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Posted on 08/03/2006 1:59:30 PM PDT by calcowgirl
Direct democracy in California is becoming the latest hot investment for venture capitalists looking to merge their societal goals with a good return on their money.
By backing ballot measures tailored to promote their personal and financial interests, investors can quickly change public policy and make a buck at the same time.
Proposition 87 on the November ballot, which would tax oil to promote alternative fuels, is winning support from a key financier who is heavily invested in the kind of technologies that the initiative would reward.
Vinod Khosla, one of the founders of Sun Microsystems and now a prominent Silicon Valley venture capitalist, put up more than $1 million in seed money for the alternative fuels measure earlier this year. He is also a big investor in ethanol, an alternative to gasoline and one of the energy sources that could benefit if Proposition 87 passes.
Khosla has been a partner in the Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers... He founded Khosla Ventures on his own to invest in technology with an environmental bent.
Earlier this year Khosla announced that he was forming an ethanol manufacturing company in partnership with a grain-milling firm near Visalia, south of Fresno. The new company plans to build eight plants that could produce 440 million gallons of ethanol a year, achieving by itself Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's goal for California to produce at least 20 percent of the biofuels the state uses by 2010.
Coincidentally, Khosla announced his new ethanol deal on the same day in June that Proposition 87 qualified for the November ballot. And on Jan. 27, state records show, Khosla gave $1.1 million to the initiative's campaign committee, known as Californians for Clean Alternative Energy, to help it collect the signatures it needed to qualify.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
Danny Boy is singing my tune.
The same Vulture Capitalists are backing Prop 88, the parcel tax, to fund their educational "ventures". They also brought us Prop 71 stem-cell research bonds ($3 Billion) after passing Prop 39 eliminating the 2/3 vote requirement for bonds. They are also behind the Global Warming 'cap and trade' push in California.
The California General Fund--the Piggy Bank for Venture Capitalists.
Khosla is a partner in Kleiner Perkins. He and his cohorts (John Doerr, Brooks Byers, Reed Hastings, et al) are robbing the taxpayers blind with all their feel-good initiatives. So much for venture capitalim being a risky business--they seem to have found a "sure thing" in California. Hopefully, all the voters will see through it and vote no. They'll probably just find a front man for their next "ventures."
Agreed......as long as they make subsidized profits then they could care less....
Threads that really contribute, and this is one of them, are often little read and spark little discussion.
Too bad.
Yep. I noticed. Too bad, indeed.
It is my ernest belief that IN OUR LIFETIMES this process will be so abused in an effort to bypass the protections of a super-majority, or preclude the counterbalance of competing, partisan interests that the initiative process will come under close scrutiny.
An early attempt to limit the scope of this mechanism failed. It set the signature requirement so high that qualification was almost impossible. I agree with the rejection of that harsh bridle.
As I have mentioned before, there are other changes that could be implemented, without upsetting the intent or due process of the original concept.
(Go Israel, Go! Slap 'Em Down Hezbullies.)
Threads that really contribute, and this is one of them, are often little read and spark little discussion.
I remember those suggestions--Excellent! I also would like to see a 'truth in advertising' requirement where ballot arguments must not misrepresent facts. There have been some pretty egregious examples.
...let them get their own money without asking the oil companies to invest in THEIR profits.....greedy bastards....aligned with the enviro-weenies....patheticSpeaking of "greedy bastards", though I'm voting no on 87, the oil companies have profited handsomely from the environmental movement...Oil companies profiting from and not fighting the environmental movement may come back to bite them on the ass.
Why would companies earning record profits want to increase the supply with more drilling and or more refineries, lowering the price?
BTW, I was just polled tonight on 87.
Well said.
(And the main liberal in this case--Khosla--even claims to be a Republican)
haha...well all companies are greedy to an extent...but they are beholden to their shareholders as well....and the profit margins for big oil are not as big as many sectors....but the VC's want us to subsidize their profit and they are beholden to no one but themselves....
It's bad enough when the social engineering begins as some politician's bright idea of the "public good".
I guess the downside to Californian's ability to put Propositions directly before the people is that anything that can be "sold" to the public can become law.
Adding up the voters that pay virtually nothing in taxes, plus those other voters that uncritically buy into any environmental argument here in California, there is probably a superbloc of votes readily at hand.
Please Freep Mail me if you'd like on/off
I think that Ca and other states need media watchdogs on state government. As it is, the states are chopped up and the pols operate in the shadows.
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