Republicans: Your prayers for victory in 2012 just might have been answered.
Recently, Solyndra, a solar panel manufacturing company based in California, filed bankruptcy after readily accepting a loan from the Department of Energy for $535 million.
Malinvestments do happen, and they are often unavoidable. However, the incident that occurred in this situation was egregious.
President Barack Obama and his staffers used Solyndra as the poster child for green jobs. Last year, the president toured the newly constructed factory subsidized by the federal government. He promoted Solyndra as the hallmark of the reusable energy industry.
A year later, the company filed bankruptcy, leaving its workers unemployed and without severance packages, and leaving taxpayers demanding retribution.
Earlier this month, the FBI raided the offices of Solyndra in search of accounts of fraudulence against the federal government.
Even if evidence is found, who will be footing the bill? Certainly not the the heads of Solyndra; they will all be pleading the Fifth or pointing their fingers at the other guy.
In the era of bailouts and corporate welfare, companies are rewarded for poor investments or lousy business. "Wrong," does not do justice to the proper sense of anguish felt by the small, independent business, who has been screwed over by cronies who guise themselves in the facade of laissez faire.
This current mess is not capitalism.
Another telltale sign of trouble occurred when billionaire George Kaiser intensively fundraised for President Obama's campaign back in 2008. The George Kaiser Family Foundation has 36.7 percent stake in the bankrupted company.
However, a spokesperson wrote in an email "George Kaiser is not an investor in Solyndra and did not participate in any discussions with the U.S. government regarding the loan."
The smell of rotten fish is in the air because Mr. Kaiser met with aides four different times before the loans were approved. It is too suggestive to scoff as coincidence.
Two weeks prior to the Bush administration leaving office, an application for a loan by Solyndra was considered, but the Energy Department's credit committee rejected the proposal.
The Office of Management and Budget, pressured by the White House, reluctantly allowed the loans even after suggesting that the "deal is not ready for prime time," written in an email by an OMB analyst back in March 2009.
People often bash the bureaucracy in Washington for its red tape, but maybe there could be a reason it's there.
According to the Atlantic, "an Energy official wrote of ‘a major outstanding issue' - namely, that Solyndra's numbers showed it would run out of cash in September 2011."
Honestly, why pay analysts and accountants to comb through the numbers if you jettison all their recommendations? A bank would go bottoms up if it acted on superfluous reasons rather than on calculations of profit and loss. Capitalist markets should allow them to fail.
Solyndra's business strategy was questionable as well.
Peter Lynch, a solar industry analyst, told ABC, "It's very difficult to perceive a company with a model that says, well, I can build something for $6 and sell it for $3."
Solyndra made use of brand new technology that did not require the silicon used by various competitors, but with the bad economy, the price of silicon plummeted, affecting the status quo.
There are only two options that might explain why these loans were initially approved: cronyism or incompetence.
Either way, Mr. President, do not let the door smack your butt on the way out.
Nicholas Butler is a journalism sophomore at UF. His column appears on Wednesdays.
