Before you read this remember Obama’s words:
The days of Old Washington are over.
There will be no lobbyists in my Administration.
January 14, 2010
John Stossel does a piece about Crony Capitalism and the Obama Administration.
Tonight on my FBN show (8pm EST and 11pm EST), I talk about “crony capitalism.” That is when Big Business uses the clout of Big Government to get special privileges or protect themselves from the raw competition of the free market.
My first example is the story of a little window manufacturer, Serious Materials:
Video HERE.
We asked the White House, the Department of Energy, and Serious Materials to provide someone to talk about this, but they all declined. A spokeswoman for Serious Materials said, “we don’t comment on the personal lives of our employees.” Just this afternoon, she called to say that my story is “full of lies.” But she wouldn’t say what those lies are.
If you have any more information on this subject, please tell us about it.
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ADD THIS:
When the California company Serious Materials bought the former Republic Windows and Doors factory on Chicago’s Goose Island this spring, inspired by the Republic workers’ six-day factory occupation in December, company officials and national politicians—including President Obama and Vice President Biden—held up the operation as a poster child of “green jobs” and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), or stimulus, at work.
The idea was that stimulus funds for weatherization would exponentially increase demand for Serious Materials’ energy-efficient windows and ecological drywall.
Before buying the plant, Serious Materials signed a union contract with the UE union local 1110 and promised to hire back any of the 250 workers who still wanted their jobs. Union and company officials had originally said they planned for a full plant opening in May or June.
Serious Materials officials said the company is working directly with different government agencies to plan green building renovations. But unbeknownst to many people, the stimulus actually did not cover new windows for homeowners until recently.
Now new results from the National Energy Audit Tool (NEAT) mean that low-income homeowners making up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level can get up to $6,500 for new windows as part of the Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP), the funding of which was increased by the stimulus. (The federal poverty level requirements mean a family of four making $44,000 a year would basically qualify for WAP funds.)
Serious Materials celebrated by launching its own line of WAP products. The company says their windows can cut energy costs by 40 percent a household, which would cut an average energy bill by almost $700 a year.
The grant means that, theoretically, workers awaiting rehire by Serious Materials could replace their own windows and save on energy expenditures—especially come winter. This spring, President Obama announced a goal of providing weatherization assistance to 1 million homeowners.
Read the article HERE that includes their blogroll in sidebar.
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My own End note:
Emboldened and italicized words added by me for focal points.
At least Stossel’s phone rings.
The supposed lies (?) by Stossel were not denoted/specified by the spokesperson for Serious Materials; all the spokesperson said was they were lies.
What?
Unions involved in the Chicago Goose Island plant. Another payoff to union support from Chicago?
Crony Capitalism? Coincidence?
You Decide.
Romanticpoet's Weblog 
Apparently the windows thing wasn’t true. read that the MN think tak was paid by another window company to create the story.
Company also released some new data today here-
http://blog.seriousmaterials.com/?p=1007
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Response to Comment above:
If you read the above blog, it sounds like an Obama speech. Isn’t it convenient it was written by Surace himself?
Surace bought the Chicago Goose Island plant because the sit-in by the workers “saved” the equipment from being removed. Therefore, Capital did not have to be put out by Surace.
Also out of the Surace promise of rehiring 250 workers from the sit-in ……only 17 have been rehired as of December 2009.
Bother you?
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The problem I have is……I don’t TRUST anyone in Washington,D.C.
The connection of Surace to his wife as part of the DOE is problematic in itself.
SO WHERE is the TRUTH “Truthsayer”????
I caught the report last night, very well done. It is a shame that more people and journalists are not asking the same questions. Particularly those of us who were bamboozled into thinking we were actually gonna see a “change” in Washington. The lyrics from that THE WHO song comes to mind: “Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.”