It was an 80s movie starring Richard Pryor, where he had to spend 30 million in 30 days, in order to get a 300 million inheritance. But the catch was that he couldn’t have anything to show for it at the end of 30 days. He also couldn’t just give the money away. I keep thinking of that when reading about the Solyndra scandal.
Part of me feels for the people who were let go. Our management blew through 130 million, instead of 500, but some of the stories the employees are now speaking about in regard to waste sound eerily familiar. Nonetheless, it took us ten years to burn through our money in an industry that’s inherently quite costly. It’s hard for me to even fathom how a 1100 person manufacturing company burns through a cool half-billion in a year without just taking 100 dollar bills and using them for toilet paper, or as filters for the coffee machine, and even then I think it’d be tough. These people clearly put the management of my previous employer to shame, when it comes to wasting cash.
The other thing that upsets me about Solyndra is the fact that the GOP had to go blow the whole impeachment thing on Bill Clinton for getting a blow job in the oval office and lying about it. Giving a half-billion dollars of our money to your political cronies to take a match to is exactly the kind of thing I want to see a President standing before Congress in chains over. But that’s not going to happen. No, they blew that wad. Thanks guys.
It’s actually pretty easy, if you remember they actually built a (photovoltaic cell) semi-conductor fab as well as a panel manufacturing plant. I’m actually kind of amazed they were able to do both for around a billion. I wonder if their unique panel technology works with silicon-based PV cells, since a part of their problem is that silicon prices have fallen significantly which made their copper-indium-gallium-selenium PV cells uncompetitive.
Bewster’s Millions is a good analogy to describe the spending habits on DC bureaucrats and political flunkies.
“We have to spend every penny we can borrow, or we won’t be able to justify stealing and borrowing the next (bigger) chunk of money. Got any studies on the effect of crack cocaine on left-handed ferrets we could fund? Here’s $50 million for that.”
Maybe Solyndra was buying those $16 muffins from the same place Eric Holder was getting them.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/sep/20/taxpayers-foot-bill-justice-department-16-muffins/
Sebastian,
Your right on this thing sounding impeachable, but being thR mastermind of an international gun running operation designed to further your hatred for and ability to undermine 10% of the bill of rights seems like a far easier impeachment.
But that’s not gonna happen either, cause the GOP hates blow jobs so much.
Brewster had to have nothing to show for it when the spending was over. I’m betting the execs have plenty of person trinkets to show for our money.
If bearing false witness in court by the highest law enforcement officer of the land does not count as one of the “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” the Constitution refers to … well, you and I have vastly different standards of morality. Clinton did lose his law license or something to that effect, didn’t he?
It’s also obvious from that fiasco, which was the first impeachment hearing to not call any witnesses since the institution was formed in 700 something, that the institution in the US today is entirely political and that the Republicans running the Senate had no … will to do their jobs. If you expect a Senate run by Democrats to impeach a President of their own party for pretty much any reason below the “caught with a live boy or dead girl” you … don’t inhabit the same reality I do. Same goes for underlings, I would expect.
On the other hand, if you think the Republican House would gain themselves or their party anything by a futile impeachment of anyone in the Administration, even without the Clinton history, I’d be interested to know the political calculus you see behind that.
I have to agree with Harold; it wasn’t the misdemeanor or oral sex (yes, it was still a crime in D.C. at that point); it was perjury in a deposition on a civil suit that was the problem. If the guy in charge of enforcing the laws of the United States is prepared to perjure himself, he is clearly unfit for the office.
I’ve no doubt that large portions of the assorted stimulus money is in off shore bank accounts. Watching our country slide from the commercial Republic of the 1840s to an over-sized third world kleptocracy is … well, I’m not sure of the words to use.
I am sure that what ever money was stolen (of that word I am certain) from the American public none will ever be recovered and no one will be punished for taking it.
Damn! I’m getting cynical in my old age.
Obama could plug Biden right in the head, at the superbowl, at 1/2 time while snorting a line of coke, and an impeachment trial wouldnt happen. partly, because it would be a reason to be able to do things, and partly because we would have riots in the streets from the “blatant racism” of the police involved.
If anything, more Americans would be upset that a football game was interrupted.
Solyndra’s money was being funneled back – they spent it on jobs alright…for DC Lobbyists and Democratic Aids, among them green-lobbyist extraordinaire and former Appropriations staffer Steve McBee and John Kerry aide Gregg Rothschild.….
I worked for a startup that blew through $200million in 4 years. And from what I saw, they did most things on the cheap. So it is astonishingly easy to do.
Not only are silicon fabs expensive, but add to that Solyndra and their US competitors are competing against ChiCom slave labor factories who have stolen all their IP from the US.
http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4219507/China-s-solar-rise-seen-in-Solyndra-s-fall
If anybody wants to learn ALL the details of why the Clinton impeachment was doomed they should read Bob Barr’s “The Meaning of Is: the squandered impeachment and wasted legacy of William Jefferson Clinton”.
I read this to determine in 2008 if Bob Barr and his campaign for President was worth supporting (IMO he was). It is well worth the modest price it is being sold for.