Posted on 09/09/2012 10:29:21 AM PDT by presidio9
You can’t have a scandal if the press won’t give it press.
At the time the Energy Department was considering the loan, however, an Office of Management and Budget analysis suggested that Solyndra could run out of money in 2011 and said that it had a 20 percent chance of failing, which was actually well below some successful loans. An Energy Department official told Grunwald, When I heard they got the first loan, I thought, oh, no! Noooooooo.
Six Revelations From Michael Grunwalds The New New Deal
Grunwald's response, though, would be that a lot of Washingtonians, Republican as well as Democrat, were pushing for loans for their own pet energy project.
The response to that would be that this was the one that went through and lost money. That's a lot more serious than projects that aren't adopted and don't cost the taxpayers anything.
FWIW, I wanted to find out if Michael Grunwald was related to legendary Timesman Henry Anatole Grunwald. I didn't, but Clintonista Mandy Grunwald was the old man's daughter.
Not the truth, Skippy. They didn't approve it because the GAO predicted that Solyndra would go bankrupt and it did almost exactly when predicted. It was guaranteed to fail and 0bungles dumped over half a billion dollars into it anyway.
You have two ways to explain that. Either 0bama is a complete moron or there was a quid pro quo.
I guess everyone is going to call him Skippy. LOL
Lordy this guy needs a fact checker. He is spinning the WH lines as if they are real. Bush’s DOE had decided not to go ahead with Solyndra which is why the head honchos there started pimping themselves to O and company. From the initial premise onward this guy is just plain nuts
And don't forget the government filling stations for cars when they first became available. Greedy private companies couldn't be counted on to build the needed infrastructure; government had to do it. </sarcasm>
Many moons ago, in Alabama there was a state treasurer, seem to recall her name as Melba “watching the till” Allen (Melba Till Allen) who was defended by the dem machine (southern dems at the time) by saying:
“She didn’t take no STATE (of Alabama) money!!”
ie. it was ok to skim off the feds, no matter what.
This is the same thing—done nationally, for obamao re-elect. Stimulus slush.
I had it sort of right. This was along similar lines as this Solyndra, at the State of Alabama level, having to do with a state sponsored attraction Stars over Alabama. Melba Allen was skimming money from banks she put the funds into, and got loans back from banks for her husbands and her personal use, in exchange.
The point was attempted to be made at her various trials that “no state money was lost” by doing this. An early version of the assumption that any money “belongs to the state”, and that the banks money was someone else’s money.
It is a wild read but I found a blog (not mine) on the history, and think it is also at wikipedia:
http://downfalldictionary.blogspot.com/2011/04/melba-till-allen-we-are-not-amused.html
A BILLION DOLLARS TO A COMPANY WHOSE TECHNOLOGY WAS JUNK AND WHO WENT TO THE OBAMA WHITE TO GET LOANS SIGNED OFF, AND WHO OBAMA TOUTED.
And its slogan, The New Shape of Solar, was more than marketing fluff. “
It was marketing fluff. solar cells are flat because that geometry is best for creating energy, and the process is cheaper. Solyndra was more expensive and less energy efficient. It was junk.
Government has no business picking winners and losers because too often they pick losers.
The ny daily news has been quite silent on many things that make obama look bad. Solyndra, fast and furious, etc. Now that they finally mention it, its only to declare that its much ado about nothing.
Let’s stomp a little on Mr. Grunwald with this:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2928644/posts
Leni
Solar IS good if TSHTF.
Mikie took his wifie’s last name?
It was inevitable the Solyndra spin would have to come soon:
here it comes from a “journalist” from a “major” NYC newspaper. Lots of fancy footwork and spin emanating from this article , lots of straw man arguments. At the supermarket today, I saw the new issue of TIME with a picture of Obama , wearing his characteristic broadly beaming yet somewhat “sheepish” smile, looking downward, with the big title: WHAT BARACK KNOWS NOW. Two years ago at least, I posted on FR to the effect that the spin we could expect in the second half of the O Administration would be along the lines of “The Education of Barack Obama”, as if the Presidency in his first term merely served as his apprenticeship to being President “for Real”. That is now what is upon us: the expectation that we have to see through another four years for him, so his “education” could be complete. Four years from now, we’re expected to grant our approval “Barack Obama, you are the most IMPROVED President we’ve ever had!”
WHAT. A. FARCE.
Thank you. Great analysis! Should be required reading.
One point I’d add
>>It is an inevitable bump on the road to a clean-energy economy.
I can’t stand the way leftist writers casually throw in words like “inevitable” and get away with it. This is psychologically designed to make the reader overlook and accept it. Nothing to see here. Move along. Just business as usual. No different from any other business.
Furthermore, what is “inevitable?” Solyndra itself? Or the fact that some companies fail?
Most of us who start companies do not get the sweetheart deals that Solyndra got. Most of us sink or swim on our own. Most of us do not live a life of luxury on the taxpayer dime while running a company into the ground and then leave with our bank accounts much fatter than when we started.
One thing that I’d like some help understanding is the life expectancy of the Solyndra “ladders for lizards” and their cost effectiveness. Say I’m the COO of a small manufacturing firm. Let’s put it somewhere outside of Phoenix to make this a fair argument. Say I choose to install the Solyndra panels. At what point, if ever, do I recoup my investment? Or will the reward my shareholders get be the warm feeling that they have contributed to future technological advancements that may one day make solar sort of competitive (and in the mean time helped fund the salaries of the people who choose to work in a negative profit industry)?
I guess everyone is going to call him Skippy. LOL
Maybe you want to rethink that nickname. Skippy's best friend and mentor was a Reaganite.
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