Corporatism In Action

This is a follow up to my previous post Corporatism Is Just Another Name For Fascism. This is about the goings on in New York State with a project called the SolarCity disaster. The article was published on Sept 22, 2016.

…rather than symbolizing a shiny high-tech future, the solar-panel factory could become a monument to what US Attorney Preet Bharara described as “pervasive corruption and fraud” allegedly infecting Cuomo’s signature economic development programs.

Federal prosecutors Thursday leveled public-corruption charges against eight individuals including Cuomo’s former right-hand man, Joe Percoco, stemming from what was described as “two overlapping criminal schemes.”

The most prominent public official named in the case was Alain Kaloyeros, the former president and guiding visionary behind the SUNY Polytechnic Institute, who was entrusted with an extraordinary degree of control over Cuomo’s biggest state-subsidized tech projects.

And:

Over the past quarter-century — with the support of every governor since Mario Cuomo — Kaloyeros has built a public-private tech empire, now based at a gleaming, 1.3 million-square-foot “NanoTech Megaplex” adjacent to the SUNY Albany campus. The SUNY Poly complex hosts 3,500 scientists, researchers, engineers, students, faculty and staff, plus a tech-oriented public high school.

Kaloyeros has parlayed hundreds of millions of dollars in state government grants and capital investments into R&D partnerships with leading tech companies, including IBM, Intel and Samsung.

Along the way, he pioneered the technique of creating a college-controlled nonprofit real estate subsidiary to build and manage state-subsidized research, manufacturing and office facilities shared with private corporate tenants. Such closely held subsidiaries figure prominently in the federal and state corruption cases.

Well if the State loses money it is all good. Because Corporatism/Fascism requires taxpayers to make up the losses.


Posted

in

by

Tags:

Comments

9 responses to “Corporatism In Action”

  1. Veeshir Avatar

    That’s just good old NYS corruption.

    It doesn’t matter which party, the only way to tell them apart is that the Albany Times Union hates the GOP.

    It’s what took the state from a manufacturing powerhouse to a state full of malls, welfare and unemployment.

    They used to debate the budget in the pages of the papers,”this gov’t cash cow will go in a Dem district while this gov’t cash cow will go in a GOP district”.
    Nowhere were discussions about actually helping the businesses who paid the taxes they used to bribe their voters.

  2. Simon Avatar

    Veeshir,

    Nowhere were discussions about actually helping the businesses who paid the taxes they used to bribe their voters.

    Corruption is the essence of Corporatism. Government picking winners and losers. In fascists state the policy is overt. In the US the pretense is that it is covert.

    That will end when people generally call the policy what it is. Fascism.

  3. Veeshir Avatar

    NYS corruption isn’t fascism.

    Fascism takes control of the businesses, NYS corruptocrats chase businesses out of the state.
    Just good old fashioned machine politics socialism.

    What the national Dems are doing is fascism.
    That is, socialism on a national scale.

  4. Veeshir Avatar

    NYS corruption isn’t fascism.

    Fascism takes control of the businesses, NYS corruptocrats chase businesses out of the state.
    Just good old fashioned machine politics socialism.

    What the national Dems are doing is fascism.
    That is, socialism on a national scale.

  5. […] can see the image in this video suggested by Kathy Kinsley as a comment on politics/the human […]

  6. Gringo Avatar
    Gringo

    From what I have read, it appears that the emphasis was on solar electric.When there is a lot of money thrown at solar electric power in a snowbelt state, corruption is an immediate suspect. Solar electric power in a snowbelt state is about as viable as a hydroelectric project in Saudi Arabia. There is a limited capability for solar heating in a snowbelt state, however.

    I am reminded of a fiasco some years back in my NE hometown. A building contractor decided to go solar heating on the home he built for himself. He placed the solar windows on the NORTH SIDE of the house.

    Most people realize that in the northern hemisphere, solar heat gain is much greater on the south side in the winter. But not that building contractor.

  7. Man Mountain Molehill Avatar
    Man Mountain Molehill

    Solar is mostly a waste except for some inaccessible or otherwise difficult locations. State of the art for solar cells is still below 20%, and even bright, desert sunshine is diffuse, maybe 2,000 watts per square yard. A large city can need gigawatts. It takes square miles of solar even under ideal conditions to make this much power.

    And it’s all even more pointless here in the Northwest, where it’s rainy and overcast 250 days a year.

    Rare and endangered birds are routinely roasted flying over solar installations or sliced and diced by wind turbines. While the usual panty-twisters are all so worried about housecats killing sparrows.

    If the government wants to spend taxpayer’s money they could at least make an attempt to spend it something that might work. Thorium reactors, for example. Or just better uranium ones. Natural gas. Coal. Anything. Could use some gorbal worming around these parts…

  8. Simon Avatar

    MMM,

    1 Kw/sq m – max. A little less per sq yard ( 0.836 Kw ). And that is peak.