More Stimulus Firms Hit Rock Bottom

[Wolseley]

Hmmm…

Solyndra, the solar panel company whose highly publicized failure and consequent investigation by federal authorities has flashed across headlines recently, isn’t the only business to go belly up after benefiting from a piece of the $800 billion economic stimulus package passed in 2009.

At least four other companies have received stimulus funding only to later file for bankruptcy, and two of those were working on alternative energy.

foxnews.com/politics/2011/09/15/despite-stimulus-funding-solyndra-and-4-other-companies-have-hit-rock-bottom/

There’s just good news all over the place----

Jobless Claims Rise 428,000 First-Time Benefits Requests

WASHINGTON – The number of people applying for unemployment benefits jumped last week to the highest level in three months. It’s a sign that the job market remains depressed.

The economy added zero net jobs in August, the worst showing since September 2010. The unemployment rate stayed at 9.1 percent for the second straight month.

The job figures were weak because companies hired fewer workers and not because they stepped up layoffs, economists said. Business and consumer confidence fell last month after a series of events renewed recession fears.

The government reported that the economy barely grew in the first half of the year.

foxnews.com/politics/2011/09/15/jobless-claims-rise-again-428k-weekly-first-time-benefits-requests/

That bit about the “recession ending two years ago” is in defiance of both reality and common sense—and the prognosis does not look good:

Fresh Evidence the Economy Is On the Verge of Another Major Recession

Recent data indicates the economy is at the precipice of a second Great Recession—perhaps worse.

Recent data on car sales and broader retail sales, personal consumption and consumer attitudes indicates Americans are scared. Other than high income folks in the luxury category, a general lack of confidence in the president to adequately get the U.S. economy going is becoming a self fulfilling prophecy of economic decline.

Household incomes have sunk to their lowest levels since 2007, and the number of Americans living in poverty is rising.

The Labor Department reported no jobs were added in August. Mass layoffs have been announced at major financial houses and banks, pharmaceutical manufacturers, and telecommunications companies.

President Obama wants an additional $447 billion in new stimulus spending, but skeptical voters should ask: How can more $447 billion solve a problem the stimulus twice that size failed to fix?

foxnews.com/opinion/2011/09/15/fresh-evidence-economy-is-on-verge-another-major-recession/

Good job, Washington, you can all be real proud of yourselves.

I know, I know----“That’s just FOX News, Wolseley! Nothing but Republican lies! Ignore it because none of it’s true! You should be listening to Rachel Maddow!”

Sure. Right.

 

[Georgia]

Government, right or left, is a poorly designed instrument for maximizing any economy. It may regulate excesses well, but it simply cannot pick winners and losers in the market without distorting the process. When it tries to buck up failing companies, it spends taxpayer money on what the market rejects.

 

[j1akey]

I know, I know----“That’s just FOX News, Wolseley! Nothing but Republican lies! Ignore it because none of it’s true! You should be listening to Rachel Maddow!”

Sure. Right.

I actually have no problems with sources coming from Fox News as long as they’re actually reporting facts and not trying to twist them for its own political viewpoints.

Unfortunately the problem with this article is that it seems to keep (falsly) pushing the idea that Evergreen Solar recieved federal stimulus funds in an effort to talk about how badly the Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 is. This seems to be a recurring theme with Fox.

The company did get about $5.3 million to help build a new factory but those funds were from the state of Massachussets, not the stimulus package. The main problem seems to be that it can’t compete with Chinese manufacturing of solar panels which are so aggresively subsidised by the Chinese government that other companies couldn’t possibly stand a chance when it comes to competing.

Here’s a paragraph from the article:

Solar panels have been subsidized by the federal government. States’ governments are also subsidizing or giving taxpayers write-off on their tax return. And yet, these solar panels cannot make it in the competitive world without all these subsidies. And even with them, China is flooding the market with this cheap labor and the solar panels just don’t make sense," House Energy and Commerce Oversight and Investigations Subommittee Chairman Cliff Stearns R-Fla., told Fox News.

This guy goes on about how solar panels can’t make it in a competitive market (basically saying that solar panels are a waste of time). Well, how does he know? We don’t have a competative market to really test that theory. We have chinese made solar panels being made at rock bottom prices because of huge investment which is something we’re not willing to do these days.

For that matter I find it suspicious that he’s bagging on renewable energy companies when we try to prop them up a bit if they’re struggling but seem to have no problems with huge subsidies and tax breaks to multinational corporations that already make record billions in profit every year and would still be doing just find without those breaks.

We subsidise coal to the tune of tens of billions which is the only reason it’s “cheap”. If we did the same thing with green energy technologies we would eventually be able to start phasing out all this dirty energy we get.

 

[vanlab2005]

GREEN COMPANIES BANKRUPTCY COST TAX PAYERS BILLIONS.

Solyndra, the solar panel company whose highly publicized failure and consequent investigation by federal authorities has flashed across headlines recently, isn’t the only business to go belly up after benefiting from a piece of the $800 billion economic stimulus package passed in 2009. At least four other companies have received stimulus funding only to later file for bankruptcy, and two of those were working on alternative energy. The other bankrupt “green” companies are"

• Evergreen Solar Inc., indirectly received $5.3 million through a state grant to open a $450 million facility in 2007 that employed roughly 800 people. The company, filed for bankruptcy protection last month, saying it couldn’t compete with Chinese rivals
• SpectraWatt, a “green” company based in Hopewell Junction, N.Y., is also a solar cell company that was spun out of Intel in 2008. In June 2009, SpectraWatt received a $500,000 grant from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory as part of the stimulus package. SpectraWatt was one of 13 companies to receive the money to help develop ways to improve solar cells without changing current manufacturing processes. The company filed for bankruptcy last month, saying it could not compete with its Chinese competitors, which receive “considerable government and financial support.”
• Another winner of stimulus who ultimately lost is Mountain Plaza Inc. Despite declaring bankruptcy in 2003, the company received $424,000 from the Tennessee Department of Transportation as part of a grant aimed at installing “truck stop electrification” systems that allow idling truckers to plug-in during extended stops and turn off their polluting diesel engines. Mountain Plaza had filed for bankruptcy protection again in June 2010. TDOT, which received a $2 million stimulus grant from the Environmental Protection Agency under Obama. The EPA now claimed that it didn’t learn about the bankruptcy until October 2010.
• Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsen’s Mills Acquisition Co. also failed despite Olsen’s Mills receiving $10 million to increase employment, add equipment and machinery,
  refinance existing debts and work capital for operations and acquire land. The payout is part of a $64 million package to nine rural businesses in Wisconsin for economic development loan assistance was delivered in January 2010, after Olsen’s Mills filed for bankruptcy protection for defaulting on a $60 million bank loan.

I’m tempted to create my own “green” company to convert fuel out dung, I’ll probably get hundred of millions of government grant from the stupid tax payers and then declared bankruptcy after spending all the money. Welcome to Brave New World !

 

[Trader]

OK, here is my personal story about government working for us. Today I received a check from the Securities and Exchanges Commission in the case against Bank of America.

In early 2009 I bought shares in BAC without knowing that the proposed deal for BAC to buy Merrill Lynch was about to fall apart because of huge losses at Merrill in mortgage related securities. BAC CEO Ken Lewis failed to disclose this information in a timely manner, although he had a legal duty to do this. The merger was completed only after BAC received another $25,000,000,000.00 in TARP loans from the government. Because this information was wrongly kept secret, the stock tumbled when the news finally broke and I suffered a loss of a little over $10,000.00.

The SEC filed suit to make a recovery for injured parties, including me. After 2-1/2 years of negotiation, the SEC sent me my check today, for $30. If that is not bad enough, the payment did not come from the individual who violated his fiduciary duty; it came from the company, which just happened to be owned by people like me. Basically, our government spent a lot of time and effort so they could mail me a check for $30 from a company that I partly own.

Does that make you all feel better about the government protecting us?

 

[Darryl1958]

Obama objected to American exceptionalism and he has succeeded.
Nothing exceptional about America anymore. the level of corruption is matching anything that comes out of the third world tin pots.

 

[manualman]

I’m not sure how anybody could ever think that solar panels can be competitively manufactured in America in this age and with free markets. China’s advantage (for now) is dirt cheap labor and near zero environmental standards in industry. Their disadvantages are spotty quality control, cultural/language barriers and shipping costs.

Solar panels are expensive, labor and material intensive to build and compact and easy to ship. Their manufacture is perfectly suited to massive manufacturing scale and the volume is high enough that it is worth the time and effort of soing necessary quality control and training.

In short, no contest. China will whoop our heines on this one in the current world economy. America can compete on quality, innovation, responsiveness and small volume products. Enormous runs of identical products? No way.

 

[Wolseley]

Obama objected to American exceptionalism and he has succeeded.
Nothing exceptional about America anymore. the level of corruption is matching anything that comes out of the third world tin pots.

Basically. I have said from the beginning that Obama’s goal is make the United States of America the economic, trade, banking, industrial, and military equivalent of Bangladesh.

 

[TheTrueCentrist]

Basically. I have said from the beginning that Obama’s goal is make the United States of America the economic, trade, banking, industrial, and military equivalent of Bangladesh.

I understand that it is hard for people to accept that the US’s position as the world’s superpower is eroding. Even so, it is reprehensible to claim that anyone, especially the president, who fails to deny the existence of this elephant in the room at every opportunity is therefore actively subverting the country. Such a claim is ungrounded, uncharitable, unproductive, unpatriotic, and embarrassingly uninformed.

 

[TheTrueCentrist]

I’m not sure how anybody could ever think that solar panels can be competitively manufactured in America in this age and with free markets. China’s advantage (for now) is dirt cheap labor and near zero environmental standards in industry. Their disadvantages are spotty quality control, cultural/language barriers and shipping costs.

No, it is gigantic government subsidies. Subsidies that are larger than those proposed by the US. In other words, China has caused US subsidies to peter out not by being more free market, but rather by subsidizing more aggressively.

topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/energy-environment/solar-energy/index.html

China’s Big Three solar power companies — Suntech Power, Yingli Green Energy and Trina Solar — all announced in August 2011 that their sales in the second quarter were up between 33 and 63 percent from a year earlier.

But, analysts say, China has achieved this dominance through lavish government subsidies in its solar industry that are detrimental to American companies and other foreign competitors. While most U.S., Japanese and European companies still have a technological edge, China has a cost advantage, analysts say. 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 into the main producer of an increasingly competitive source of electricity.

 

[Wolseley]

I understand that it is hard for people to accept that the US’s position as the world’s superpower is eroding. Even so, it is reprehensible to claim that anyone, especially the president, who fails to deny the existence of this elephant in the room at every opportunity is therefore actively subverting the country. Such a claim is ungrounded, uncharitable, unproductive, unpatriotic, and embarrassingly uninformed.

Maybe. But that is my opinion, and I stick by it.

If for no other reason than that Obama is the first and only president in this country’s history who listed a known member of the Communist Party as one of his childhood mentors (Frank Marshall Davis); who tried to appoint another self-proclaimed Communist as “green jobs czar” (Van Jones); who appointed as White House comunications director a woman (Anita Dunn) who publicly stated that she admired Communist mass murderer Mao Tse-Tung; and Mao, incidentally, had his representation hung on the White House Christmas tree during Mssr. Obama’s watch.*

Now, you can try to tell me that a man who has surrounded himself with so many Commies and pinko sympathizers has not been influenced by them in the slightest—but I’m not buying it. The steadfast goal of the Communist Party for the last century was to destroy the United States…and it looks to me like that’s exactly what Obama is trying to do, consciously or unconsciously, even though he may not be overt about it. One way to bring us down is to spend us into oblivion, and he, with the help of his left-wing pals in Congress, is certainly well along on the road to doing that.

I don’t trust him any farther than I can throw an aircraft carrier. At best he is a bumbling incompetant, and at worst for me to say what I think he is would get me immediately banned. Bottom line is that I think there’s a lot more to Mr. Obama than meets the eye, and it may be decades before we find out what it is, but eventually, it will come out.

*A Communist mass murderer on the White House Christmas tree! Can you imagine such a thing happening under anybody’s watch other than Obama’s? Not even hardcore liberals like Lyndon Johnson or Jimmy Carter would have ever considered committing such a symbolic move in their wildest dreams. Maybe Michelle Obama felt that when her hubby got the Democratic nomination that it was the first time in her adult life that she was actually proud of her country; when Mao Tse-Tung was hung from the White House Christmas tree it was the first time in my adult life that I was actually embarassed for my country.

 

[Darryl1958]

Basically. I have said from the beginning that Obama’s goal is make the United States of America the economic, trade, banking, industrial, and military equivalent of Bangladesh.

Well he is either totally incompetent, or totally succeeding if that is his goal.

If equality of result is the desired outcome, it certainly is a lot easy to make everybody equally poor rather than making everyone equally rich.

And since that is what he wants, he is doing a fine job.

 

[Darryl1958]

I understand that it is hard for people to accept that the US’s position as the world’s superpower is eroding. Even so, it is reprehensible to claim that anyone, especially the president, who fails to deny the existence of this elephant in the room at every opportunity is therefore actively subverting the country. Such a claim is ungrounded, uncharitable, unproductive, unpatriotic, and embarrassingly uninformed.

So it is your view that he is just grossly incompetent then?

 

[7_Sorrows]

Basically. I have said from the beginning that Obama’s goal is make the United States of America the economic, trade, banking, industrial, and military equivalent of Bangladesh.

passing the stimulus bill was a big mistake. obama has been in over his head from the beginning and has had incompetent people advising him if you ask me.
i understand that he has had to face many challenges, but nothing has worked. i just wish i could see a look on his face that he understands the gravity of the situation that americans are facing now - losing our homes, fighting to keep our homes, losing our jobs,
trying to find jobs.
it is so ironic that stimulus money was given to these companies and they still ended up going bankrupt. as time marches on, i wonder what other stimulus stories we will be hearing.

 

[Darryl1958]

passing the stimulus bill was a big mistake. obama has been in over his head from the beginning and has had incompetent people advising him if you ask me.
i understand that he has had to face many challenges, but nothing has worked. i just wish i could see a look on his face that he understands the gravity of the situation that americans are facing now - losing our homes, fighting to keep our homes, losing our jobs,
trying to find jobs.
it is so ironic that stimulus money was given to these companies and they still ended up going bankrupt. as time marches on, i wonder what other stimulus stories we will be hearing.

I tend toward seeing him as incompetent, perhaps too smart for his own good. Suffice it to way when it comes to socialized health, when it comes to stifling the traditional oil industry, and when it comes to big spending projects to fund the new energy projects that are now exploding under his feet, he is 100% aligned with the ideas that liberals and the left have been asking for for decades now.
He has been smart enough to succeed in those endeavors, but to say it as charitably as I can, he has demonstrated a complete lack of wisdom in believing that this kind of policy would be anything other than the disaster it has become.

Unless of course, the destruction of the capitalist system of free markets and free people was his goal all along. This is certainly a possibility, albeit one that I shudder to contemplate.
The left does have that kind of evil streak in it though, for sure.

 

[Wolseley]

I tend toward seeing him as incompetent, perhaps too smart for his own good. Suffice it to way when it comes to socialized health, when it comes to stifling the traditional oil industry, and when it comes to big spending projects to fund the new energy projects that are now exploding under his feet, he is 100% aligned with the ideas that liberals and the left have been asking for for decades now.
He has been smart enough to succeed in those endeavors, but to say it as charitably as I can, he has demonstrated a complete lack of wisdom in believing that this kind of policy would be anything other than the disaster it has become.

Unless of course, the destruction of the capitalist system of free markets and free people was his goal all along. This is certainly a possibility, albeit one that I shudder to contemplate.
The left does have that kind of evil streak in it though, for sure.

Couldn’t have said this better myself. QFT.

I think I have said before that at best, he’s a bumbling incompetant, and at worst he’s a Communist subversive who’s out to destroy the country. Regardless of which one it is, let’s hope that we can get rid of this albatross before he manages to do any more damage.

“Anyone Else In 2012.”

 

[7_Sorrows]

I tend toward seeing him as incompetent, perhaps too smart for his own good. Suffice it to way when it comes to socialized health, when it comes to stifling the traditional oil industry, and when it comes to big spending projects to fund the new energy projects that are now exploding under his feet, he is 100% aligned with the ideas that liberals and the left have been asking for for decades now.
He has been smart enough to succeed in those endeavors, but to say it as charitably as I can, he has demonstrated a complete lack of wisdom in believing that this kind of policy would be anything other than the disaster it has become.

Unless of course, the destruction of the capitalist system of free markets and free people was his goal all along. This is certainly a possibility, albeit one that I shudder to contemplate.
The left does have that kind of evil streak in it though, for sure.

i agree that the left does have that kind of evil streak. they would like to have everyone as dependent on the government as could be. they see capitalism as evil. i don’t like all aspects of capitalism - but it is better than communism, fascism, or socialism. obama thinks he is smarter than the average voter, and that he is impressing us with his speeches before the teleprompters with his lofty words - which are backed by no action.
this last year before the next election will be very long i am afraid, but i hope that a new president in 2012 will help our nation.

 

[j1akey]

i agree that the left does have that kind of evil streak. they would like to have everyone as dependent on the government as could be. they see capitalism as evil. i don’t like all aspects of capitalism - but it is better than communism, fascism, or socialism. obama thinks he is smarter than the average voter, and that he is impressing us with his speeches before the teleprompters with his lofty words - which are backed by no action.
this last year before the next election will be very long i am afraid, but i hope that a new president in 2012 will help our nation.

The left doesn’t see capitalism as evil but runaway capitalism is defintely harmful. Nor should everything be run by the government. There IS middle ground here somewhere. No one on the left is talking about communism either so I’m not sure where all this talk is coming from. We simply don’t want huge corporations to have their way with the country all the time which is the direction we’re headed. As for socialism, we already use socialism to great effect in this country. It’s not good for everything but when it comes to “the commons” where everyone has access to certain services, it works out pretty good.

Here’s the thing. Barack Obama actually IS smarter than the average voter. You may not like his policies and you may disagree with him on many issues but that doesn’t make him stupid either.

I also can’t believe people still rag on him for the teleprompter thing. Really? Teleprompters are always used for prepared speaches or broadcasts and not just by the president either. It doesn’t really have any impact on someones ability to run the country.

 

[7_Sorrows]

The left doesn’t see capitalism as evil but runaway capitalism is defintely harmful. Nor should everything be run by the government. There IS middle ground here somewhere. No one on the left is talking about communism either so I’m not sure where all this talk is coming from. We simply don’t want huge corporations to have their way with the country all the time which is the direction we’re headed. As for socialism, we already use socialism to great effect in this country. It’s not good for everything but when it comes to “the commons” where everyone has access to certain services, it works out pretty good.

Here’s the thing. Barack Obama actually IS smarter than the average voter. You may not like his policies and you may disagree with him on many issues but that doesn’t make him stupid either.

I also can’t believe people still rag on him for the teleprompter thing. Really? Teleprompters are always used for prepared speaches or broadcasts and not just by the president either. It doesn’t really have any impact on someones ability to run the country.

i agree - runaway capitalism is harmful.
if he is so smart, why has he not done one thing to help the average american these last 3 years. if he is so smart, why does tim geithner still have his job? i can’t watch obama give a speech for more than a couple of seconds because he is like a programmed robot standing up there trying to sound smart, but saying a lot of nothing. when he first appeared on the political scene, i was intrigued, fascinated with him. he was a new face.
i couldn’t believe how he had people so mesmerized. i was wary though of what would happen if he became president. he might be a nice guy and a good father and husband,
but as a country we are facing real problems and real people are suffering through this economy and i just don’t see that Obama has seen the reality of the how bad the crisis is.
the stimulus plan that he and pelosi and reid and biden obviously hasn’t helped.

 

[Darryl1958]

The left doesn’t see capitalism as evil but runaway capitalism is defintely harmful. Nor should everything be run by the government. There IS middle ground here somewhere.

There indeed are those on the left who disagree and do see capitalism as the evil. The question is whether Obama is one of those, or if he is just incompetent. The evidence from his background is not one of liberalism or even socialism, but he has had association with many outright communists.
So is he ruining the economy on purpose, or is he just incompetent?

We simply don’t want huge corporations to have their way with the country all the time which is the direction we’re headed.

People on the left often assume big government is the antidote to big business, but they fail to notice the collusion between the two against the middle class interests. It is a corrupt corporatist model that the Obama administration has been following at any rate.

As for socialism, we already use socialism to great effect in this country. It’s not good for everything but when it comes to “the commons” where everyone has access to certain services, it works out pretty good.

There is also the question of sustainability. Trillion dollar deficits are the indication that it is not working out so well.

Here’s the thing. Barack Obama actually IS smarter than the average voter. You may not like his policies and you may disagree with him on many issues but that doesn’t make him stupid either.

Apparently then, a big brain does not make someone competent or wise either

I also can’t believe people still rag on him for the teleprompter thing. Really? Teleprompters are always used for prepared speaches or broadcasts and not just by the president either. It doesn’t really have any impact on someones ability to run the country.

It is not a big issue either way.