’t it bad enough that Student loans/grants provide over 80% of revenues for the for-profit universities that provide “passion degrees” that won’t pay the student loans?
Or that Fed Loans are causing tuition rates to go up 10% a year (no inflation here)
Or that health care subsidies are causing health care cost to skyrocket without any additional benefit? In fact, many medical procedures such as colonoscopy and stents have NEVER been proven to be scientifically better then less invasive, cheaper forms of treatment. But why conduct a study when you lobby Govt to force HMOS to pay most of costs? Is the USA most corrupt? You decide.
So I may not know Jack, but I’ve met people who do and I can tell difference between innovation and Govt handouts.
BTW, did I ever mention that I once met Spielberg in Santa Monica, but the dude wouldn’t give me a break. Well, I coulda been an actor, but I wound up here, spilling dirty laundry.
