Yeah, wasting tax payer money can be risky. Very risky. Hey #attackwatch do I have your attention yet?
Here's the great Mark Levin and his groudbreaking interview with a Solyndra employee (former) and listen to what she says: "We all knew that the company wouldn't work. But they did it anyway."
Donald Bourdeaux over at Cafe Hayek has a great letter to the editor about Solyndra and he makes a great point about comparative advantage in economics. If we don't make solar panels, that doesn't necessarily mean that we are at a disadvantage...
Economies grow (or stagnate) depending on how little (or how much) their governments interfere with producers’ abilities to specialize in those activities for which each has a comparative advantage. Anyone who understands the principle of comparative advantage knows that a country that “wins” an advantage in one industry necessarily “loses” an advantage in other industries. To understand comparative advantage, therefore, is to understand that economies (unlike firms in the same industry) don’t compete with one another. To understand comparative advantage is also to understand that, with free trade, a comparative disadvantage at producing, say, solar panels is in no way a disadvantage at consuming solar panels. Quite the opposite.
Awesome. you learn something new everyday.
Comparative advantage as you have described it is if all things (resources) remain equal. A country will not "necessarily" lose it's advantage in other industries but to maintain them if it must affect the production curve of the subsequent falling industries by doing things like adding to the skill or number work force, reduce the cost of labor, imports skills and products, developing more efficient technology etc....
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