OT: So much for those California “Green” Jobs

[Coronita]

Oops…$500 million…

No worries, I’m sure some company in China will buy all the I.P./patents that this company created from the economic stimulus grants inevitably paid by taxpayers at 10cents on the dollar -(

http://gigaom.com/cleantech/solyndra-to-file-for-bankruptcy-
lay-off-1100/

Solar company Solyndra is closing down and filing for bankruptcy.

That news, reported by NBC and which we’ve just confirmed with the solar company, is chilling because so many hopes have been pinned on Solyndra’s success story for job creation, solar manufacturing and a celebration of American innovation.

The Fremont, Calif., company, which uses a novel process to make solar panels that are consisted of rows of solar cell-lined tubes, is laying off its 1,100 full-time and temporary employees immediately, the company said. The company, which has suspended production, plans to file for Chapter 11 and figure out what to do with its intellectual property and assets. Options include selling its business and licensing is technology.

“Solyndra LLC, the American manufacturer of innovative cylindrical solar systems for commercial rooftops today announced that global economic and solar industry market conditions have forced the Company to suspend its manufacturing operations,” the company said in a statement.

More from the company press release:

Despite strong growth in the first half of 2011 and traction in North America with a number of orders for very large commercial rooftops, Solyndra could not achieve full-scale operations rapidly enough to compete in the near term with the resources of larger foreign manufacturers. This competitive challenge was exacerbated by a global oversupply of solar panels and a severe compression of prices that in part resulted from uncertainty in governmental incentive programs in Europe and the decline in credit markets that finance solar systems.

“We are incredibly proud of our employees, and we would like to thank our investors, channel partners, customers and suppliers, for the years of support that allowed us to bring our innovative technology to market. Distributed rooftop solar power makes sense, and our customers clearly recognize the advantages of Solyndra systems,” said Solyndra’s president and CEO, Brian Harrison. “Regulatory and policy uncertainties in recent months created significant near-term excess supply and price erosion. Raising incremental capital in this environment was not possible. This was an unexpected outcome and is most unfortunate.”

Solyndra has garnered the spotlight not only for its unusual technology but also for receiving a hefty federal loan guarantee of $535 million to build a factory. Solyndra broke ground on the factory project just before Labor Day in 2009 and completed the factory last year. Solyndra has also raised close to a billion dollars in equity and loans.

We knew this year would be a make-or-break year for Solyndra, given the company’s plan to ramp up production this year and perhaps putting behind the hubbub about its decision to forego an IPO in favor of raising private funding. The company had to lay off employees and close an older factory last year because it was having trouble competing with manufacturers, particularly those from China, that had built much larger factories and cut their costs significantly.

[Allan from Fallbrook]

FLU: Relax, man, there’s still, like, 499,000 green jobs in California when you subtract the 1,100 lost at Solyndra from the 500,000 that were already here. Remember?

Three good articles out there in the NYT, WashPost and Investors Business Daily on Obama’s green energy boondoggle.

IBD details how Johnson Controls smoked through $300MM and created just 150 jobs (that’s $2MM per job, if you’re counting): http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/581654/201108161838/Wasted-Stimulus.aspx

WashPost “Green Jobs Myth”: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/25/AR2010022503945.html

NYT on how California used over $90MM to create just 538 full time jobs, most of these being administrative in nature: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/19/us/19bcgreen.html

I wonder if our Leftist troll buddy will come out and try to rebut this information. I mean, it seems like this is really money well spent…

[Anonymous]

Allan,

It would seem from your post that government waste and failed investments is a purely “leftist” phenomenon – and always Obama’s idea.

But why just consider green jobs? Let’s start making a list of failed defense projects and their cost to taxpayers.

The list will be similar to yours above – just a few times longer and a few more zeros at the end of many price tags.

Of course “failed” is a relative term in the defense industry since, if it doesn’t work, they just keep trying (read: spending.)

I guess it does create jobs though.

Remember that phrase I mentioned the other day: “Tea Party Keynesian?”

[EconProf]

So the taxpayers will pay for this “investment” in green jobs. This is the problem when the government tries to pick winners and losers instead of the private sector. They make choices based on faulty science and the whims of extreme environmentalists. Private investors, with their own money at stake, tend to weigh costs and benefits before allocating resources. They may not always get it right, but they suffer the consequences when wrong (absent government bailouts). I wonder if any politicians or bureaucrats will suffer from this boondogle. Also, had that government “investment” money stayed in taxpayers’ pockets and been spent on consumer items, how many real private sector jobs been created?

[Coronita]

I think the most disturbing thing was in the IBD article…

[quote]
….unemployment remains, at 9.1%, unacceptably high. It seems that the high jobless numbers catch the administration by surprise each month.

But they shouldn’t.

History is a guide. Spain’s green economy program destroyed 2.2 jobs for every green job it created.

Meanwhile, the Italians put into a single green job the same amount of capital needed to create almost five jobs in the general economy.

A green economy, it seems, is scarcely better than a red one.

[/quote]

[Coronita]

[quote=EconProf]So the taxpayers will pay for this “investment” in green jobs. This is the problem when the government tries to pick winners and losers instead of the private sector. They make choices based on faulty science and the whims of extreme environmentalists. Private investors, with their own money at stake, tend to weigh costs and benefits before allocating resources. They may not always get it right, but they suffer the consequences when wrong (absent government bailouts). I wonder if any politicians or bureaucrats will suffer from this boondogle. Also, had that government “investment” money stayed in taxpayers’ pockets and been spent on consumer items, how many real private sector jobs been created?[/quote]

I don’t think government funding of projects isn’t the issue per se… But things about this “green job” was bound to fail if there is no clear game plan. Come on, did anyone really think that any of these green job grants were going to succeed, without a centralized, definitive plan by the government on WHAT and HOW specifically the money was to be spent?

I mean, who would have thought “projects” that were self-started by individuals/corporations, marketed and back by VC’s and marketing/sales folks who often inflate and distort the truth about a company’s accomplishments, wouldn’t have failed?

And regarding those defense projects. There is a big difference between funding of these green jobs versus defense/intelligence spending. Defense/intelligence projects typically originate from the government with a specific goal and specific result…The way a lot of these green job grants went was basically a free-for-all loan to whatever cock-a-mania idea someone applying for the grant could come up with….In other words, this “green job program” never had any direction but just to hand out money to companies that could market themselves (lie) the best to government who probably had no idea on what they really were going to do or how to do it….For all the railing against greedy corporations and expression of how government should regulate more, they sure didn’t regulate and provide enough oversight on a “centralized green economy program”. This was a disaster waiting to happen. I would be surprised to find any meaningful success stories from green job funding when it’s all said and done…

[DomoArigato]

For those of you upset about this relatively piddling amount, are you also concerned about the $16 trillion in secret loans to criminal banksters?

http://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=9e2a4ea8-6e73-4be2-a753-62060dcbb3c3

After all, $500 million is only 0.003 percent of $16 trillion.

If the criminal banksters were able to make just a 2% spread on those $16 trillion in loans, that’s a theft of $320 billion from taxpayers straight to the criminal banksters who caused the economic mess we are currently in. $500 million is just 0.15 percent of $320 billion.

The difference between the right and the left is that the right always focuses on something that is relatively inconsequential (a $500 million dollar failed loan) while the left actually focuses on things that are important ($16 trillion in secret loans from the Federal Reserve to criminal banksters).

[Anonymous]

[quote=flu]centralized, definitive plan by the government on WHAT and HOW specifically the money was to be spent?[/quote]

Centralized economic plan? Where have I heard that term before?

[quote]Defense/intelligence projects typically originate from the government with a specific goal and specific result…The way a lot of these green job grants went was basically a free-for-all loan to whatever cock-a-mania idea someone applying for the grant could come up with….[/quote]

So spending a few hundred million on developing a more efficient solar panel is “cock-a-mania” idea but spending multiple billions on missile defense is a sound investment?

Dude, you’re a tech guy and an investor. Think about it.

Which do you think has the bigger potential for investment returns? How much of our GDP goes into energy? Building a solar panel that is just slightly more efficient than current technologies could be worth trillions of dollars.

Missile defense? Talk about pipe dreams.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-03/missile-defense-costing-35-billion-misses-bullets-with-bullets.html
No one knows whether the $35 billion program would work. It has never been tested under conditions simulating a real attack by an intercontinental ballistic missile deploying sophisticated decoys and countermeasures. The system has flunked 7 of 15 more limited trials, yet remains exempted from normal Pentagon oversight and so far has been spared the cuts Congress is demanding in other areas of federal spending.

$35 billion dude.

My neighbor, who works at BAE, told me about this one:
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/07/06/27-billion-later-armys-intelligence-sharing-computer-system-still-doesnt-work/#ixzz1XBTvap86
$2.7 Billion Later, Army’s Intelligence-Sharing Computer Still Doesn’t Work

Defense spending is “top-down” – the government (Congress) decides how much to spend and then doles it out. If there are not enough sensible ideas, do you think they cut the budget, or choose not to invest?

The budget gets bigger every year. If there aren’t enough projects that “make sense” they still give it to whomever/whatever. Surely you’ve heard the term “use it or lose it?”

This article makes some good points:

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/how-much-defense-acquisition-waste-is-enough/

Read it, and then read it again. The second time you read it, replace the words “defense spending” with “energy research.” Not much changes, eh?

[Anonymous]

[quote=Allan from Fallbrook]I wonder if our Leftist troll buddy will come out [/quote]

Our rightist troll buddy (EconProf) has come out.

Why don’t you ever complain about him?

[briansd1]

[quote=flu]Oops…$500 million…

No worries, I’m sure some company in China will buy all the I.P./patents that this company created from the economic stimulus grants inevitably paid by taxpayers at 10cents on the dollar -(

[/quote]

I wonder how China does it when we can’t. We had the lead and the technology.

Yeah, it’s really smart of us to cheer the bankruptcy of one of our own companies.

Loans at very low rates from state-owned banks in Beijing, cheap or free land from local and provincial governments across China, huge economies of scale and other cost advantages have transformed China from a minor player in the solar power industry just a few years ago into the main producer of an increasingly competitive source of electricity.

[The-Shoveler]

No one says anything when china prints money,

Heck I don’t think anyone even keeps track and if they did anyone here think that it would be accurate ?
So lets just put it out there, we go flat currentcy, china prints, who do you think will win ?

[Coronita]

[quote=briansd1][quote=flu]Oops…$500 million…

No worries, I’m sure some company in China will buy all the I.P./patents that this company created from the economic stimulus grants inevitably paid by taxpayers at 10cents on the dollar -(

[/quote]

I wonder how China does it when we can’t. We had the lead and the technology.

Yeah, it’s really smart of us to cheer the bankruptcy of one of our own companies.

Loans at very low rates from state-owned banks in Beijing, cheap or free land from local and provincial governments across China, huge economies of scale and other cost advantages have transformed China from a minor player in the solar power industry just a few years ago into the main producer of an increasingly competitive source of electricity.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/25/business/energy-environment/25solar.html%5B/quote%5D

Brian, who’s cheering the demise of our companies?

And to answer the question why china can do it cheaper…Cheaper labor, relaxed environment concerns, government subsidies,etc.

[Coronita]

[quote=pri_dk]

So spending a few hundred million on developing a more efficient solar panel is “cock-a-mania” idea but spending multiple billions on missile defense is a sound investment?

Dude, you’re a tech guy and an investor. Think about it.

Which do you think has the bigger potential for investment returns? How much of our GDP goes into energy? Building a solar panel that is just slightly more efficient than current technologies could be worth trillions of dollars.

[/quote]

The problem is, again, our government had NO IDEA what was being built…. Read the details about this particular type of solar panel. It was doomed from day one, because the cost of using more than one flat panel was still < the cost of one of these "newer solar panels"... The problem is our government has know knowledge of understanding/assessing. As an "investor", I would assume at least I would somewhat "understand" what I was investing into. No agency, no knowledge of what these companies where going to do... If the government is going to have spend on an energy program. Fine. More power to our government. What is our energy program again, and how is the money being used???? [quote] rant about defense spending [/quote] You won't get a disgreement from me about how much we shouldn't be spending on defense. But the point I was trying to make was at least there's some direction on what "should" be built from DOD, with a spec and all. These green projects was more like "here's the money, tell us what you're going to build, or tell us what you think you're going to build, even if you don't..." If there's any lesson to be learned about how we work in this country is that if you give someone a buck, they'll figure out how to spend 4 and won't remember what they used it for....It applies to our government. The really really sad part is that someone is going to end up buying the i.p. of said company and that someone probably will be an overseas company.

[Coronita]

[quote=DomoArigato]For those of you upset about this relatively piddling amount, are you also concerned about the $16 trillion in secret loans to criminal banksters?

http://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=9e2a4ea8-6e73-4be2-a753-62060dcbb3c3

After all, $500 million is only 0.003 percent of $16 trillion.

If the criminal banksters were able to make just a 2% spread on those $16 trillion in loans, that’s a theft of $320 billion from taxpayers straight to the criminal banksters who caused the economic mess we are currently in. $500 million is just 0.15 percent of $320 billion.

The difference between the right and the left is that the right always focuses on something that is relatively inconsequential (a $500 million dollar failed loan) while the left actually focuses on things that are important ($16 trillion in secret loans from the Federal Reserve to criminal banksters).[/quote]

This isn’t a right versus left rant. This is an argument about the government should stop spending taxpayer dollars on bullshit without a definitive plan, right or left…..And more importantly, why government should not be able to exist completely to the left nor should it be allowed to exist completely to the right…

[EconProf]

[quote=DomoArigato]For those of you upset about this relatively piddling amount, are you also concerned about the $16 trillion in secret loans to criminal banksters?

.[/quote]

Yes.

[Author]

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