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Oh, I know this story. The founder/CEO from Kentucky got a business degree, moved to D.C. to work as a contractor on renewable energy projects and then in 2018
by cratermoon 3y ago
Oh, I know this story.
The founder/CEO from Kentucky got a business degree, moved to D.C. to work as a contractor on renewable energy projects and then in 2018 Congress passed a farm bill, to distribute over $40 million in grants to controlled environment agriculture. AppHarvest was founded in 2018. One of the lead investors? The USDA.
Just grifting taxpayers through the public/private revolving door, happens all the time. Maybe this story is especially interesting because it involves a startup and agriculture. If it were some military or management industry grift, it'd be just another Thursday.
ETA: I'd love to see a journalist look into any interests Kentucky elected officials had in any of the investors. Did anyone in Kentucky politics, either state or federal, make money off this?
- dmvdoug 3y agoMakes it hard to have any hope for the future of our politics, because this is the case at all levels these days. Everything political is just someone’s money-making scheme at the public’s expense. But hey, “greed is good,” right?
- cratermoon 3y agoBack in the 80s it was popular to privatize all kinds of government functions, on the basis of the claim that the free market would provide better solutions. Somehow the scope of the transfer of money from taxpayers to private industry was not seen as distorting the market. At least, not as much a distortion as having the services be provided directly by the government.