Solyndra's High-tech Plant To Be Sold 233
Velcroman1 writes, quoting Fox News: "For sale: manufacturing and office facility with 411,618 square feet, state of the art electrical, air, and power distribution systems — and a troubled past. As part of its bankruptcy proceedings, Solyndra is reportedly very close to landing a buyer for its mammoth, high-tech production plant in Fremont, Calif. The listing agent recently gave Fox News a tour of what the new owners will get for their multi-million dollar investment. Now the once-bustling offices, conference rooms, and cubicles are eerily quiet as the facility is 'decommissioned,' according to Greg Matter with Jones Lang LaSalle realty. One wonders about the conversations held, and emails written, in the corner office formerly occupied by CEO Brian Harrison."
Re:Fun fun fun (Score:2, Interesting)
The right wingers are gonna be all over this one. After all any time anything Obama fails at is good for America. It must be nice that we have someone who's fault everything is.
Yes! When you have bad ideas and you fail at trying to implement them, that is a good thing. Why is that so hard for people to understand? When Obama succeeds with his policies, America loses. That is what the saying means.
And to be fair, it's not all Obama's fault. I'd say that very little of it is Obama's fault. Americans don't realize how little power the President actually has. The lion's share of the fault belongs to Congress. It was that way when Bush was president. It's that way now. The difference is that when Bush a Republican Congress, things went very well. When Clinton had a Republican Congress, things went very well. When D's took control of Congress in Jan, 2007, unemployment was at 4.7% and the deficit was about $250 billion. Two years after D control of both houses, the unemployment rate was 7.6% and climbing and the deficit was about $1600 billion. The only blame Bush and Obama deserve is for not vetoing every piece of shit bill that passed their desks. Although, Obama does share much of the philosophy with the Democratic Congress.
Fact is, it doesn't matter who wins the White House this November. What matters is which party gets Congress. God help us if it's a mixed result because then both houses will have to bribe eachother with our money to get anything passed!
Tempest in a teapot (Score:5, Interesting)
The whole program that Solyndra got the loan guarantee from was over $16 billion. The Solyndra default is 3.3% of that. The program had a budgeted default rate of over 12%. [bloomberg.com] So far there have been 2 defaults, Solyndra and Beacon Power that amounts to a total default rate is only 3.6%. 90% of the loan guarantees went to wind and solar projects that have contracts with utilities and are unlikely to default.
It's just a made up controversy being used to make political hay.
Failures labelled as "Success!" (Score:4, Interesting)
A lot of those failures have been projects that were labelled as "Success!", because they worked out well for the people receiving the money, regardless of whether they did any good for the taxpayers. It's not just the bombs that didn't explode or the ships that sank or airplanes that couldn't fly, it's also the bombs that successfully blew up targets they shouldn't have been dropped on, battleships we didn't need, and airplanes designed to fight the Cold War.
This project really annoys me, though. My commute takes me right by the plant, usually at slow speeds waiting for the freeway exit, so I've been able to watch the construction from the beginning. At first there was no obvious work, just picketers complaining about non-union labor, then construction starting, then the building frame going up and the skin going on, and presumably work happening inside as well. And then instead of opening it's closed. I hope the potential buyers actually go through with it and do something useful with the factory.
Re:Sounds like a non-US buyer that hates publicity (Score:4, Interesting)
A Chinese firm bought up an old car plant in the UK a few years back. Rather than taking over the site they just packed up all the equipment and assembly lines and moved them to China.