Solyndra closure affects foundation linked to Obama donor

[alp227]

Source: The Washington Post

A foundation linked to a top donor to President Obama says it took a hit like all other investors in a distressed solar company that this week shuttered its plant and laid off 1,100 workers, leaving taxpayers on the hook for loans guaranteed by the federal government.

The Tulsa-based George Kaiser Family Foundation said in a statement that it is among many investors in Solyndra, the California-based company that received a $535 million loan guaranteed by the Energy Department. The independent foundation is linked to billionaire oilman George B. Kaiser, a fundraising bundler during Obama’s campaign.

The foundation said it is one of many that “suffered a loss as a result of the company’s inability to overcome serious challenges in the marketplace, especially the drastic decline in solar panel prices during the past two years caused in part by subsidies provided by the government of China to Chinese solar panel manufacturers.”

The statement issued Thursday came as House Republicans vowed to more fully probe the extent of White House involvement in federal assistance to Solyndra, saying they have found evidence the White House tracked the company’s application.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/solyndra-closure-affects-foundation-linked-to-obama-donor/2011/09/02/gIQAkjF4wJ_singlePage.html

[Harmony Blue]

1. Chinese understand long term investment

too bad our U.S. capitalists are in it for short term gain.

[Psephos]

6. If you think that's true, you know very little about the financial madhouse in China.

Not to mention the hellish not-so-distant future when the tab comes due for China's wanton environmental destruction.

[JDPriestly]

2. Actually, I would be more favorable toward the Obama administration

if it tried to help a solar energy company.

I think we should be doing much more to help solar energy manufacturers. They should receive comparable subsidies to the subsidies provided in Germany and China.

[EC]

3. Isn't that what the repubs are investigating?

That Obama did steer the money to them?

[No Elephants]

4. If true, it would mean Obama used tax dollars to reward a bundler/donor. Please

tell me you are not implying we should give anyone credit for being corrupt.

[JDPriestly]

5. No. But I would like to see Obama more favorable to

solar energy. He has been very favorable to other sources of energy in the past.

He let BP off the hook. 8 people died in the Macondo spill, and at the least their deaths were due to gross negligence, but no one has been charged. Do you think that Obama was wrong in favoring BP in that way?

Obama is known for his ties to the nuclear industry. The government has not been forthcoming about the impact of the Fukushima incident on levels of radioactivity in the US, especially the West coast. Do you think that Obama was favoring the nuclear industry?

Obama has made it very clear that he will favor alternative energy whenever possible. Whether the owner was a bundler or not, Obama has been consistent in that stance.

Obama also has visited a number of factories in which alternative energy equipment is produced including windmills and other things. So the fact that this company could not succeed due to foreign competition that was able to produce solar equipment more cheaply suggests to me that neither Obama nor any other part of the government is really doing enough to support the domestic solar energy industry.

The facts may show otherwise, but I would not jump to the conclusion that there is a scandal here. Had Obama behaved similarly, let's say, with regard to an application for a permit for a pipeline to carry shale oil from Canada to the West Coast, no conservative would jump on him.

There could be wrongdoing here, but the facts we have thus far do not indicate anything. It is simply an accusation that Obama expedited and application -- not an accusation that he did more than that, and the failure of the company is attributed thus far to unfair competition from China rather than to any wrongdoing by the management of the company. That could change, but those appear to be the facts at this time.

[No Elephants]

8. My post was replying to Reply #3. I knew you were not implying that.

[IamK]

7. no notice to the employees sucks but I guess the $$$ is gone...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/31/solyndra-california-solar-company-green-energy_n_943571.html?ref=mostpopular

Roughly 1,100 employees were being laid off, the company said. A local NBC affiliate in California reported that employees were "standing around in disbelief" and that they were being handed "yellow envelopes with instructions on how to get their last checks."

[christx30]

9. It sounds like a

piss-poor investment, a waste of tax payer money, and someone needs to have hearings on it. That's a hell of a lot of money for nothing.
If this happened at a private company, that person would have been fired within an hour, and would probably be looking at criminal charges.