When "Green Energy Stimulus" Runs Dry

[Rockntractor]

Wow, a green company with ties to the President is going bankrupt. Next you will try and tell me the sky is blue. :D

That is bad when you are one of the presidents pet projects and you still can't stay afloat!

[malloc]

It just keeps getting better and better. The DC seems to be breaking this open like they did the Journolist scandal:

A solar energy company that intends to file for bankruptcy received $535 million in backing from the federal government and has a cozy history with Democrats and the Obama administration, campaign finance records show.

Shareholders and executives of Solyndra, a green energy company producing solar panels, fundraised for and donated to the Obama administration to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Tulsa billionaire George Kaiser, a key Obama backer who raised between $50,000 and $100,000 for the president’s election campaign, is one of Solyndra’s primary investors. Kaiser himself donated $53,500 to Obama’s 2008 election campaign, split between the DSCC and Obama For America. Kaiser also made several visits to the White House and appeared at some White House events next to Obama officials.

Campaign finance records show Kaiser and Solyndra executives and board members donated $87,050 total to Obama’s election campaign.

LINK

Then the House moves in.......

On Thursday the House Energy and Commerce Committee ramped up its ongoing investigation of the federal government’s $535 million loan to Solyndra, a solar energy company that recently announced it will file for bankruptcy.

In a letter to the White House, committee Chairman Fred Upton and Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Chairman Cliff Stearns requested a scheduled briefing on the matter by no later than September 12 and asked for all documents related to the loan guarantee between Solyndra and the White House.

In 2009, Solyndra was the recipient of a half-billion-dollar loan through the Department of Energy, funded by stimulus monies. The company was touted as a model of President Obama’s green energy initiative. But despite heavy backing by the federal government, the company struggled to meet expectations, falling fall short of the 4,000 or so jobs it was projected to create.

In November of 2010, the company announced it was postponing a planned expansion and laying off several hundred employees. In February of this year, the Department of Energy was forced to restructure the terms of its loan with Solyndra. Two days ago it announced it was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and was laying off some 1,100 workers.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee has been investigating the details of the loan since February. It has subpoenaed the Office of Management and Budget for documents, and the committee says it has found evidence of White House involvement in Solyndra’s loan application.

“We have learned from our investigation that White House officials monitored Solyndra’s application, and communicated with DOE and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) officials during the course of their review in 2009 and when those officials were restructuring the Solyndra deal this year,” Upton and Stearns wrote. “Documents received by the Committee also show that DOE and OMB officials were aware of the White House’s interest in the Solyndra loan guarantee. In addition, we are also aware that a major investor in Solyndra, George Kaiser, was a bundler for President Obama’s 2008 campaign.”

Rest of Story

Yup. Obama's been playing favorites, picking winners and losers based on campaign ante, basic Chicago thug politics in action. The blogs are going to pick this up where the main stream media is silent as a church mouse about it.

[RobJohnson]

That is bad when you are one of the presidents pet projects and you still can't stay afloat!

:D

[Zathras]

Fremont solar tech firm Solyndra to shut down, lay off hundreds of workers

Solyndra, a Fremont-based solar panel manufacturer that flared then sputtered, abruptly ceased operations on Wednesday and immediately laid off all 1,100 of its workers.

The shutdown marks a high-profile collapse of a company that received more than $1.6 billion in federal and private funding in recent years.

"This was an unexpected outcome and is most unfortunate," Brian Harrison, Solyndra's president and chief executive, said.

The company received $535 million in taxpayer money from the U.S. Department of Energy and $1.1 billion in private venture capital funding.

"We have always recognized that not every one of the innovative companies

supported by our loans and loan guarantees would succeed," said Dan Leistikow, a spokesman for the Department of Energy. "But we can't stop investing in game-changing technologies that are key to America's leadership in the global economy."

Solyndra workers who were laid off on Wednesday were dismissed without layoff packages.

"They are getting no severance," said Dave Miller, a Solyndra spokesman. "They are getting nothing."

LINK

So, if the 0bumbler comes to your company praising what you're doing, make sure you have enough money to get by and get your resume ready to go.

[malloc]

That is bad when you are one of the presidents pet projects and you still can't stay afloat!

This is nearly a perfect example of government intervention creating a market distortion on the supply side. They should include this anecdote in Econ 101 textbooks. In this case it was Zero, but it could have been any congressman with a pet project.

• Obama has a pet project.
  
  • The project is always ideologically motivated, and not based in a real economy.
  • Market conditions (i.e. reality) need not discourage ideology.
  • The sustainability, demand, or cost of the project isn't even considered.
• Obama secures funding for his pet debacle.
  
  • In each case the funding is ultimately a gamble of taxpayer funds.
  • Again ideology trumps common sense.
    
    • "This is for the green economy! There's no way they could fail! They'll payback that taxpayer guaranteed loan for sure!" --Obama's train of thought.
    • "Besides, I get a campaign kickback for shoving my ideology wherever I can!" --Obama's next thought.
  • The company is careless with the money because they know that the loan was "guaranteed" by President Downgrade & Co.
    
    • Say hello to my good friend moral hazard!
• The influx of government cash makes the startup look like a good ground floor opportunity for investors, because an influx of capital looks like a shift in demand.
  
  • Since the influx was ideologically instead of market driven, the demand feedback was fake.
  • Say hello to malinvestment. This capital could have done more good for more people elsewhere.
• Reality hits home.
  
  • No one wants to buy these things because other forms of energy are cheaper and more reliable. This is not a better moustrap, it's an ideologically pushed gizmo.
  • Supply is way up, because Obama has been pushing others towards the same goal with the same moral hazards and the same malinvestment.
  • The company can't sell these things for what it costs to manufacture them.
• The "little people" get the shaft.
  
  • The employees get no severance. The company didn't have to set aside and prepare for that because Obama will just extend the unemployment bennies to take of the employees. More moral hazard.
  • The investors get the shaft, but they were "wall street fat cats", so who cares if there money would have been better invested in researching lower power consumption microprocessors or whatever, right?
  • Those who had first crack at the $500M are sitting pretty good while the employees shuffle off to the unemployment line.
    
    • Eco-moonbats and bleeding heart liberals just gave the shaft to the people they swear up and down they are fighting for.

Listen up libtards, above is exactly how Democrats govern, and why the middle class suffers under democrat rule.

[Starbuck]

This is the 3rd or 4th one of these greenie projects to bite the dust.

It's even worse than that. I'll do some research and see if I can find the particulars, but there was a case where two greenie companies went under, and they turned out to be owned by the same guy.

They never did have any customers! They were established simply to provide a method for the owner to collect big bucks from the government.

The companies went belly up. Not so, the owner, who collected his mega-salary until the company ran out of cash.:mad: