Following on the mentions of John Podesta and the two huge honeypots of money in yesterdays "E.P.A. Is Said to Propose Rules Meant to Drive Up Electric Car Sales Tenfold" here are some of the; I was going to say flies but the graphic looks like locusts, the critters being attracted to the feast.
From The Economist:
DAVID, WHO runs a well-trafficked shoe-shine stand at a huge convention centre just outside Washington, was in a good mood as he surveyed the delegates at a recent event there. They were attending the ARPA-E summit, an annual pow-wow put on by the Department of Energy (DoE), and were tipping well. A few weeks earlier, when Donald Trump spoke at that same venue at a gathering of conservative Republicans, David was forced to shut down his stand and lost business. It is not his only grumble about Mr Trump: “When he ran for office he promised to drain the swamp, but he turned out to be the biggest crocodile of them all.”
David is right. During Mr Trump’s presidency, lobbyists for every corporate interest went into high gear to try to influence the unorthodox administration of Beltway outsiders. Lots of unfamiliar swamp creatures turned up, too, when they realised that having the ear of the last person to speak to Mr Trump before he made a big decision was lobbying gold. They have since slithered away. But, with up to $800bn in clean-energy handouts now up for grabs over the coming decade, another invasive species is taking their place.The energy industry as a whole spent nearly $300m last year on lobbying, the most since 2013 (see chart 1). Big oil and electric utilities, which had been reducing their spending on influence-seeking before 2020, have ramped it up again; spending is growing in line with that of the biggest lobbyists, big pharma. Renewables firms went from spending an annual average of around $24m between 2013 and 2020, to $38m in 2021 and $47m in 2022. “We’ve now got an interesting new ecosystem of swamp creatures here,” says the government-relations man at one of the world’s biggest renewable-energy companies.The reason is the passage last year of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The misnamed law funnels at least $369bn in direct subsidies and tax credits to decarbonisation-related sectors (see chart 2). It came on the heels of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which also shovels billions in subsidies towards clean infrastructure. Some of the laws offer generous tax credits, with no caps on the amount of spending eligible for the incentives. A mad investment rush, should it materialise, could therefore lead to public expenditure of $800bn over the next decade. An official at a big utility says her firm has projects in the works across America that, if successful, will secure a staggering $2bn in funding from the two laws. The renewables firm’s government-relations man confesses, “We stopped counting...we just have a big smile on our faces all the time these days.” “There is a lot there for a lot of people,” sums up a business-chamber grandee. And, he adds, “A lot of lobbyists are interested in the spending.”The green influence brokers can be spotted in all the usual places, starting with Capitol Hill. A long-time lobbyist-watcher reckons that the IRA “is the most targeted bill of the last 20 years”. More than 2,000 groups had officially declared their interest in the congressional sausage-making that produced the gargantuan law last year. The IRA and the infrastructure law are now on the statute books, of course. But buttering up congressmen and senators may still be worth the effort. “The administration still has to present budgets and members of Congress still have their say,” explains one senior DoE official turned adviser. And, adds a lobbyist for a rising “climate-tech” investment firm, “A member of Congress can always ask a question in a hearing or send a letter of complaint to the White House."....
There is so much money being transformed from worthless treasury debt and tax receipts into valuable commissions, fee income, retainers and profits by and for the courtiers, hangers-on and purveyors in proximity to the Imperial Capital that it is no wonder that real estate is a topic of endless discussion.
Highest income counties in the United States (2019, I haven't bothered to look since):
1. Loudoun County, Virginia — $140,382
2. Falls Church City, Virginia — $137,551 (independent city without a county)
7. Fairfax County, Virginia — $122,035
8. Arlington County, Virginia — $120,950
11. Howard County, Maryland — $116,719
17. Stafford County, Virginia — $108,421
18. Montgomery County, Maryland — $107,758
19. Calverty County, Virginia — $106,270
20. Prince William County, Virginia — $106,200
Nine of the top twenty highest income counties in the country surround D.C.
UPDATE: here are the 2020 census results via Wikipedia, not a lot seems to have changed in the rankings.
