Solyndra was the first green company to get a loan guarantee from Obama’s near-trillion-dollar stimulus.
It received $528 million of your tax dollars.
It was supposed to be the poster child of the stimulus, of Obama’s ability to create jobs.
The company is now bankrupt… more than 1,100 jobs lost.
The Scandal
Even as half a billion of your hard-earned dollars were being donated to this company, your president knew it would fail.
In January of this year, the Office of Budget and Management told the White House: “The optics of a Solyndra default will be bad… The timing will likely coincide with the 2012 campaign season heating up.”
But the White House knew long before January that this solar pet project would fail…
Biden made a live announcement about the loan in September 2009. Obama personally visited the plant to tout its success in May 2010.
Before any of that, accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers warned that Solyndra had financial troubles severe enough to “raise substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a growing concern.”
A 2009 report by the Department of Energy’s inspector general warned the DoE “lacked the necessary quality control for the loan guarantee program.”
The Government Accountability Office said the DoE “had bypassed required steps for funding awards” related to the loan.
White House official Greg Nelson, who planned Obama’s visit to the company, dismissed the criticism as “B.S.”.
And Solyndra itself emailed the White House to say “things are going well” and that it had “good market momentum, the factory is ramping up and our plan puts at cash positive later this year. Hopefully, we’ll have a great story to tell toward the end of the year.”
(And what a great story it turned out to be!)
The White House replied: “Fantastic to hear that business is doing well — keep up the good work! We’re cheering for you.”
And yet the Obama administration maintains it did not influence the Solyndra loan, and that it was made on a “merit-based process.”
The Lesson
The lesson here is that government is corrupt.
And not white-lie corrupt; systematic-presentation-of-misleading-information-to-the-public-and-engineering-of-stories-to-benefit-their-inner-circle corrupt.
Both sides corrupt.
This loan was started by Bush, which I haven’t told you yet and which hardly anyone knows.
Lookout for yourself. No one else is. It’s not right versus left. It’s wolves versus sheep.
Billionaire George Kaiser, among the top 100 richest people in the world, owned 36.7% of Solyndra through his Family Foundation.
The Opportunity
These guys — call them the “ruling elite” — will try to enrich themselves at all costs.
They can pick and choose technology winners by issuing half-a-billion-dollar loans with your tax dollars. Don’t think for a second they can’t choose losers just the same.
It spans industries — from automotive to oil to banking to construction.
But in this age of information, it’s getting harder and harder to hide. The foundation of their house of cards is easier to topple.
Whether it’s GE’s tax record (or lack thereof)… the paper trail connecting the bailout of failed banks that issued shoddy loans to Wall Street insiders with connections to both sides of the aisle… or the constant pocket-lining by energy companies of all stripes to get policy and awards in their favor…
The ruse is almost over. The veil is thinning.
And technologies that should win — without interference from corruption and bribery and lies — are starting to win.
One of those is actually a solar company that needs no government assistance. It has a solar spray that could eliminate electric bills entirely.
As the walls of deceit crumble, new winners will rise. Companies like this will be one of them.
We’ll continue to bring you ideas on how to profit from the new energy reality each and every day.
Call it like you see it,
Nick Hodge
Editor, Energy and Capital
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