On September 5th we reported that Silicon Valley, the major green booster, had retrenched by pulling out of long-term investments in alternative energy. Today, the other shoe dropped. The Cleantech Group in San Francisco reported that venture-capital investment in clean technology fell 35% in Q4 from the prior quarter, the steepest quarterly drop in two years.

As President-elect Obama toots his green-energy horn, the smart money in Silicon Valley is reversing its position on the moneymaking potential of wind, solar and geothermal power sources.

After working in Silicon Valley for 15 years, I developed this theory called “The Myth of Empowerment.” While the Myth of Empowerment wasn’t intended to act as a qualitative indicator for stock picking, it turns out that it could easily be applied to the decline of Yahoo (Nasdaq:YHOO) – with the fallout inflicting damage on Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT).

There’s a small revolution going on…You see it on TV when the commercials come on. You see it on the front page of your local newspaper. You see it everywhere. New corporations are being formed because of this revolution. And money is flooding into this sector undeterred.

As if there weren’t enough issues plaguing the world’s oil supply, hurricanes are now back on the list.