The real issue with Solyndra Debacle
For the record, I don’t favor having the Government at any level act as a VC for technology companies. If for one reason or another we have a strategic interest in having something happen – like decreasing our reliance on fossil fuels while increasing our usage of renewable energy – then I’d rather the Government take some specific steps around reducing demand through taxes on the undesirable and reduced taxes or mandates on usage to promote the desirable – with every intervention specifically time-bombed and diminished over time.
So I also look askance on Obama’s loan guarantees to Solyndra (and the socializing the failure thereof).
However, the real issue here is that the Chinese massively subsidize their solar industry and are dumping their panels below cost in the U.S. market. How could Solyndra (or other non-Obama VC’d manufacturers) compete? This is yet another industry that the heavy guns of the state-controlled Chinese companies have chosen to wipe out (and are in the process of doing so).
The Reactionaries, of course, who would normally love to take an opportunity to criticize China, seem rather pleased to watch Solyndra fail as it makes their nemesis Obama look bad. Same thinking that makes them delight in the still-crappy economy – they’d rather watch a failed America run by fellow Reactionaries than a successful one run by Liberals – positively Miltonian!
October 7th, 2011 at 5:09 am
i think you miss the point by blaming the chinese. the us dumps corn in mexico while also subsidizing the heck out of it.
the real issue with solyndra was that it was never ever meant to produce anything but profits for the “investors”. not green jobs.
I’m not saying they werent making real solar panels and did not spend billions on a manufacturing and fabrication facilities. they were and they did.
but this thing was a classic control fraud if i ever saw one. they went from a brown field to a fab facility in no time. how the heck is that possible? to meet those rushed time lines and dead lines everything costs more. this is classic contracting fraud.
the wh’s own internal emails confirmed they knew this.
obama’s bundler, the texas oil (how cynical can you get?) magnate keiser, and wall street finance capital, used taxpayer money to pretend to build a solar panel company knowing full well they could not compete with china from the beginning. even solyndra engineers have stated they were close to developing a cheaper and more efficient design, but they werent there yet and keiser foundation and wh had to know this as they were pouring money in.
and even in the event they did, how long before the chinese copied or developed the same design and still under cut solyndra?
this thing looks and walked like a classic control fraud.
this is finance capital vampire zombie criminal capitalism, robberbaronism at it’s rank worst.
October 7th, 2011 at 1:48 pm
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/08/us/politics/e-mail-shows-senior-energy-official-pushed-solyndra-loan.html?_r=1&smid=tw-nytimes&seid=auto