No One Could Have Seen It Coming... Except For Those Of Us Who DID

People are shocked and outraged to learn that a "green" company that the Obama administration sent half a billion dollars in "stimulus" funds to has gone bankrupt and forced 1100 employees out of work. Had they started reading the Zilla blog a lot sooner, they would not have been so surprised.

Legal Insurrection says, "No one could have seen this coming", regarding the scandal surrounding solar panel company Solyndra. The Other McCain recalls how Obama railed against giving special breaks to corporations that shipped jobs overseas and finds the current turn of events more than a bit ironic:

But it’s OK for Obama to advocate special tax breaks for ”the industries of the future, like clean energy.”
So how’s that working out for ya?

President Obama faces political catastrophe in the form of Solyndra — a San Francisco Bay area solar company that he touted as a gleaming example of green technology. It has announced it will declare Chapter 11 bankruptcy. More than 1,100 people will lose their jobs.
During a visit to the Fremont facility in spring of 2010, the President said the factory “is just a testament to American ingenuity and dynamism and the fact that we continue to have the best universities in the world, the best technology in the world, and most importantly the best workers in the world.“ . . .
The President was celebrating $535 million in federal promises from the Department of Energy to the solar startup.

Ohhhh. But at least the Obama administration isn’t encouraging U.S. companies to ship jobs overseas, right? Right?

Solyndra is not the only solar company (among other companies) which have used our tax money, provided by the Obama administration, to outsource work to foreigners overseas, the following is from my post about this issue written back in December:

Where I live, in NY's Hudson Valley, we have two plants here that manufacture solar panels. My friend Ute works at one of them. Like many businesses in the region and around the country, Ute's company is struggling to stay afloat. Like many families in the region and around the country, Ute and her husband are struggling to survive financially amid every rising prices for basic necessities and wages that never seem to increase to meet the need. So when I found this piece by theblogprof yesterday, I had a feeling that Ute was going to be seriously upset:

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Fraud: MI solar company gets $42 million to manufacture solar panels in India, creates only 17 jobs

Seventeen jobs. SEVENTEEN! That's all we have to show for Granholm throwing $42 million for GlobalWatt to move to Michigan. For background, here's a report from September by Kathy Hoekstra of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy: (video at theblogprof’s post)

The Center's Kathy Hoekstra and Mike LaFaive discovered claims made by GlobalWatt on its application for state tax credits were misleading or simply not true (making false claims on such an application is a felony). Those tax credits were contingent upon GlobalWatt following through on promises of job creation.

Job promises that never materialized: TV5 Investigates: High-Tech Jobs, Help Wanted?

For the past year, you’ve been hearing a lot about solar technology and how it can bring new life to this area traditionally known for making vehicles.

Jobs were promised and hopes were high -- but now that hope is turning into holdups and frustration from the top.

Can this once bright future already be dimming for our region?

(again,  video at  theblogprof’s post)

Only 17 people are currently employed by GlobalWatt. Let's see - $42 million divided by 17 people equals out to be about $2.5 million per person, which will pay for itself in about 10,000 years. Maybe. And the panels that they are selling are made in India:

Chris Philbrick is a former consultant with Globalwatt. He says while employed by GlobalWatt, he visited Hindhivac (HHV), a company in India, to build a business relationship. Philbrick says GlobalWatt ordered 12 solar panels from HHV, five of which are the items depicted on eBay.

GlobalWatt admits in an e-mail via eBay, "These are Made in India. But they are using very high content of US made material. The cells are from Suniva, from Georgia."

Philbrick explains that these panels may even have GlobalWatt labels on them, "This is perfectly legal and may be part of the business plan, but there isn't as much money to be made in selling solar panels on behalf of another company."

And this is going to improve Michigan's economy... how???

As predicted, my friend Ute is not amused. Here's what she had to say about it:

GlobalWatt got $42 million dollars from the government and they use Suniva cells. And it just so happens that Suniva’s chief marketing officer, Bryan Ashley, has been appointed to the U.S. government’s Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency... Advisory Committee in November. I smell something very fishy there.

Suniva CMO Bryan Ashley appointed to U.S. government advisory committee

I asked Ute, “Can the Solar Manufacturers here in the Hudson Valley manufacture the products that these frauds outsourced to India for?”

Her reply:

Sure they can, and we make models that they can't.

She had more to say about it as well, which she also posted over at theblogprof’s post: 

This makes me ill! I work for a small company that manufactures solarpanels here in NY state. We have been fighting for a grant for years, but I guess we are too small to even be considered. This burns me to no end, because most of us haven't gotten any raises and often times the owner pays our payroll out of his own pocket.

We do things the old fashion way in many ways still, like building by hand instead of machines for when we have special orders for glass/glass modules. We are the only company that makes these custom modules.

 
A customer wants a specific design and we do everything we can to make it happen. No other company does this, because it's not very lucrative due to so many things could be going wrong and a lot of money could be lost.

We also make a product called Sunslates, which are small panels already mounted on roofing tiles, we own the patent for that and nobody else makes it.

 
The fact that we make panels that nobody else makes, should earn us a grant, but nope, we are too small and not modern enough I guess. How are we suppose to upgrade if the money we need for that goes to fraudulent people like this???

Our company focuses on quality over quantity, which I guess also makes it harder to fight over grants compare to guys like these. The company in Kingston got a big grant btw, one that we were hoping for but at least they are employing local people.

And on another note, I read that GlobalWatt uses cells made by Suniva and all I can say to this is ROFLMAO! These cells are some of the worst I ever worked with. We have tried them and rejected them, because their quality is so horrific. Cells are all fragile, but these break if you just look at them wrong. I can't see how they could make decent solarpanels using those cells, so it wouldn't surprise me if that's not another lie.

 
There are cell companies in Taiwan that have much better quality cells and cheaper, so it wouldn't surprise me if they would get the cells from them, since they are obviously a lot closer. A lot of material can be gotten cheaper from the east, so I don't believe for a second they are getting materials from here.

Man, this really burns my buttons!!!

I was curious and checked out the e-bay add from GlobalWatt. What a joke! They only accept payment through paypal??? A multimillion dollar company and they can't even take checks or credit cards? ROFLMAO
I also noticed that the cells they used had double bus bars and Suniva, like so many other larger cell companies switched to triple bus bars awhile ago. So unless they have the machines and the technology to switch their machines to fit triple bus bar cells, they will be getting their cells from smaller unknown companies from the east somewhere. This whole company stinks to high heaven and the article I just found really makes it reek.

The CMO of Suniva works for the government, how convenient.

Here is some more about Solyndra, via The Other McCain:

Investigators Probe White House
Role in Massive Energy Loan
House investigators said they have uncovered evidence that White House officials became personally involved in an Energy Department review of a hot-button $535 million loan guarantee to the now-failed California solar company Solyndra. . . .

If the praises of high-ranking Obama-administration officials were a viable business plan, the solar-panel maker Solyndra would be an industrial juggernaut. . . .
Obama and Biden were literally invested in Solyndra’s success. The company got a half-billion-dollar federal loan guarantee, the first in a highly vaunted Department of Energy green-jobs program, as part of the stimulus. This was supposed to be the new economic model: government and its favored industries cooperating to lead the country into a green, politically approved recovery. . . .
A Department of Energy spokesman explained wanly, “The company was considered extraordinarily innovative as recently as 2010.” Innovative, maybe; profitable, no. It had never turned a profit since its founding in 2005. In the still “extraordinarily innovative” year of 2010, it canceled an attempted IPO and axed its CEO. . . .
President Bush was flayed for the Enron bankruptcy, based on his tenuous ties to the firm. If the same media rules applied, Solyndra would be Obama’s Enron, given his active promotion of the company and his lavish funding of it. A prodigious Obama-Biden fundraiser is a major backer of the failed concern.

“Green jobs” = Obama gets the green. You lose your jobs.

The Lonely Conservative has much more about the investigation into the Solyndra scandal, which really should be expanded to pretty much every company that the Obama administration steered funding to, if you ask me.

Here is another fine example of the administration's fuckery at the expense of American workers from my December post:

Here in New York, we have a wonderful company, Steuben Glass, which manufactures fine crystal and glassware - locally. When our "Senator from New York" became Obama's Secretary of State, she decided that the State Department needed some new glasses to serve drinks to foreign dignitaries (or whatever). Did she remember the people of New York who gave that carpetbagger a chance by voting her into the Senate twice (knowing full well that she was just using the seat as a stepping stone for higher office & that she'd not likely finish out her term)? No, she did not, here's what she actually did instead, via the NY Post:

Hill's $nub of U.S. companies in purchase of crystal stemware is clear

By GEOFF EARLE Post Correspondent

March 15, 2010

WASHINGTON --- Hillary Rodham Clinton's State Department is spending $5.4 million to buy fine crystal stemware for American embassies -- but it won't give the US economy much of a boost.

The contract was given to a tiny Washington, DC, interior designer, which in turn subcontracted the crystal work to a Swedish firm -- snubbing such US companies as the famous manufacturer in Clinton's own back yard, Steuben Crystal of upstate Corning.

The firm didn't even get a chance to bid on the contract, which will outfit embassies and ambassadors' residences with fancy crystal for ritzy functions.

Ironically, under the no-bid contract, some of the crystal is to be custom-crafted to include the seal of the United States, although Swedes will do all of the manufacturing.

Contracting rules require any American firms that subcontract work to use a domestic firm or get a waiver.

The firm that got the contract, Systems Design Inc., is a small interior-design firm in tony Georgetown. The company, which is eligible for minority small-business contracts, does not appear to have done any similar work.

After getting the contract in September, the firm subcontracted to Swedish glassmaker Orrefors/Kosta Boda USA.

Department spokesman Darby Holladay said Systems Design couldn't find a domestic producer who could meet the 100 percent lead-free requirement, although a Steuben spokesman said it does manufacture lead-free crystal.

But wait, there's more! As if the above wasn't bad enough, look at what we got in return for this shady investment - again, via the NY Post: 

Hill's stemware deal has no glass

By GEOFF EARLE

April 20, 2010

WASHINGTON -- A no-bid contract for custom crystal stemware for Hillary Rodham Clinton's State Department left taxpayers on the hook for $800,000 -- yet the feds didn't get a single glass -- an agency whistleblower has told The Post.

The glass contract -- obtained by The Post -- and other internal government billing documents are filled with overhead costs, including $117,000 for a "project manager," $63,000 for a "software engineer" and $44,000 for "warehouse housing."

But the documents show no purchase or delivery of a single sherry glass, whiskey tumbler, martini glass or brandy snifter, all of which are listed among fancy stemware to be procured for US embassies and ambassadors' residences overseas.

Systems Design Inc., the politically connected interior-design firm that got the contract totaling $5.4 million without competition, had no experience making glassware.

The firm's outsourcing of the contract to Sweden infuriated lawmakers, who wondered why New York's Steuben Glass got stiffed.

Not a single glass! 

In April, Darlene Mathis-Gardiner, who owns System Designs, pleaded guilty to committing fraud to land yet another government contract (H/T to Legal Insurrection commenter IpsoFacto who told me about it):

De$igning woman defrauded feds
By GEOFF EARLE Post Correspondent Last Updated: 7:07 AM, April 22, 2011

WASHINGTON -- A politically connected interior designer who won a $5.4 million deal to design fancy crystal glassware for Hillary Rodham Clinton's State Department has pleaded guilty to committing fraud to get another government contract.
Darlene Mathis-Gardner, the owner of Systems Design Inc., admitted to conspiring to defraud the United States and misrepresenting other contractors as her own employees in order to land a $1.3 million contract to do interior-design work at a Department of Homeland Security building in DC.
She faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

The person overseeing Mathis-Gardner's State Department contract gave more than $4,000 to then-Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign.
Whistleblower Doris Southern, who used to handle the contract at State, says she was forced out for resisting it.
"They couldn't have gotten the kind of money that they got [for the contract] if somebody higher hadn't authorized it -- somebody much higher," she told The Post yesterday.
According to the feds, Mathis-Gardner and a co-conspirator called another contractor to make up "fictitious invoices."

And let's not forget all the millions of tax dollars that Obama sent to Sri Lanka to train their people for high tech jobs that we could have benefited from here! You can read about that HERE.

Obama has been saying for quite some time now that he has a spiffy new jobs plan, and that he'd tell us about after his Martha's Vineyard vacation, and now after his long weekend relaxing at Camp David, but as it turns out, the 'big jobs speech' he will subject us and a joint session of Congress to on Thursday will include an announcement that his "plan" will actually be to give more speeches.  Yay.

This post is linked at Blazing Cat Fur. Thanks, BCF!

This post is linked at The Other McCain. Thank you, Wombat-socho!

This post is listed in Larwyn's Linx at Doug Ross. Thanks, Doug! 

This post is linked at The Conservative Hideout. Thank you, Matt!

This post is linked at The Camp Of The Saints. Thanks, Bob!

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