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."
Sounds like a non-US buyer that hates publicity. (Score:3)
About the only entity that would want the place and equipment would be a PRC-controlled entity.
While the bailout was bad, and I disagree with their funding, anything going out of the country would be worse.
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.
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While the bailout was bad, anything going out of the country would be worse.
Perhaps you could elaborate? Why would we want to retain unprofitable business (nevermind that solyndra was undercut by massive government subsidies in china)?
The fact that something isn't profitable generally means that it won't produce... stuff. So why would we want to keep it around? What long term benefit would be gained, by competing in a market that has investors and developed products?
FAILURE (Score:4, Insightful)
"One wonders about the conversations held, and emails written, in the corner office formerly occupied by CEO Brian Harrison."
i'll give you the short version: "How can we milk the government for more money?!?"
What a failure, so many better things that we could have done with that money.
Writing home for cash....ahh, that takes me back.. (Score:2)
Dear Mr. "O"....err, Mom and Dad,
Things are going great. Need money for food and rent...please send some soon,
Love Solyndra
CORRUPTION !! (Score:4, Informative)
What a failure, so many better things that we could have done with that money
Truth to be told - this is not the only failure that the American government has funded
Trillions and trillions of American Tax Dollars had been wasted in pet projects favored by politicians
Those precious tax dollars gone to cronies of those politicians
In other words, it's CORRUPTION in practice, but unfortunately, according to the American laws, it's not counted as "corruption"
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.
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What a failure, so many better things that we could have done with that money
Truth to be told - this is not the only failure that the American government has funded
... yeah, I'm thinking your education could have used a little more money invested in it - especially considering the blatantly incorrect views you hold.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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So I'm sorry but replacing a shitty president with an R after his name with a shitty president with a D after his name still leaves you with the shitty president part.
Well, yeah. That's kind of a no-brainer. Fortunately, that's not what happened.
Re:CORRUPTION !! (Score:4, Insightful)
This is why I am for reducing the funding of the federal government by about 75% and giving power back to the states. Washington is a fucking disaster, and that's both sides of the party lines. Let the states handle just about every issue except for national security and upholding the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
but... (Score:2)
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indentured_servant#Legal_status [wikipedia.org]
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Contrary to what Mitt Romney thinks, corporations are not people. The whole point of a corporation is to shield the owners (People) from losing everything they own if the company fails. There are benefits to this like not losing your house if your business goes under and negatives, like double taxation (The company pays taxes and then the owners pay taxes on their cut).
The corporation should get investors to help get the company off the ground, but they don't have any liability in doing so. The Corporation
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Good god, do you get your news from SNL? His point was that Corporations are made up of people. Lots of people. People who pay taxes, send their kids to school, invest in their company, invest in others. His point was that Corporations are not faceless entities (which are easier to demonize-- you know, the big boogie man who'll get you if you don't vote for me?).
Re:but... (Score:4, Funny)
Good god, do you get your news from SNL? His point was that Corporations are made up of people. Lots of people.
So, you are saying that what Romeny really meant was that Corporations are Soylent Green?
Re:but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's look at his response to that. Try the 3rd paragraph...
MITT ROMNEY: Hold on. It’s my turn. You’ve had your turn. Now it’s my turn, all right? First of all, you’re right it goes to dividends, all right, which is to the owners. But they’re not the 1 percent. All right? They’re not only the 1 percent. I’m sure, among the dividends, go to the 1 percent, but also go to the people who have pensions. All right? There’s a guy. You don’t—are you in the 1 percent? No. He’s got dividends and retirement plans, 401(k)s. They’re filled of the dividends that come out from corporations. That’s number one.
Number two, you are right, they can go into retained earnings, which then can be used for capital expenditures or growing the business or hiring people or working capital. When a business has profit, it can do good things: give it to the shareholders and grow the enterprise. And by the way, the only way it can hire people is if it grows the enterprise.
Now, corporations, they’re made up of people, and then, of course, the buildings that people work in. The buildings don’t pay taxes. The only people that—the only entities that pay taxes are people. And so, corporations are collections of people that are trying to have good jobs for themselves and promote the future. And so, corporations are made up of people, and the money goes to people, either to hire people or to pay shareholders. And so, they’re made up of people. So, somehow thinking that there’s something else out there that we could just grab money from and get taxes from, and everything could be better, that doesn’t involve people, well, they’re still people. And what I want to do is make America a place where those corporations that have that money decide to invest here.
I was with a company—with a guy who runs a big chemical company. He said, "We just announced a $20 billion factory in Saudi Arabia." I said, "Why?" He said, "We wanted to build it in Pennsylvania, but the regulators in this country are not willing to act to allow us to get hold of the natural gas, so we’re going to have to go somewhere else." Tens of thousands of jobs lost, not by the corporations, but by government not doing its job. I want this to be the place where corporations—people—from all over the world want to invest here, grow here, start their businesses.
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Re:but... (Score:5, Insightful)
You may not be aware of this but many people who have retirement plans are in fact part owners of corporations. If you have any money invested in a 401K there is a chance you own stock in big oil or other evil corporations. It happens. My retirement money is tied up in several stock funds and over the last 3 decades has grown to be a nice little chunk of change thanks to some rather smart people who invest those funds. I am not rich by any means but thanks to those corporations I may actually get to live out my later years without lining up at the soup kitchen....maybe. Then again looking at the national debt....maybe not.
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Yup, I did some digging in my 401K ETF holdings and discovered that I owned a little bit of Halliburton [yahoo.com]. Whoops! I did not unwind the ETF position but I was able to redirect new investments to other funds with similar "risk profiles" but with holdings that I was more interested in promoting. Big oil, OTOH, is probably a bit more difficult to avoid. A quick check shows that Exxon a [yahoo.com]
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Helping to fund basic research for new things, is one matter.....paying to prop up failing private businesses is quite another.
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Paying to prop up one of your major campaign donors is yet another thing.
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Doesn't that basically summarize the entire point of campaign spending in the US? Don't get me wrong, I don't live there, but that seems like what they've been doing for years.
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There's a broad spectrum between research and industrialization. Even figuring out how to build something in mass quantity can be highly experimental.
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but on the scale of government spending one few hundred million dollar boondoggle is nothing new or particularly scandalous.
It may not be new but it is scandalous. Government waste should not be acceptable.
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To quote myself
"That assumes of course that there's a reasonable possibility of payoff and so on, and solyndra particularly might have been a clusterfuck but on the scale of government spending one few hundred million dollar boondoggle is nothing new or particularly scandalous."
Though I appreciate you reading the entirety of my post before proclaiming yourself clairvoyant. I'm sure there are a lot of people who envisioned the clusterfuck that was the Iraq war was going to be a disaster, and there were many
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How often do banks determine that a particular loan would be a bad idea, yet go through with it anyway? That's what happened here. The OMB -- the beancounters in charge of vetting these loans --did not want to loan the money to Solyndra because they knew Solyndra was a poor risk. That is the system that was set up under Bush t
Re:but... (Score:5, Informative)
Without bankruptcy society would have no way of cutting losses and moving forward. Much more resources and labor would go into paying off debts that have no hope of ever getting repaid. There would be much less incentives to take risks on new ideas and innovations, and less money to do it with as the majority of money earned would be used for servicing debt. When someone or some entity is so in debt that they'll never be able to repay it all, the best thing for society as a whole is to wipe the slate clean and then not loan any more money to that entity for a time.
It seems we only apply the last part to natural persons of the working and middle classes.
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Without bankruptcy society would have no way of cutting losses and moving forward.
It's the other way around.
Originally "entrepreneurs" were a risk sink of the society -- if they fail, they become poor, but no one else is affected, so even if very few of them succeed, there will be enormous empires built with economy of scale, unimpeded by failures of others.
With bankruptcy, risk is distributed -- personally "entrepreneur" either wins or breaks even, but banks and occasionally government take losses. This, in its turn raises interest rates and devalues currency, thus losses are distribute
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Apart from their creditors, you mean?
Not if he's invested some of his own money.
By what mechanism?
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Apart from their creditors, you mean?
Their creditors are banks -- if more loans default, they jack up interest rates so other people will pay for it.
Not if he's invested some of his own money.
And when does this happen at any significant scale?
By what mechanism?
See above. Failures now mean higher interest rates later (unless they are already calculated into risks so it means higher interest rates now).
Banruptcies usually have multiple creditors (Score:2)
Bankruptcy isn't just about "moving on" and "getting closure", though accountants do like to acknowledge such things as much as divorced New Agers do. A more significant concern is that when a person or business goes bankrupt, they've usually got some assets left, and multiple creditors that they owe money to, and bankruptcy law is fundamentally about allocating the assets fairly among the creditors. There's also some social policy (because we don't want people starving on the streets), and some incentive
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Unless the debtor is willing to forgive the debt bankruptcy sounds more like theft than anything else.
I guess he found some loophole in the law.
In my country there is no bankruptcy for humans (though such a law is proposed and may pass), only for companies and it means that the company gets shut down, employees laid off and all property is sold at auctions, the money is paid in the order of priority (IIRC unpaid salaries are first, then unpaid taxes then other debts) and not everyone may be able to get the entire amount of money (since there may not be enough money left to pay all debts in full).
So, the ban
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Out of curiosity, what is done in your country if a person owes more money than they can ever hope to repay?
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IIRC most of the property is taken away and sold (there are exceptions, for example, some money is left (equal to the minimal monthly salary) and the rest of the debt stays forever, trickling away money the person earns.
Though it is not very common for people to get into such large debts here - for one, banks do not lend money easily.
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The use is technically correct, if obscure.
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The use is technically correct
is a meaningless junk phrase in linguistics. If speakers of the language do not understand it, it is not correct. The only question then is whether they are writing in the same language (answer left as an exercise to the reader).
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(answer left as an exercise to the reader)
I don't understand, am I supposed to do jumping jacks or something to unlock the answer? Is it like an achievement?
Maybe you're just speaking a different language.
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I differ on this. The fact that so many are uneducated and ignorant does not invalidate the use of the term. His usage was correct even if their understanding was deficient. I know there are often words that I do not understand but instead of complaining I take the time to learn and broaden my knowledge.
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I differ on this. The fact that so many are uneducated and ignorant does not invalidate the use of the term.
Of course not, but it does place it in a different register or dialect (depending on the remoteness from the reader's idiolect). The phrase "technically correct" is meaningless in linguistics. A phrase is either understood or not. If it is not, then it is either incorrect in the speaker & listener's shared dialect (I are fast) or it is not part of their shared dialect (Marunong ka bang mag-Tagalog?). There is no such thing as "technically correct" because languages are not constructed in anything re
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There is no such thing as "technically correct" because languages are not constructed in anything resembling a technical fashion.
I felt a great disturbance in the Grammar, as if millions of teachers suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.
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I for one have never had a dictionary that forbade anything. [google.com]
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I'm sure you say the same thing to your compiler if it throws up because you forgot a semi-colon somewhere. Education, and that includes knowing grammar, is a requirement for being able to communicate efficiently and effectively. Making up your own shit might make you cool in your own head, but makes you a communication failure in the real world.
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As a native speaker of English, if I and the dictionary disagree, the dictionary is wrong.
Are you inferring that you know better than the writers? Their native speakers to. Are you sure your right irregardless of what is in the dictionary?
People forget that dictionaries are descriptive, not proscriptive.
They *describe* what is generally accepted as correct usage. If you deviate from what is generally accepted correct usage, then you are not de-facto correct just because you're a native speaker. That, and y
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I'm totally on board. As a native speaker of English, if I and the dictionary disagree, the dictionary is wrong. People forget that dictionaries are descriptive, not proscriptive.
You are correct, sir. And by sir, I mean "Complete idiot". See, the dictionary and I disagreed, and since my view of the english language is more correct than the millions of people upon whom the descriptive dictionary is based ... you're now a complete poopy-head. And by poopy-head, I mean "Incompetent Asshat".
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Their native speakers to.
The writers own native speakers who are coming to the rescue? You can't just cut short a sentence like that! The suspense is killing me!
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Ah, but proper, intelligent communication, both written and spoken, are.
No they're not. That is the delusion of conceited assholes who like to pretend they're better than other people.
Did your calendar list "idiolect" as your word for the day and made it so that you had to find any way at all to inject it into a conversation?
The term idiolect is a well-known [wikipedia.org], well established [google.com]
term used in linguistics when discussing exactly this issue.
To quote one of my parent posters
The fact that so many are uneducated and ignorant does not invalidate the use of the term.
The irony of your effort to cast my using a technical term with a technical, specific, and appropriate meaning as somehow not being useful in a post claiming that artificial, technical, specific language is superior to natural language is not lost on me
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The use is technically correct
is a meaningless junk phrase in linguistics. If speakers of the language do not understand it, it is not correct.
Yo DAWG, I herd you like Words inside your Words, so I made you this: Wro-YOUR-STATEMENT-IS-VERY-INCORRECT-ng.
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That's why they say if you owe the bank $1,000 the bank owns you, but if you owe the bank $1M, you own the bank. ;^)
Of course the corollary to that old saying that somehow you find yourself owing the bank $500M, you own the government and the government owes the bank...
Investing is inherently risky (Score:5, Insightful)
In this case the company got dumped on by the Chinese.
Investment is inherently risky. But we have to invest in our future. Some of those investments will go bust. The ones that don't , like the internet, pay for the ones that do many many many times over.
The only people making a whipping boy of this company are people who 1) reflexively hate anything the President has done or 2) work for oil and gas companies.
Re:Investing is inherently risky (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Investing is inherently risky (Score:4, Insightful)
Ironically, this investment failed largely because China is more effective at subsidizing their industries with public funds than we are. And it looks like their strategy in this case is going to win them the lion's share of the market going forward.
Re:Investing is inherently risky (Score:5, Insightful)
Ironically, this investment failed largely because China has only fictional environmental regulations, an endless supply of powerless disposable workers and no tariffs or duties to pay on US exports (until recently [bbc.co.uk]). And it looks like their strategy in this case is going to win them the lion's share of the market going forward.
FTFY
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I love it, a truly insightful post at last. People act like we can actually compete with a country that doesn't have to deal with the EPA, OSHA and Social Security or the FLRA.
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The whole point is that a country that doesn't have those things will have unhappier populace with a lower standard of living, and therefore less time and inclination to innovate and go the extra mile to make something of their own work.
That's why we can't compete in mindless assembly and raw materials, but we're still doing pretty damn good in everything else.
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I really fail to see how the success of one entity can rationally depend on another entity enjoying the benefits of its effort.....
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You mean like the former administration funnelling millions to corporations like Halliburton? Very few right wing commentators harping on about "government waste" and "risky investment" back then, not that it makes it any better.
Either way, the current administration provided a $500 million loan guarantee that was unfortunately unable to be paid back - still a drop in the bucket compared to the tax breaks given to oil companies, but still not something you really want to lose. The market, flooded with below
Re:Investing is inherently risky (Score:5, Insightful)
You do realize that the GP was bringing up Romney to illustrate why the entire idea is bad to an Obama supporter, right? He wasn't whipping out a red penis to measure against a blue penis like you're doing. If the best defense you've got for Obama is that the previous administration did the same thing... well that's a new low for Obama I guess.
You've completely missed my point.
I'm not opposed to government funding and loan guarantees at all, by either party. (I'm not an American, and both "sides" are a little too right wing for my tastes).
My point is that the Solyndra "debacle" has been seized upon by the right wing media as a way to push their small government agenda, when, of course, it's nothing new at all for the government to be backing business ventures, as witnessed by Halliburton.
You'll note that I didn't do any "dick waving" or criticise the administration for those contracts (I could - they were awarded no-bid under the table, but I'm not against the principle of funding support from government per se), merely that there's a double standard that goes into the discussion about it.
I'm not "defending" Obama for this move - if anything it was lowballed. He should have given them a couple of billion to match the sort of ballpark figures given to the oil industry, so in that sense I'm criticising him for not going far enough. I'm not defending him for doing what the previous administration did because *that's what government should be doing anyway*. In other words, I think it's a good thing. Unfortunate when it doesn't work out, like this case, but that's what happens to risky investments sometimes.
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I'm not "defending" Obama for this move - if anything it was lowballed. He should have given them a couple of billion to match the sort of ballpark figures given to the oil industry,
Comparing one company vs an entire industry is somewhat disingenuous.
And regardless of that, the US is simply broke, and doesn't have the money to be spending on either, or a host of other things.
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The US is not broke. Don't believe that right wing talking point - it has plenty of money, just a political unwillingness to collect it. It's broke if the current economic policies continue, but a repeal of the Bush Tax Cuts here, some slight trimming of defence spending there, a little tweak to social security over there and there's no more deficit.
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There's a difference between the gov't giving money to Haliburton and Solyndra.
In the former, the government was paying them for services rendered. An existing company was contracted to do a job they said they could do and they were paid for their work.
In the latter, the government handed a company money in the hopes they could some day do something with it -- not payment for goods delivered or services rendered, just money and hope that it'd pay off, somehow.
It was a Bush program (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, this was passed by Congress during Bush and signed by Bush. Bush supporters are wrong when they roast Obama over the concept of these green energy loan guarantees under the mantle of "smaller government," because they weren't even his idea. They should look to their own party.
The idea -- wrong or right -- was to help boost this country's position in manufacturing these technologies. By law there was a process established that basically way mirrored the standard due diligence that any smart investor would do. Solyndra's application for funds started under the Bush administration using this process. But the program not being Obama's idea didn't mean he couldn't capitalize on it, making it the centerpiece of "his" green initiative.
But the problems did start with Obama. The government beancounters in charge of vetting applicants, the OMB, basically said that Solyndra was a bad deal as is. When pressed, they asked the administration for more time to do proper due diligence, refusing to sign off on the deal. But because Solyndra was a high-point of Obama's administration, he had approval rushed through over their objections. IMHO, right there some administration officials need to be going to jail.
But that's the innocent part, you could almost forgive them for being too fervent in their push for green energy. The problem is that crony capitalism and conflict of interest also permeate this deal. Billionaire Obama supporter and Solyndra investor George Kaiser helped push through the deal. An Obama official who was trying to push this through, his wife was a lawyer representing Solyndra in the deal. Solyndra execs and investors went to the White House several times before the approval.
For the icing on the cake, early last year Solyndra told the government it was about bankrupt. The OMB basically said good, let them go bankrupt, it would save taxpayer money. But the Obama admin pushed through an unprecedented refinancing and released another 60+ million in financing. Then the Obama-supporting execs took their fat bonuses and let the company go bankrupt.
We can debate subsidies and loan guarantees somewhere else, because when it comes to Solyndra, the only real issue is the corruption of this administration.
The administration was already pushing to up the guarantees to a billion dollars, but the company went bankrupt first. It was a bad deal according to the OMB. Pouring more money on it would have just meant more money for them to burn through. Sadly, Obama still says the Solyndra deal was a "good bet" when his accountants told him it was a financially unsound bet from the beginning.
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You don't think there's a gain for the average American to have wildly successful tech companies with factories on our shores?
Solyndra was a reasonable investment. Had it succeeded, it would have been good for the country. Unfortunately, it failed, and we lost some money. As any successful businessman can tell you, the proper response to a failed investment is not "give up and never invest again".
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Try ABC news, jackass. [go.com]
"Even after Obama took office on Jan. 20, 2009, analysts in the Energy Department and in the Office of Management and Budget were repeatedly questioning the wisdom of the loan. In one exchange, an Energy official wrote of "a major outstanding issue" -- namely, that Solyndra’s numbers showed it
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We both offered reasoned arguments and examples to buttress our diametrically different POV. So far, both our arguments have gotten 5 stars. Let's see if we can pick this apart.
You argument depends on the concept of "other people's money". One set of people pony up the cash, another set merrily invests, yet another profits - the owners- if things go well.
This description is fallacious in this circumstance for a number of reasons, which I'll point out just below, but also, and even more interesting, is
Re:Investing is inherently risky (Score:5, Insightful)
As someone who works near the Solyndra plant (and at a firm that supplied Solyndra with products), and who knows a former employee of Solyndra, I can say there was more of an issue than the Chinese. Yes, the Chinese dumped on the market, and yes, this made it difficult for Solyndra to survive...but, there was a culture of incredible waste at Solyndra. Everything purchased had to be top dollar. As is often the case when a company has too much money, many things were bought that were unnecessary, and problems were usually fixed by throwing more money at it. My friend is an engineer and observed many times designs had to be reworked because of incompetence and lack of attention to detail. But this was accepted, because there was plenty of money. When the money ran out, it was too late to change.
Solyndra probably couldn't have survived, anyway, but they did themselves no favors. And the huge investments made into Solyndra only encouraged them to be wasteful. Sometimes a budget results in a better product.
this makes me itchy (Score:5, Insightful)
When something like this happens, I have to wonder if it isn't a shell game, to wit:
1) Company A builds a big expensive ultra modern plant, using investor and/or tax monies.
2) Company A is run into the ground, files for bankrupcy
3) Assets are sold at fire-sale prices to company B, which is ultimately, through very complicated and difficult-to-trace machinations, owned by the same people who originally owned company A.
4) The owners essentially get to keep what they've managed to squirrel away while the company was crashing, and then buy back their facilities for a song, just coincidentally free from any loan or investor obligations.
5) Profit!
Re:this makes me itchy (Score:4, Informative)
I can find a lot of real life examples of this. However, you have to find places of weak corporate governance and / or government officials you can bribe. I am thinking modem day Russia or America's Gilded Age of stock operators (1870 to 1920).
Today, most bankruptcy sales are either public auction or a court appointed official - the official being selected by the debit holders. The only modern day case in which the politicians interfered with a bankruptcy was G.M. (The banks don't count - that was a bail out.)
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6) Company B, having successfully fleeced the public initially, now set out a way to fleece the public....again/
7) Company B, reusing same political connections under Company A, convince gov't to buy Company B's wares.
8) Profit!
9) Use new monies to get policy makers to write restrictions that put your product/industry in a legalized monopoly.
10) Profit!
11) Become overleveraged and essential that you can then afford to make bad decisions without fear of recourse.
12) Hold industry/public hostage using "If we
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Take the building Enron build around 2000. It costs some 200 million dollars. Some of this was likely government money direct or indirect. Enron was given a monopoly on some energy trading, and back in 2002 Fox reported
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.
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Dude, Pentagon pisses away almost $1.5B a day (Score:4, Insightful)
Dude, Pentagon pisses away $1.5B _a day_ these days. If you're looking to save some of "your" taxpayer dollars, this is where it needs to come from, not from forward looking investments that did not pan out because another country subsidizes their solar panels industry more.
Fremont, CA fail (Score:2)
Fremont CA is home of the failed Solyndra plant, the failed NUMMI auto plant, the failed Sun Microsystems campus, the failed Apple Macintosh factory...
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Solyndra was a failure, no getting around that. Something will have to be done about China, but people should have recognized that and accounted for it.
NUMMI failed? GM imploded so they pulled out. You can hardly blame NUMMI for that. The plant reopened and is making super-expensive Tesla Motors cars. Whether that will win out in the long term is up for debate.
Sun Microsystems was a leader in the field for years for years, and they were eventually bought.
Don't know about the Mac factory, I'll take your word
sad news (Score:2)
This failure, it does not sound right.
Very sad. (Score:2)
They had some interesting technology they just made a lot of mistakes.
They built in california... should have done it in a state that likes manufacturing. They allowed their company to get political. Never a good idea. And they didn't hedge against the price of silicon.
Big airlines buy oil futures to hedge against rises in jet fuel prices. It's just good business. if your business model is controlled by the price of silicon, then buy some insurance against that price going down. It's very easy to do this...
How much (Score:2)
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Ummm.... No. China was, and is, doing the same to the solar panel industry that it did to the steel industry. It is massively dumping solar panels on the country at highly reduced rates because they are subsidized by the Chinese government at a far greater rate than the US is subsidizing the industry here.
Make no mistake about it. There is nothing the US government can do about Chinese dumping
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Its International Anti-Trust anticompetitive at its most obvious.... but we dont stop it with tarriffs.... why? International corps own us, too. No american citizen can get any respect close to a large financial entity.... Money is God in the USA... what a shame.
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Actually, I think our economy is only afloat as much as it is because China holds so much debt. They have to prop up the dollar because, if the dollar collapses, all the debt that they hold becomes essentially worthless.
and that's the real joke on the chinese.
it's also why americans should just print more dollars, to devalue their debt measured in dollars.
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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 di
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So the republican congress we are staring at is responsble for the weak economy? H wait, I bet you cant wait to join your friends and blame Obama.
Eat your words.
Re:Fun fun fun (Score:5, Informative)
So the republican congress we are staring at is responsble for the weak economy?
Wow! I don't believe I have to explain this. But, here we go:
Congress is made up of two houses: The House of Representatives and the Senate. The House members are supposed to be closer to their constituents and all of them are elected every two years. The Senate holds elections every two years, but each term is six years with 1/3 of the Senate up for election every two years. Of course, as you know, the President is elected every four years for a max of two terms.
Now, Republicans held the House of Representatives from 1995 until 2007. The Senate was more or less under Republican control through most of the Bush years, but during this time, Senators had a habit of switching sides to get what they wanted. This would either tilt control over the Dems or force a balanced Senate. However, in 2007, both houses of Congress, the US House of Representatives and the US Senate both fell under the control of Democrats. This continued through the final two years of Bush AND THE FIRST TWO YEARS OF OBAMA.
Then, in the most recent election held in 2010, Republicans took control of the House and Democrats maintain control of the Senate. When this happens, very little actually gets done. Bills must pass both houses of Congress before the President may sign them into law or veto them. If the president vetoes a bill, it does not become a law unless 2/3 of the Senate vote to override the veto. If the Senate the House can't agree on legislation, then nothing reaches the President's desk.
Why am I telling you this? Well, I assume you are either from another country and don't know how the US political system works, or you are simply a moron who was too stoned on Saturday mornings to understand the meaning behind School House Rock [youtube.com]. The point being that you have have a basic grasp of the political system before you can understand what it means when I tell you...
wait for it...
Republicans only control the House of Representatives. Democrats still control the Senate and the White House.
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Democrats still control the Senate and the White House
But as you mention, bills have to pass both houses. So all a party needs is just one of the House, Senate, and Presidency. With only one they can't really pass anything radical, but they can be obstructionist. They can be obstructionist very well.
And I don't really believe the "democrats control the Senate" line either. It's technically true, but doesn't explain the reality of the situation, which is that the Democrats are a pretty Big Tent party and have no sense of unity and cohesion. Obama can rarely get
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Yes, you are correct. Republicans are in a position to obstruct. But the GP said "So the republican congress we are staring at is responsble for the weak economy?"
Um... no. First, the economy was bad before the Repubs retook control the House. Next, it hasn't gotten worse since they took the House. So, no. They are not responsible for the weak economy.
As for controlling the Senate, it is true that you pretty much need 2/3 control to get absolutely anything passed. However, Obama had this for the firs
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I bet you cant wait to join your friends and blame Obama.
Um... Please allow me to quote myself from a the very comment you responded to:
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.
Any questions?
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The lion's share of the fault belongs to Congress.
Given Congress's approval rating is typically well below the President's (any president), maybe the public has the right idea after all.
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Obama did inherit the inbox from hell - but this was not in the in-box. This mess was more or less created by the current administration. They were looking for some fast action and immediate results, so they failed to do some research and took a bit too much risk. If this was a private company - well - the investors knew what they were doing right? I hold the government to a higher, more conservative standard.
Look - judging a president on a single action is silly. But we have to put this one in the loss col
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Funny, seems to me that four years ago everything was Bush's fault.
What goes around comes around, as they used to say....
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I know that's the Republican meme, that you were so horribly persecuted by unfair criticism of Bush that now they're entirely justified in doing the same thing...
But it's not true.
Study of US media bias, October 29, 2007 http://www.journalism.org/node/8197 [journalism.org], looks at coverage of the early stages of the 2008 Presidential Campaign.
Newspapers have a pro-Democrat bias:
59 percent of stories about Democrats were positive. 11 percent were negative.
26 percent of stories about Republicans were positive. 40 percent were negative.
TV networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) have a pro-Democrat bias:
40 percent of stories about Democrats were positive. 17 percent were negativ
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