How did a failing California solar company, buffeted by short sellers and shareholder lawsuits, receive a $1.2 billion federal loan guarantee for a photovoltaic electricity ranch project—three weeks after it announced it was building new manufacturing plant in Mexicali, Mexico, to build the panels for the project.Seems to be a habit of liberal Dems to favor companies with connections to their relatives. Nancy Pelosi's brother-in-law got a $737 million for Tonopah Solar Energy in Nevada. And there's a good chance that all these solar Ponzi schemes will go bust, because we simply can't compete with the prices for which the Chinese can produce solar equipment.
The company, SunPower (SPWR-NASDAQ), now carries $820 million in debt, an amount $20 million greater than its market capitalization. If SunPower was a bank, the feds would shut it down. Instead, it received a lifeline twice the size of the money sent down the Solyndra drain.
Two men with insight into the process are SunPower rooter Rep. George R. Miller III, (D.-Calif.), the senior Democrat on the House Education and Workforce Committee and the co-chairman of the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, and his SunPower lobbyist son, George Miller IV.
Miller the Elder is a strong advocate for SunPower, which converted an old Richmond, Calif., Ford plant in his district to a panel-manufacturing facility.
But wait...there's more:
The sister-in-law of John Podesta, President Obama's influential White House transition director, served as the lobbyist for a wind power firm that was just awarded a $135.8 million loan guarantee from the Department of Energy.The Energy Department has become an ATM for Obama cronies.
The company is Brookfield Asset Management. It boasts a board of nine directors, including New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's long-term girlfriend.
The Energy Department's promise to Brookfield marks the latest in controversial massive alternative energy loans to companies with strong ties to the Obama White House and to top Democrat lawmakers.
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From “Capitalism vs. Capitalists” by Jonah Goldberg (April 23, 2010)
“Washington’s solution to Wall Street’s problems is to get Washington deeply, deeply involved in Wall Street. So involved that the savvier capitalists will recognize — once again — that the safest bets are not to be found in the vicissitudes of a fickle marketplace, but in gaming the system run from Washington. The ‘reform’ coming down the pike will put bureaucrats in charge of investors. If bureaucrats were better than investors, they wouldn’t be bureaucrats. The government will decide which firms are worthy — ‘systemically important’ — and which are not. Those that are will use their official ‘importance’ to game the system. Instead of eradicating ‘too big to fail,’ we will systematize it.”
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