by Rich Sabatini

Created on: May 09, 2009   Last Updated: May 22, 2009

America, land of the green?

Recall those glory days of Barack Obama and his highlights from last year's presidential campaign: (Quote) "We will create 5 million new green collar jobs in America... jobs that cannot be outsourced."

This was ALWAYS Mr. Obama's big applause line... 5 MILLION new jobs!

But as of now, how are we doing on all those new "green collar" jobs? Did we hit 5 million yet? Was Mr. Obama promising a boom in the renewable energy sector, or was he actually signaling a recovery in the shirt-manufacturing business?

Evidently, this has yet to be determined.

On the campaign trail, Mr. Obama argued that spending $150 billion over the next decade to boost energy efficiency would create those five million jobs; but so far, we seem to be coming up about 4,950,000 short.

But we're on our way.

True, Mr. Obama's green-jobs argument rests on what sounds like a rather solid hypothesis: big capital investments in renewable-energy technology today will be more than offset by savings in RISING fossil-fuel costs, thus creating the economic boom to pull the U.S. out of recession.

But all that changed last winter, when oil prices dropped precipitously and a mega-whopper natural gas discovery in Texas caused energy prices to drop from last summer's record highs.

So now, venture capitalists on both the West Coast and Wall Street are backing off on funding, leaving wind turbine and solar entrepreneurs wondering if the next few years will feel less like a boom and more like the dreadful days following the dot-com bust.

During the first quarter of 2009, venture cap investment in green technologies literally shriveled up- only $154 million-a drop of 84 percent from the last quarter of 2008, when, despite the crumbling economy, investments hit nearly $1 billion

Cancel those green-collared shirts...has the 'green bubble' burst?

Obama's "hype cycle" that a green-tech investment could do no wrong- sparked a lemming mentality: the promise of big returns prompted a boom in me-too investing, when venture capitalists funded start-ups that all do the same basic work.

So many businesses are now geared up to make solar panels and windmills, that they all forgot one little thing- the basic law of supply and demand- creating a huge supply without concomitant demand equals glut... the economic bust cycle.

Now, not only is the availability of "green" private venture capital running dry, the other side of the coin is the availability of human capital. THIS could be

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