President Obama yesterday paid a visit to what seems to have become his administration’s favorite North Carolina example of crony capitalism “green jobs.” Cree lighting in Durham has seen both Obama and VP Joe Biden visit within the last 18 months, both touting Cree as some sort of success story.
I wrote before about how they must be using an odd definition of the term “success” when referring to a company receiving more than $40 million in government priveleges in order to survive. Indeed, as reported in March, Cree’s bottom line was struggling even as they enjoyed political priveleges not granted to many of their competitors.
This time around the White House declared Cree to be “a great example of how we can manufacture great products in the United States.”
“Great example”? We can learn a lot about the White House’s opinion of how our economy should be organized when they continue to praise a company that exists only because the political elite conspired to use their power to direct scarce resources as they see fit, rather than allowing consumer preferences to dictate how resources should be utilized.
Lastly, Cree sharholders may request that the White House stop sending folks to their Durham plant. Since Biden visited this “success” story in March 2010, Cree’s stock has plummeted about 45%
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