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More Buffett Hypocrisy: "Eco-friendly" Billionaire Seeks to "Squash" Nevada Rooftop Solar
Billionaire hypocrisy has been in the news of late and it turns out the world’s ultra-rich don’t always practice what they preach. Take George Soros for instance, who publicly states that the wealthy should pay more taxes in order to promote a more stable society via the equitable distribution of wealth but who has for years used a tax loophole that allows him to avoid paying taxes on management fees, a practice that Bloomberg says has magnified his AUM exponentially and may ultimately mean Soros owes more than $6 billion in back taxes.
Then there’s Warren Buffett, the affable Omaha octogenarian whose railroad holdings and close ties with the President make the White House’s position on the Keystone Pipeline seem rather convenient, and who Dan Loeb recently blasted for being a habitual hypocrite on everything from taxes to hedge funds. As a reminder, here’s what Loeb said at the SALT conference earlier this month:
“I love reading Warren Buffett’s letters and I love contrasting his words with his actions. I love how he criticizes hedge funds, yet he had the first hedge fund,” Mr. Loeb said. “He criticizes activists, he was the first activist. He criticizes financial services companies, yet he loves to invest in them. He thinks that we should all pay taxes, yet he avoids them himself.”
Today, we get another example of what appears to be egregious Buffett belief bifurcation, this time in the form of green energy policy because as Bloomberg reports, when it comes to saving the environment, it’s a great idea — unless it eats into profit margins. Here’s more:
Warren Buffett highlights how his Berkshire Hathaway Inc. utilities make massive investments in renewable energy. Meanwhile, in Nevada, the company is fighting a plan that would encourage more residents to use green power.
Berkshire’s NV Energy, the state’s dominant utility, opposes the proposal to increase a cap on the amount of energy that can be generated with solar panels by residents who sell power back to the grid in a practice known as net metering.
While the billionaire’s famed holding company has reaped tax credits from investing in wind farms and solar arrays, net metering is often seen by utilities as a threat. Buffett wants his managers to protect competitive advantages, said Jeff Matthews, an investor and author of books about Berkshire…
In an April presentation to investors, NV Energy laid out its strategy for addressing the growth of home solar. The utility said it would “lobby to hold the subsidized net-metering cap at current 3 percent of peak demand"...
Sellers of rooftop-solar panels are pushing Nevada legislators to raise the cap, and one plan called for the ceiling to be lifted to 10 percent. Nevada State Senator Patricia Farleysaid she is proposing that Nevada’s utility regulator study the issue before lawmakers act.
“Across the country the utility industry is pressuring regulators and elected officials to limit solar energy’s growth, and the same thing is happening in Nevada,” said Gabe Elsner, executive director of the Energy & Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based clean energy think tank. “NV Energy is trying to protect their monopoly by squashing competitors.”
That’s a pretty unequivocal assessment and it also comes as no surprise that NV’s Energy lobbyist advised Nevada Governor Brian Sandova on two campaigns:
The Republican governor is “a confidant of the big lobbyist on this,” said Bryan Miller, vice president of public policy and power markets at Sunrun, a San Francisco-based solar-leasing company. “Berkshire and the governor could not be closer.”
* * *
The bottom line: it’s all about the bottom line for Buffett.
“It always comes down to money,” Matthews says.
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Exploding oil rail cars are another of his ec0-freindly ventures.
Yep, but ar least we're not building any of those dangerous pipelines.....
A two'fer for Senator Palpatine.
Solar and silver empower the wrong folks.
[Check out how much silver is in a standard residential solar panel
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/markets/2014/08/29/no-silver-no-sola...]
Here's a thought: What if congress simply mandated an extra 20 days' public holiday for all Americans? This would automatically grant employees an extra 20 days of paid leave every year. This would improve peoples' quality of life by giving them more leisure time, without reducing their salary or diminishing their career proespects one bit, and during this leisure time, many Americans will choose to go to the mall and spend their savings - further boosting the economy. It's a win-win all round!
This is how simple common-sense fiscal policy can be. We keep needlessly overcomplicating things, when our problems are really so easy to overcome.
Great idea, MDB!
Don't forget the additional economic boost provided by those entrepreneurial Americans who sell things at flea market-style tables set up in the parking lots of all those abandoned malls. More win-win!
Technology is moving at such a pace now, it's only a matter of time before Affordable Infinite Renewable Energy (Better than wind & solar) becomes available...
That's going to mean good bye utility companies, oil corporations, gas corporations, and so much more....
In fact, I'm 100% certain it already exist & it will be the next biggest thing of the 21st century.
Ya, but just don't try to sell "loose" cigarettes. Someone may choke you to death.
Don't be such an incompetant troll, MDB. You neglected to include the link to you Master:
http://my.barackobama.com/Time-For-Paid-Leave
This comment is not in response to the parent post. it's just spam trying to steal a top spot in the list. And it has nothing to do with anything.
pipelines: Moar public lands for Oligarchs
This will make you sick.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/may/18/fossil-fuel-companies...
May 18th, 2015
Via: Wired:
A Spanish company called Vortex Bladeless is proposing a radical new way to generate wind energy that will once again upend what you see outside your car window.
Their idea is the Vortex, a bladeless wind turbine that looks like a giant rolled joint shooting into the sky. The Vortex has the same goals as conventional wind turbines: To turn breezes into kinetic energy that can be used as electricity. But it goes about it in an entirely different way.
Instead of capturing energy via the circular motion of a propeller, the Vortex takes advantage of what’s known as vorticity, an aerodynamic effect that produces a pattern of spinning vortices. Vorticity has long been considered the enemy of architects and engineers, who actively try to design their way around these whirlpools of wind. And for good reason: With enough wind, vorticity can lead to an oscillating motion in structures, which, in some cases, like the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, can cause their eventual collapse.
Where designers see danger, Vortex Bladeless’s founders—David Suriol, David Yáñez, and Raul Martín—sees opportunity. “We said, ‘Why don’t we try to use this energy, not avoid it,’” Suriol says. The team started Vortex Bladeless in 2010 as a way to turn this vibrating energy into something productive.
You can getr your very own bladeless wind tunnel right now, and they are very cool. I saw these at a trade show about 2 years ago and they blew me away. Still a little too expensive to disrupt the blade fan market, but that will change.
http://www.dyson.com/Fans-and-heaters/cooling-fans.aspx?utm_source=offli...
Amazing things are here, and more are coming.
What kind of morons down vote factual articles? You got 3 downs, and I got one, simply for trying to tell people about vortex wind energy. Must be petroleum trolls.
Solar panels create global warming. All that concentrated reflective light creates hot spots in the troposphere where weather occurs. All those solar panels in Nevada are warming up the troposphere in the area and in turn reducing condensation of water in the troposphere which in turn means less rain. The troposphere warms faster than the ground creating and the more extreme the bigger the differential.
Burning coal at power plants puts mercury into the air. The mercury falls down into the water, and when fish drink the water, mercury concentrates in the fish. When birds eat the fish, mercury concentrates in the birds. When birds die, and buzzards eat the birds, mercury concentrates in the buzzards.
There is no such thing as environmentally friendly energy.
It's all relative.
Which is why I don't eat the buzzards.... :-)
My last pay check was $9500 working 12 hours a week online. My sisters friend has been averaging 15k for months now and she works about 20 hours a week. I can't believe how easy it was once I tried it out. This is what I do... www.jobs-review.com
Never underestimate the power of the dark side.
Do as I say and not as I do. Dear uncle Warren is running the worlds's largest tax shelter and anything that keeps him from stacking it higher is evil and must be stopped.....
He is a scumbag who makes money off trailer trash now.
The idea that this guy was ever a figment of his urban legend is pure bullshit.
Literally. He is tied in with Clayton Homes, a mobile home manufacturer that is the worst of the worst.
buffets points is that the hustlers have moved in to the solar panel business, they put up the money, they keep the rebates, and the homeowner gets what? free electricty. that must seem unamerican to wb, and on top of that the solar companies are making the money, which is not the way he sees it. he wants to make the money. too bad this ZIRP thing has gone on for so long that some strange business models are popping up. meanwhile i applied for a 2$ a foot rebate for lawn removal (1500 sq feet, not exactly chump change) but it seems i may not qualify because my lawn is already dead. so now i have to replant the grass in order to qualify probably. makes sense to me
What do they replace the lawn with?
Hopefully not a cemetery...
Capital is Agnostic but not Aristotelian.
As for the Warren breed I prefer Pocahontas to that Supreme judge whose claim to fame was the magical bullet and this Last train from Bakken specialist who is no Keystone cop from Charlie's Tramp movies, more a Mr Scrooge Moneybags from Modern Times who can bribe Tammany Hall any day of the week.
What really creeps me out is seeing for-sale signs on local homes with the words "Berkshire Hathaway" as agent, knowing that Buffett is a front (agent) for The Great Red Dragon. (Phoenix area)
I just saw one of those here in Charlotte. Got a sick feeling in my stomach.
The Berkshire Hathaway real estate deal was where Warren bought up huge chunks of package bank foreclosures a few years ago. They are just starting to try and unload them . Here in Upstate NY, a few middle class suburban towns had a shitload of Berkshire Hathaway real estate signs pop up over the last few months. There were an unbeleiveable amount of foreclosures in these towns , and no one had a clue. Both commercial and residential. They are freaking everywhere.
Too bad for Warren that the economy is absolutely shit up here, and he is going to take it in the ass on this enterprise. The carrying costs of the taxes are enormous, and add on top of that keeping them halfway decent ( at least not moldy inside ). He has to be bleeding green in a bad way.
Maverick
Same here. I saw a couple of them last week in York County (near Charlotte)
One word: oligarch.
I wonder how much oil you can squeeze out of Buffett fossil?
That old coot needs to be put in a time capsule and dropped into the 'Mariana Trench'.
Send Greenspam with him so they can keep each other company...
it's not hypocracy, it's lying
It's not Hypocrisy. It's Two-Pronged Marketing.
I saw the article about this yesterday in the Reno Gazette Journal. I guess Buffett is tired of all of us with solar getting refund checks from NV Energy. Bastard.
Aren't there whole factories in Germany with opaque ceilings as well as solar panels. Fuck this shitbag... let him ride a fukken Eco mule everywhere he goes. These fucking elites crack me the phuck up.
yeah, and they all fly around in their Gulfstream V's.
Please die already.
Do you mean Warren? Or my pick, Jack Welch?
George "Gyorgy the Kapo Schwartz" Soros tops my list.
If it all comes down to money we are doomed.
Solar power for those night time lights and A/C...genius....making the power system two or three times larger than required. Who is paying...OH wait we are!
baffon and gatesky could charter one of their jets to the other side and play bridge in a mosquito netted hammock and chat about all the good they have done for humanity...
Buffett is an insider who pretends to be an outsider.
He is used by the U.S. government to "privately" bail out connected companies such as Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and BOA using tax payers dollars.
Buffett is a great investor but also a crook is disguise.
This article needs just a smidge of rebuttal...
"Take George Soros for instance, who publicly states that the wealthy should pay more taxes in order to promote a more stable society via the equitable distribution of wealth but who has for years used a tax loophole that allows him to avoid paying taxes on management fees"
The same thing has been said of Buffett. Personally I see little discrepancy between taking advantage of all legal tax avoidance techniques on the books, while at the same time promoting the idea of wealthy companies paying more taxes. It would be silly to pay unecessary taxes and when your competitors are not. Make the playing field equal. The two concepts are mutually exclusive.
Regarding caps on selling power back to the utilities, perhaps you have a point there, but I would have like the article to have stated profit margins by NV Energy. Berkshire may well be acting greedily, but at the same time they need to sell enough power to stay in buisness. More facts please.
Doesn't net metering sell back to the grid at wholesale? What is the problem?
Screw these public utilities who climbed into bed with goob and now are whining about excessive caps. I told the Utility years ago that they were the only vendor that I did business with that was constantly reminding me to use less and less of their product, what do you think they did about it? not a fing thing, f them
Screw these public utilities who climbed into bed with goob and now are whining about excessive caps. I told the Utility years ago that they were the only vendor that I did business with that was constantly reminding me to use less and less of their product, what do you think they did about it? not a fing thing, f them
I think we should build a tomb for Buffett and then mummify the cunt.
Isn't he already dead? I mean he has no heart. Another son of a bitch I would like to see ''Chris Kyled''
When will it be vigilante Justice for these greedy hypocrites?
May 18th, 2015
Via: Wired:
A Spanish company called Vortex Bladeless is proposing a radical new way to generate wind energy that will once again upend what you see outside your car window.
Their idea is the Vortex, a bladeless wind turbine that looks like a giant rolled joint shooting into the sky. The Vortex has the same goals as conventional wind turbines: To turn breezes into kinetic energy that can be used as electricity. But it goes about it in an entirely different way.
Instead of capturing energy via the circular motion of a propeller, the Vortex takes advantage of what’s known as vorticity, an aerodynamic effect that produces a pattern of spinning vortices. Vorticity has long been considered the enemy of architects and engineers, who actively try to design their way around these whirlpools of wind. And for good reason: With enough wind, vorticity can lead to an oscillating motion in structures, which, in some cases, like the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, can cause their eventual collapse.
Where designers see danger, Vortex Bladeless’s founders—David Suriol, David Yáñez, and Raul Martín—sees opportunity. “We said, ‘Why don’t we try to use this energy, not avoid it,’” Suriol says. The team started Vortex Bladeless in 2010 as a way to turn this vibrating energy into something productive.
You had me at giant rolled joint
Now he sees the light. Grid connected alt systems, excluding small hydro create technical problems fior the grid and the customers/utilities who are forced to pay higher rates with intermittant generation (that includes the large solar and wind generation).
Now it is time for Buffett to return all of that stimulus money he got and shut down his renewable generating entities except for hydro.
With apologies regarding typos etc.. My comment was submitted on a new Iphone with an Otter case that is a P.I.T.A. with touch screen and limited time. I wrote this article awhile back and pay attention to the Buffet stories and techincal ones included:
http://dailybail.com/home/why-wind-power-wont-work.html
What are Buffets un-renewable investments vs renewable investments, to give you guidance :-)
Lets not forget the POS preys on the poor through his Clayton Homes subsidiary (courtesy ZH a few weeks back).
Sells em a trailer home, and when they miss a payment - whoosh, repossessed.
Nevada is too sunny, it would never work anyway. Wind power, Nevada is too breezy, it also would never work. How would the government control the people and collect tax from something that costs less than a modest car, that has a 25 year life expectancy and payback (usually wihtin 3 years) that is relativly quick?
The elite dislike decentralized solutions. Centralized power (no pun intended) is their game.
Always about money , power, and division; For government, and all the rest of the psychopaths.
"Give me another $ for my stash, or I'll have him over there choke you out."
Liberty is a demand. Tyranny is submission.
Ha! He thinks his Shit don't even Stink...
Croney Extraordinaire!
I recall warren saying the party is over in 2008 or 9. Meaning he is going to have to work for his billions now.
Going to feel good to piss on this hypocrite's grave.