This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, September 15th, 2011. I'm Caleb Brown.

It's not easy to feel sorry for a business that fails because the government subsidies ran out

because of a change in political wins, but it is worth some

consideration to investors.

Jim Harper, Director of Information Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, says that

investors in so-called green tech and other subsidized industries should be wary about

plunking down their investment dollars without considering subsidy risk.

Investments hinge on different things, like whether or not something is a good investment hinges on lots of things.

Tax code is one of them.

You know, certain realities of the marketplace are one.

And in the case of a lot of energy, subsidies matter a great deal.

Absolutely.

When business people are contemplating what they're going to do, how they're going to move forward.

One way of characterizing what they do

is they balance various risks.

Will the product meet consumer demand?

Are the inputs to the product available

and is there a reliable supply. It's all about

minimizing risk to maximize profit. A few years ago I went to a venture capital

conference in California where the vogue, the focus of discussion was on Green Tech.

And I was struck at the time that people that venture capital firms that were going

into Green Tech were black. people that, venture capital firms that were going into green tech, were blithe in their consideration

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