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Solyndra: The Green Bay Of Pigs?
American Interest Magazine ^ | 9/17/11 | Walter Russell Mead

Posted on 09/17/2011 9:33:46 PM PDT by Nachum

It seems that Uncle Sam’s Mickey Mouse loan deal to the now-bankrupt solar manufacturer Solyndra was not only a bad investment decision, but likely a contributing factor to the company’s implosion. The new factory built with Department of Energy funds foisted fixed costs on a company already struggling through an industry shake-out, [investors] say. What’s more, the debt paradoxically made raising more money difficult. Once the government demanded priority in the event of failure, private investors were less likely to prop up the company. One Solyndra investor said that, in retrospect,''the worst thing that happened to Solyndra was the loan.''

(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.the-american-interest.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bay; green; pigs; solyndra
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To: Bender2

History doesn’t repeat itself, historians repeat one another. I remember the Bay of Pigs very well. I doubt my daughter, or almost anyone in her generation has heard of it. How many in my generation remember the good ship Ruben James?


21 posted on 09/18/2011 5:26:15 AM PDT by Lonesome in Massachussets (Ceterum autem censeo, Obama delenda est.)
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To: Nachum

I guess when Barry was pursuing his studies he missed a basic principle in Econ 101...don’t manufacture for $10 what retails for $5.

Meanwhile, the article hit a few other high notes one of which is why did they build a manufacturing plant in a very high cost area for land and payroll. The answer is the “investors” were not in it for the money at least not at the outset. They were in it to show this solar panal could be viable. Fine, maybe the application worked in the lab BUT when it went into large scale production in a high cost area, it was doomed from the start. Barry et al were convinced they could overcome a problem by throwing money at it, just like with every other problem they face. It never works that way, never has never will.


22 posted on 09/18/2011 6:14:40 AM PDT by Mouton (Voting is an opiate of the electorate. Nothing changes no matter who wins..)
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To: Bender2
Woo hoo!! Go Pack Go!!
23 posted on 09/18/2011 6:36:31 AM PDT by big'ol_freeper ("Evil is powerless if the good are unafraid" ~ Ronald Wilson Reagan)
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To: ThirstyMan

Don’t miss this then:http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2780069/posts


24 posted on 09/18/2011 6:40:34 AM PDT by gusopol3
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To: Nachum

What an intteresting but appropriate caption;
“Solyndra; The Green Bay Of Pigs”

The referal to JFK’s term in office is most insightful. The interesting question. Would John Fitzgerald Kennedy had he not been asassinated been re-elected ? I (BTW I Voted since Eisenhower and around since Hoover)) for one would not have voted for him the second time. Two reasons; the assassination of South Viet Nam’s President Diem, and the Bay Of Pigs.

Had either of these two episodes been handled differently by a novice legislator going into the most important and complex executive office in the US, would we have had two foreign policy disasters lasting into this new century ? Namely Cuba, and South Viet Nam .

Some day our historical recall of that era may raise that issue.. Right now JFK’s short reign is getting histriionic and most ofter hysterical reviews.

He is one reason why I allways prefered a person with executive/ legislative experience at the nation’s helm.


25 posted on 09/18/2011 7:06:55 AM PDT by mosesdapoet (To punish a province let it be ruled by a professor Fredrick The Great paraphrased)
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To: gusopol3
Don't miss this then: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2780069/posts

thanks, that was great, very quotable:

for example:

"As it turns out, the $38.6 billion loan program for clean energy firms that Solyndra benefited from has created just 3,545 permanent new jobs after parceling out half its dough. That works out to around $5 million a job."

why people keep looking to the government to solve our problems is beyond me.

26 posted on 09/18/2011 4:29:32 PM PDT by ThirstyMan
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