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Treasury Inspector General Opens Probe Into Obama's Solargate
In the latest installment of what is rapidly becoming Obama's Keynesian Solargate, we learn that the Treasury Department's Inspector General has opened an investigation of the now defunct $528 million government loan to Solyndra which has no chance of getting repaid, following what will be a pennies on the dollar liquidation of the company, especially since it is primed by a $75 million term loan to George Kaiser, a documented Obama "bundler" as was documented previously. Per the AP, "A spokesman said Thursday that the inspector general is reviewing the role and actions of the Federal Financing Bank, a government corporation supervised by the Treasury Department. The bank provided the low-interest loan to the Fremont, Calif.-based company." The "concern" is that Obama has pushed levers to get the investment in a venture controlled by a "friend" on a fasttrack, with the White House Office Of Management Supervision urging the DOE to release the funds without proper diligence. "The House energy committee released documents Wednesday that appeared to show senior staff at the White House Office of Management and Budget chafing about having to conduct "rushed approvals" of a loan guarantee for Solyndra. Republican members of the committee said the emails raised questions about whether the loan was rushed to accommodate a Solyndra groundbreaking ceremony in September 2009 that featured Vice President Joe Biden and Energy Secretary Steven Chu." And while there is more, we will spare the Treasury IG some time (assuming he is at least a little less corrupt than everyone else in the administration and actually plan on conducting a legitimate investigation) and advise him to simply look at campaign and other contributions by Solyndra's equity backers which features the George Kaiser Family Foundation, U.S. Venture Partners, CMEA Ventures, Redpoint Ventures, Virgin Green Fund, Madrone Capital Partners, RockPort Capital Partners, Argonaut Private Equity, Masdar and Artis Capital Management. When in doubt, always follow the buck... especially when it is looking for a very fast turnaround courtesy of taxpayer capital IRR padding.
And speaking of the "more"
We would prefer to have sufficient time to do our due diligence reviews and have the approval set the date for the announcement rather than the other way around," said one of the emails from an unidentified OMB aide to Biden's office.
In another email exchange obtained by the committee, an Energy Department official asked a staff member at OMB if "there is anything we can speed along on the OMB side." Again, neither official was identified.
"I would prefer that this announcement be postponed," the OMB official replied. "This is the first loan guarantee and we should have full review with all hands on deck to make sure we get it right."
White House spokesman Jay Carney said Wednesday the emails don't suggest that the White House was pushing for the loan to be made.
Of course, and Europe may or may not do everything in its power to lever up on its sovereign bailout, as per Timmy G who is about to teach the ECB all about the benefits of unlimited private upside, and unlimited taxpayer downside, courtesy of Bernanke's own brilliant TALF construct, which worked at a time when QE 1 and 2 would still be able to add $2+ trillion to the balance sheet of the Fed, but will have some serious trouble now that every central bank's assets are full to the brim.
Anyway, back to Solyndra:
Solyndra once was the showcase for President Barack Obama's efforts to increase investment in renewable energy and to generate jobs. But the marketplace for its products changed dramatically over the past year. Chinese companies have flooded the market with inexpensive solar energy panels, and Europe's economy weakened demand from customers. The result has been an unprecedented drop in solar cell prices this year. Two other solar panel manufacturers also filed for bankruptcy in the past month.
Administration officials stressed that private investors thought so highly of Solyndra's prospects that they put more than $1 billion of their own money into the company.
And there it is: to find out why this deal was massively botched up, just find out what influence said PE firms injected on Obama. And also find out what other equity investors stand to lose if the DOE does not dispense with the balance of its "stimulus" loans in time:
The Obama administration is moving to finalize as many as 15 loan guarantees for renewable energy companies before a federal stimulus program ends on Sept. 30. Republicans question whether that could lead to more loans to companies that fail like Solyndra.
The answer? A resounding yes. But we will give the president one thing: he sure is creating entry level bankruptcy attorney and financial advisor jobs, and a whole lot of billable hours, which will be funded by the bankrupt estate, which, incidentally means, the US taxpayer.
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I know we have the ratings system now and are not supposed to do this, but +1.
Need the Bamster to visit GE and declare it 'the wave of the future'.
M/H your trades are stuck on a different floor, and you don't have the " GUTS" enough to set a stop/loss!!!
Quit posting and manage your ?BOOK?
I remember when the GE advertizing line was "progress is our most important product"; some people thought it would have been nice if some of their actual products were more important to them; but then everyone likes to criticize.
Let's see...... Obammy gives away 20 billion in loan guarantees for these "green" jobs scam companies that have produces a total of 3500 jobs.
20,000,000,000/3500= over 5 MILLION per job created. And that was before Solyndra folded and 1000 jobs were lost.
China and every other important country in the world subsidizes technology development that may or may not turn out. If you want to lead in a field you have to risk the R&D spending.
China is a communist country. We are supposed to be a capitalist country. What part of that don't you get? The market is supposed to determine what fails and what succeeds,not Obammy. Did you forget the business plan was a known failure from the beginning and was funded for political purposes? They knew the company would run out of money in September 2011, right on schedule.
Hey Homey, your getting political labels and capital structures confused. I can promise you that capitalism is alive and well in China, where as people still beleive that you can own property in the US... You've been duped.
Government picking winners and losers in a market is like stating Anna Nichol married for love . Sounds good but realistically its a handjob for FRN's.
The market determines who wins and who loses quite well thank you . If government would simply get the hell out of the way consumers are perfectly capable of determining what they want and how they want it .
Frankly, your spin is disgusting. It won't be long before you are eaten up and spit out by the more intelligent posters on ZH. If I were in your shoes, I would just shut up now, before you get really hurt.
nonononon this really isn't worse than geo bush and switch grass, in fact W had a 'laughing attack' when he read about this. yes that corrupt obama, hahahaha. small time chicago gangster. honestly trillions went offshore during bush and the next guy didn't even think about looking for it? sorry you got the right man, for wrong reason.
Tyler- Please bring back "Captcha"
With all questions in Chinese arithmetic
TIA
New rule: You have to have the money to invest in R&D before you invest it. (No printing or twice borrowed credit allowed). Hint...
Bitch-Dollar, Bitchez!
The jobs bill Obama requested has an Infrastructure Bank. Can we just call this Obama's re-election slush fund bank. Obama is corrupt and to make things even more bizarre he doesn't even realize it because that's the way things work in Chicago politics. What a mess of a presidency. So many examples that even the left is beginning to jump off this train wreck.
Solyndra...it's what's for dinner.
+1.6250. Very good.
This fucking idiot can't even steal right. Tell attackwatch how fucking stupid he is.
F&&king.. Thanks Ed;
If Obama's geopolitical policies earned him the Nobel Peace Prize, Solyndra most assuredly will earn him the Economic Prize. And somebody ought to do an investigation as to why The Audacity of Hope was passed over for both the Pulitzer and Booker Prizes. Maybe the Nobel Committee can make up for that obvious slight with the Literature Prize. Nobody's ever won the Triple Crown. Heck, why doesn't the man just move to Oslo or Stockholm so as to minimize his carbon footprint. Then he can give Al Gore a run for the money at the Oscars. I also heard the Scholastic Testing Service is going to award him Honorary 800's on his SATs.
BHO has confirmed what we already knew was the difference between politicians and bankers; bankers will tell you when they're fucking you. Solyndra is no more than the White House's attempted copy of the "Friends of Angelo" program over at Countrywide. At least the Countrywide boys gave their fraud a name.
Of course, the only ones with the capacity to regulate the regulators are the Republicans: so you can rest assured that this will end the second we learn about a similar story involving Perry's oil friends or McCains defense friends.
What if Uncle Sam just treated us all equally instead of taxing the productive companies just to throw it away on the capital intensive startups with no viable market?
Flawed bailouts and funding the insolvent is the way of this and most political administrations.
Bitch-Dollar, Bitchez!
Richard Branson's Virgin Green Fund is an investor.
Kuwait's national investment fund.
Key supplier is a Chinese company listed on the Pink Sheets: Solar Power, Inc., Muddy Waters taking a look at them?