Oops

[boutons_deux]

Joe Nocera on “The Phony Solyndra Scandal”: The “Real Winner is … the Chinese Solar Industry.”

If Brian Harrison and W. G. Stover, the two Solyndra executives who took the Fifth Amendment at a Congressional hearing on Friday, ever spend a day in jail, I’ll stand on my head in Times Square.

It’s not going to happen, for one simple reason: neither they, nor anyone else connected with Solyndra, have done anything remotely criminal. The company’s recent bankruptcy — which the Republicans are now rabidly “investigating” because Solyndra had the misfortune to receive a $535 million federally guaranteed loan from the Obama administration — was largely brought on by a stunning collapse in the price of solar panels over the past year or so.

The company’s innovative solar panels, high-priced to begin with, became increasingly uncompetitive in the marketplace. Solyndra didn’t have enough big commercial customers to create the necessary economies of scale. And although Harrison and Stover remained optimistic up to the bitter end — insisting six weeks before the late-August bankruptcy filing that the company was going to be fine — they ultimately failed to raise additional capital that would have allowed Solyndra to stay in business.

The Republicans are trying to make that optimism appear sinister, but if we’ve learned anything from the financial crisis, it is that wishful thinking in the face of a collapsing market is not a crime. Otherwise, Richard Fuld, the former chief executive of Lehman Brothers, would be wearing prison garb….

At the hearing on Friday, several of the Republican congressmen boasted that, in passing the continuing resolution to keep the government running the day before, they had succeeded in slashing the program that had made the loan to Solyndra….

But the real winner isn’t the American taxpayer or even the House Republicans. It’s the Chinese solar industry.

http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/0...yndra-scandal/

===========

We'll see who eats big black crow if this dust ever settles, and if the Repugs GAFF after a couple of weeks.

Centrally planned China, with national industrial policies, and financed by $Ts of US purchases, subsidizes its (export) industries with $10Bs year, while unregulated, unguided, "free market" capitalism gets its clock cleaned and even works as an aggressive accomplice to China's economic policies.

[Viva Las Espuelas]

yeah. if I didn't do anything criminal and Congress called a hearing on it I definitely would use the Constitution to my advantage.
That tactic helped me through my adolescent years back home and, by golly, I never did anything wrong.

[boutons_deux]

Seeking a Trade Rule Enforcer

America is being played.

The U.S. allowed China to join the club of trading partners in the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001 under the condition that China observe club rules.

Over the past decade, however, China has profited immeasurably by ignoring, flouting and circumventing the rules barring market-distorting practices. Among the most destructive of these violations is China’s deliberate undervaluing of its currency, which makes Chinese exports to the United States artificially cheap and U.S. exports to China artificially expensive.

This nurtures Chinese industry and poisons American manufacturing.

In the trade contest with China, the referees have been absent or silent or completely craven on the issue of currency undervaluation, even as it kills U.S. factories and jobs. American workers need a trade rule enforcer. With unemployment above 9 percent, the situation is desperate. American workers can’t be played anymore.

Just last week, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a non-partisan think tank, issued a report showing that the trade deficit with China cost the United States 2.8 million jobs since the WTO allowed China into the trading club. Every congressional district in the U.S. lost jobs as Chinese exports to the United States overwhelmed U.S. exports to China.

The trade deficit is the difference between the value of Chinese exports to the United States and U.S. exports to China. It was $84 billion the year China entered the WTO. Last year it grew to $278 billion – a 230 percent increase.

EPI also determined that China’s currency manipulation is a major cause of the trade deficit. The report explains that China has aggressively bought U.S. dollars and other foreign exchange reserves to depress the value of the yuan. Smart move, but prohibited under WTO rules.

Without this deliberate market interference, the yuan would have risen in value over the years as China’s productivity soared. But a stronger yuan would have increased the cost of Chinese products in the U.S. and decreased the cost of U.S. exports to China. That would have quashed Chinese exports and invigorated American exports, lowering the trade deficit.

http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/...aign=alternet#

[CosmicCowboy]

SAMs existed in the Muslim world before Libya. Why haven't they shot down planes at DFW yet?

Hey Chump, you can lick your licks and suck my dick. Your beloved liberal media is even reporting on it finally...

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/nightm...ry?id=14610199

Nightmare in Libya: Thousands of Surface-to-Air Missiles Unaccounted For
PHOTO: After the fall of Gadhafi's Libya, U.S. officials are concerned about the possible proliferation of thousands of portable surface-to-air missiles stockpiled in the country.


By BRIAN ROSS (@brianross) and MATTHEW COLE
Sept. 27, 2011

The White House announced today it planned to expand a program to secure and destroy Libya's huge stockpile of dangerous surface-to-air missiles, following an ABC News report that large numbers of them continue to be stolen from unguarded military warehouses.

Currently the U.S. State Department has one official on the ground in Libya, as well as five contractors who specialize in "explosive ordinance disposal", all working with the rebel Transitional National Council to find the looted missiles, White House spokesperson Jay Carney told reporters.

"We expect to deploy additional personnel to assist the TNC as they expand efforts to secure conventional arms storage sites," Carney said. "We're obviously at a governmental level -- both State Department and at the U.N. and elsewhere -- working with the TNC on this."

ABC News reported today U.S. officials and security experts were concerned some of the thousands of heat-seeking missiles could easily end up in the hands of al Qaeda or other terrorists groups, creating a threat to commercial airliners.

"Matching up a terrorist with a shoulder-fired missile, that's our worst nightmare," said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D.-California, a member of the Senate's Commerce, Energy and Transportation Committee.


Though Libya had an estimated 20,000 man-portable surface-to-air missiles before the popular uprising began in February, Assistant Secretary of State Andrew Shapiro told ABC News today the government does not have a clear picture of how many missiles they're trying to track down.

"We're making great progress and we expect in the coming days and weeks we will have a much greater picture of how many are missing," Shapiro said.

The missiles, four to six-feet long and Russian-made, can weigh just 55 pounds with launcher. They lock on to the heat generated by the engines of aircraft, can be fired from a vehicle or from a combatant's shoulder, and are accurate and deadly at a range of more than two miles.

Peter Bouckaert of Human Rights Watch first warned about the problem after a trip to Libya six months ago. He took pictures of pickup truckloads of the missiles being carted off during another trip just a few weeks ago.

"I myself could have removed several hundred if I wanted to, and people can literally drive up with pickup trucks or even 18 wheelers and take away whatever they want," said Bouckaert, HRW's emergencies director. "Every time I arrive at one of these weapons facilities, the first thing we notice going missing is the surface-to-air missiles."

The ease with which rebels and other unknown parties have snatched thousands of the missiles has raised alarms that the weapons could end up in the hands of al Qaeda, which is active in Libya.

"There certainly are dangerous groups operating in the region, and we're very concerned that some of these weapons could end up in the wrong hands," said Bouckaert.

[Yonivore]

Related comment:

They’ll turn up eventually. Around Heathrow, Sheremetyevo, Reagan National and LAX. And when they do, the question will be asked, “Why in the hell didn’t we blow these caches in place, when we were running around blowing the hell out of everything else?”

And the answer will, “We thought only for the best.”

Which, once translated into the everyday language of loss and grief, will be translated to, “We were irredeemably stupid.”

[ChumpDumper]

Hey Chump, you can lick your licks and suck my dick. Your beloved liberal media is even reporting on it finally...

How does this contradict anything I posted?

And why do you want a man to perform oral sex on you?

[boutons_deux]

Rupgs LYING again, yawn

Waxman to Issa: Get Solyndra facts straight

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) is rebutting House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa’s (R-Calif.) claim that Waxman helped the now-bankrupt solar company Solyndra secure its $535 million federal loan guarantee.

Waxman said in a letter to Issa on Monday that he had no role in the financing.

“I am writing to let you know that I had no involvement in the selection of the Solyndra loan. In fact, the first time I met with representatives from Solyndra was in July 2011, when the company’s CEO, Brian Harrison, informed me — erroneously, it turned out — that the company’s prospects were bright,” writes Waxman, the top Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee.

http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/677...ht-on-solyndra

[boutons_deux]

Sen. Landrieu Reads Darrell Issa’s Letters Begging For Taxpayer Clean Energy Loans On The Senate Floor

House Oversight Committee chair Rep. Darrell Issa’s (R-CA) investigation of clean energy loan programs was undercut this week by a revelation, first reported by Bloomberg, that he had also requested money from the same program for companies in his district. A follow-up story by ThinkProgress found that an investor to the firm Issa had asked to subsidize had donated several times to Issa, including a check just shortly before Issa sent his letter to Secretary Chu.

LANDRIEU: He’s a member from California, he’s a very powerful member of the House. I’m going to read his whole letter. [...] And maybe the press even writes, ‘Darrell Issa, the Republican leader, is promoting manufacturing in California.’ Because this is what he says in his district. And this is the letter he sends to the Secretary. But when he’s in the floor of the House last night, he voted to gut this program.

ng on Sep 23, 2011 at 4:00 pm

Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA)
House Oversight Committee chair Rep. Darrell Issa’s (R-CA) investigation of clean energy loan programs was undercut this week by a revelation, first reported by Bloomberg, that he had also requested money from the same program for companies in his district. A follow-up story by ThinkProgress found that an investor to the firm Issa had asked to subsidize had donated several times to Issa, including a check just shortly before Issa sent his letter to Secretary Chu.

Today on the Senate floor, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) mocked Issa’s hypocrisy. She carried with her copies of the letters signed by Issa, as well as other letters by Republicans asking for money for the clean energy program they had just voted to cut, and read them into the Congressional Record:

LANDRIEU: He’s a member from California, he’s a very powerful member of the House. I’m going to read his whole letter. [...] And maybe the press even writes, ‘Darrell Issa, the Republican leader, is promoting manufacturing in California.’ Because this is what he says in his district. And this is the letter he sends to the Secretary. But when he’s in the floor of the House last night, he voted to gut this program. That’s what this debate is about!

Watch it:

Earlier this week, Republicans tried to make hay out of the Solyndra controversy by taking an axe to clean energy programs. Landrieu made short work out of the GOP’s shameful gimmick.

Landrieu continued tearing into Republican hypocrisy. She noted that the cuts were purely political because the supposed offsets for FEMA only required $175 million, not $1 billion. She then continued to read Republican letters asking for clean energy loan cash, including yet another one signed by Issa (asking for money for battery-maker Quallion

=======

Issa and Repugs bitch-slapped. I'm sure Fox will run with this one.

[boutons_deux]

ThinkProgress Report Outs Republicans In The Clean-Energy Closet

A new ThinkProgress special report by Lee Fang shows that 62 Republicans from the House and Senate were once proponents of clean energy investments, sending letters asking for various clean energy-related loan guarantees, grants, and other assistance for their districts. Yet amidst the recent Solyndra controversy, many members of Congress have seized the opportunity to go on a witch-hunt against other clean energy programs authorized by the Department of Energy, from voting to defund the loan guarantee program and projects that would help employ veterans, and voting to slash funds for the clean car program that has created tens of thousands of jobs, to denouncing all clean energy grants as fraudulent, to denouncing all clean energy grants as fraudulent, and labeling green jobs as “so-called phony” jobs. These Republicans were once supportive of these government-funded green jobs in their districts. Do they still support them, or have cheap political attacks taken priority?

http://thinkprogress.org/green/2011/...energy-closet/

====


Details at 11, on Fox Repug Propaganda network

[Winehole23]

Republicans who criticized the Obama administration for providing U.S. backing to the failed Solyndra LLC sought such federal loan guarantees for cleaner-coal projects they favored.

Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming asked Energy Secretary Steven Chu in a Feb. 8 letter to move the “review process forward” for a project in his state to convert coal to liquid fuel. Representative Ed Whitfield of Kentucky sought support for a company that says it developed a way to make coal burn cleaner, and Representative John Shimkus of Illinois wrote the department seeking aid for an effort to capture and bury carbon dioxide.


Republicans including Barrasso have said the failure of Solyndra, which filed for bankruptcy after receiving $535 million in federal loan guarantees, shows President Barack Obama was wrong to pick “winners and losers” among wind- and solar-power companies.



The letters promoting coal projects show Republicans don’t mind the government picking winners if it’s for projects they want, said Jack Spencer, an energy analyst at the Washington-based Heritage Foundation.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-1...-for-coal.html

[boutons_deux]

Poll of the Day: 9 in 10 Americans Want More Solar, 8 in 10 Support Federal Solar Incentives



For the fourth year in a row, a survey conducted by independent pollster Kelton Research shows that 89% of Americans think it’s important for the U.S. to develop solar.

Even with the rancorous politics around federal investments in clean energy, the poll shows that 82% of Americans think incentives like tax credits are necessary to help build the industry.

http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/1...te+Progress%29

==========

Repugs and their bosses at Fox Repug Propaganda network yet again on the wrong side of public opinion.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

i thought the entire point of these types of loans was because as with many new technology ventures there is a lot of inherent risk. thats the whole point of the governments intervention so that work can be done.

Given that reality it seems pretty stupid to freak out over every failure.

[DarrinS]

WH, boutons


You think the Solyndra scandal is about govt loans to clean energy companies?


Investments are fine, but willfully shitty investments aren't.

[Winehole23]

You think the Solyndra scandal is about govt loans to clean energy companies?

Partly, yes. There's a legit gripe about competence, but I think it's mostly red team hyperventilation.

What is the Solyndra flap about, in your opinion?

[boutons_deux]

A lot of private investors, not a stupid bunch usually, also invested in Solyndra, which must have looked a lot better going in.

Darrin's hindsight, foresight, ideological blindness are great investment guides.

Natural gas and Chinese solar panel dumping are tough energy foes.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Its issues like this that has shown how far the GOP has fallen. One thing noted conservatives like Reagan and Eisenhower definitely got right was the technology policy of this country. Those two were as responsible for the development of the US electronics industry in the 1980s as anyone.

Once the party that led the charge, they resort to sniping failed ventures in just the same manner as democrats in the 1980s. At least these have been canned after a couple of years as opposed to other projects over the last century.

Does anyone have a take on actual policy direction or is this thread just about trying to pigeonhole the president to a failed particular?

[DarrinS]

Partly, yes. There's a legit gripe about competence, but I think it's mostly red team hyperventilation.

What is the Solyndra flap about, in your opinion?

Either incompetence or crony capitalism (or perhaps both).

[Winehole23]

SOP. Lobbying and personal connections to power. Any part of government you put your finger on is likely to reveal such influences. Our political system is basically legalized bribery by now.

[Ignignokt]

i thought the entire point of these types of loans was because as with many new technology ventures there is a lot of inherent risk. thats the whole point of the governments intervention so that work can be done.

Given that reality it seems pretty stupid to freak out over every failure.

Those are pleasant ways to mask corporate cronyism you hippocrit

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Those are pleasant ways to mask corporate cronyism you hippocrit

Huh? You are the one advocating laissez fair.

[Ignignokt]

Huh? You are the one advocating laissez fair.

glad you noticed.

I'm just pointing out that your stance on corporate ethics is phony. Corporate welfare is ok, aslong as it's used for the projects you approve.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

glad you noticed.

I'm just pointing out that your stance on corporate ethics is phony. Corporate welfare is ok, aslong as it's used for the projects you approve.

Where have I taken a particular stance on any individual project?

Corporate ethics implies the behavior of firms and I am not even commenting on that anyway.

[Ignignokt]

Where have I taken a particular stance on any individual project?

Corporate ethics implies the behavior of firms and I am not even commenting on that anyway.

I can't believe you're so ignorant.

You were just defending corporate cronyism or favoritism because it's govt intervention for the common good.

Obviously, your ethics come with strings attached and is based on purely phony grounds.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

You were just defending corporate cronyism or favoritism because it's govt intervention for the common good.

Please point out specifically where i do this. You make these claims but fail to provide and evidence analysis or anything.

I just said that government subsidization of an industry will have failures as the need for subsidization implies a field that is inherently risky.

You just are antiestablishment and pretty mindless about it so you twist me saying that government intervention in a risk adverse field to be a blanket permission. its not.

That being said battery technology is something we desperately need innovation in. Rare earth elements are a bitch.

[Wild Cobra]

i thought the entire point of these types of loans was because as with many new technology ventures there is a lot of inherent risk. thats the whole point of the governments intervention so that work can be done.

Given that reality it seems pretty stupid to freak out over every failure.

That isn't something that should be done with tax dollars, unless it is vital to the nation. If investors see a proper payoff vs. risk, they will invest. Let the capital venturists risk their money instead of yours and mine.

It's not stupid to freak out over something that was warned against doing, and then have the money still doles out, based on agenda rather than proper risk assessments.

These people should be jailed.

[boutons_deux]

"it is vital to the nation"

non-fossil, renewable energy is extremely vital to the nation.

Much more immediate and critical is forcing the fossil fuel companies to pay for all the "externalaties" damage they commit to air, land, water, food, humans.

[Wild Cobra]

"it is vital to the nation"

non-fossil, renewable energy is extremely vital to the nation.

In your opinion. The voters of this nation as a majority disagree with you.

Why don't you rally a group of like minded people as yourself to form a charity. Collect money and you can head the foundation, and give the money to research you deem appropriate.

Put your money where your mouth is and stop using tax dollars.

[George Gervin's Afro]

In your opinion. The voters of this nation as a majority disagree with you.

Why don't you rally a group of like minded people as yourself to form a charity. Collect money and you can head the foundation, and give the money to research you deem appropriate.

Put your money where your mouth is and stop using tax dollars.

I would think the majority of voters would prefer thier air not be polluted unecessarily...just sayin

[boutons_deux]

A Gold Rush of Subsidies in the Search for Clean Energy



A great deal of attention has been focused on Solyndra, a start-up that received $528 million in federal loans to develop cutting-edge solar technology before it went bankrupt, but nearly 90 percent of the $16 billion in clean-energy loans guaranteed by the federal government since 2009 went to subsidize these lower-risk power plants, which in many cases were backed by big companies with vast resources.

When the Obama administration and Congress expanded the clean-energy incentives in 2009, a gold-rush mentality took over.

As NRG’s chief executive, David W. Crane, put it to Wall Street analysts early this year, the government’s largess was a once-in-a-generation opportunity, and “we intend to do as much of this business as we can get our hands on.” NRG, along with partners, ultimately secured $5.2 billion in federal loan guarantees plus hundreds of millions in other subsidies for four large solar projects.

“I have never seen anything that I have had to do in my 20 years in the power industry that involved less risk than these projects,” he said in a recent interview. “It is just filling the desert with panels.”

From 2007 to 2010, federal subsidies jumped to $14.7 billion from $5.1 billion, according to a recent study.

Most of the surge came from the economic stimulus bill, which was passed in 2009 and financed an Energy Department loan guarantee program and a separate Treasury Department grant program that were promoted as important in creating green jobs.



===========

Seems like a lot of $Bs?

compare with the sure-fire positives if solar/wind energy production with the well-known negatives of wasting/burning $100B/year, year after year, in Iraq and Afghanistan, or at total of $1.5T/year year after year for DoD, NatSec, DoState budgets to maintain the UCA's imperial empire against a bunch of ragheads.

Unlimited $Ts for guns, while we have to fight for a few $Bs for butter.

[Stringer_Bell]

Hey everybody, what about this "oops" moment? See, it happens to everyone. Let's HUMANIZE the living shit outta of these events!