This post sent a chill of reality down my spine. We are a cleantech startup currently in the process of raising our seed round. This tells me that the window may be closing fast.
<rant/>Let me tell you after years of work to get to a truly fundable opportunity there is nothing more painful than watching it all slip away because the banks don't trust each other's balance sheets. I realize that there are bigger problems in the world right now than ours, just look at Iceland, but still this makes me want to go out and strangle a banker. </rant>
Do you mean to strangle: a speculative investment banker, old time JP Morgan and pals who created the CDS and all that to buy companies cheap later (they've been doing that for over a century, ask Graham Bell), the irresponsible borrowers in US and UK (going bankrupt has a social cost, now a worldwide cost), the war profiteers (you know who), consumerism (non-durable goods are now only pollution), all the excess size strategy (from hummers to expensive corporate software), and finally, with honorable mention, the Sarbanes-Oxley dodging Hedge Funds.
How is it that a country with close to a third of the world GDP could get so bad? How did you let that happen?
Hedge funds aren't in trouble because US regulators couldn't make them buy dumb loan packages and the like. That's why the hedge funds have money to buy the good assets that are now on sale.
However, I don't know why foreign buyers bought those things, so I'll just note that they often tell the US how much smarter they are....
Oh and the more ruthless ones, the ones short selling and even naked short selling on the stock market are only postponing the inevitable. Gordon Gekko would be proud.
Completely untrue when you look at technologies that can SAVE someone money. It makes sense given increase demand for fossil fuels, to provide a cheaper alternative.
To be fair, I think you're referring to companies that are luxury goods, e.g. carbon offsets, and those could be argued are luxury goods (or rather goods for someone's conscience).
Not all of it. Heating and gasoline prices are expensive. Energy in general is expensive. If it's possible to create a system cheaper than burning stuff we're in good shape.
<rant/>Let me tell you after years of work to get to a truly fundable opportunity there is nothing more painful than watching it all slip away because the banks don't trust each other's balance sheets. I realize that there are bigger problems in the world right now than ours, just look at Iceland, but still this makes me want to go out and strangle a banker. </rant>