Ace of Spades HQ

September 15, 2011

Jon Stewart Rips Obama on Solyndra
— Ace

They say he's the most important man in the news, and I hope so, because I still don't find him funny.*

But he does alert the liberals and independents who watch his show that this is a genuine scandal. In between, I mean, telling them that Green Energy really is the future and this one bad apple shouldn't spoil the bunch and making some claim that only 0.3% (or something) of our government's green energy investments have gone bad.

Um, it's only been two and a half years. Give it time.

But, I guess, this is as good as we can expect from this wannabe Walter Cronkite.

Stewart points something interesting out there: One of the analysts calling shenanigans on this deal predicted the company would tap out of money... in September 2011. Actual date of bankruptcy filing: September 6, 2011.

So, to the spin "no one could have predicted this," um.

More substantive disclosures at Hot Air.

As the company was going down, you'll at least be reassured to know that the OMB -- the president's office of management and budget -- was at least focused on nothing but the prudent care for the taxpayers' money.

Wait, did I say they were worried about nothing but the prudent care of the taxpayers' money? I got that completely wrong. What they were most interested in, when debating whether or not to get another lender to pour money into Solyndra (and put the government in a subordinate position in bankruptcy, as far as recovering whatever was left), they were interested in... the optics of a default.

Not losing your money in a default (and then more due to this new, higher-priority loan). No, the optics.

. Although optics are generally out of our lane, it may be worthwhile for the Director to privately make this point to the Secretary:
Given the PR and policy attention Solyndra received since 2009, the optics of a Solyndra default will be bad whenever it occurs. While the company may avoid default with a restructuring, there is also a good chance it will not. If Solyndra defaults down the road, the optics will arguably be worse later than they would be today. At that point, additional funds have been put at risk, recoveries may be lower, and question will be asked as to why the Administration made a bad investment, not just once (which could hopefully be explained as part of the challenge of support innovate technologies), but twice (which could easily be portrayed as bad judgement, or worse). In addition, the timing will likely coincide with the 2012 campaign season heating up, whereas a default today could be put in the context of (and perhaps even get some credit for fiscal discipline / good government because the Administration would be limiting further taxpayer exposure) letting bad projects go, and could make public steps it is taking to learn lessons and improve / limit future lending.

Way to keep your eyes on the bottom line, guys.

And, of course, by "bottom line," I mean optics.

I mean, it's not as if the optics of the photo op with the Vice President had anything to do with the rush-job you did on vetting this disaster in the first place or anything.

Perhaps that's unfair to the OMB guys -- perhaps they really were focused on fiscal prudence, but they knew the only way to catch the Administration's attention was to discuss the optics of a default, and the politics of 2012.

And what does that say, I wonder.

Thanks to rdbrewer.

* Okay, I admit the set-up for each news bit -- "Well at least they didn't X," roll tape of them doing X -- was decent.

Posted by: Ace at 10:53 PM | Comments (65)
Post contains 632 words, total size 4 kb.

1 I just find it reassuring that economists can predict anything right. They even had the right month: right on!

Also, Stewart's impression of Obama's telepromptering wasn't too far off. 2012 might be really exciting.

Posted by: dudeformerlyinsantacruz at September 15, 2011 11:02 PM (rY4gS)

2 You think that's something. In another interview http://tinyurl.com/3tplea5 he called Obamacare a CLUSTERF*CK!!! Stewart says he's sure the President is "pleased with what he's done," but adds: "I would have preferred to see something a little more transformative." He also calls Obama's health-care plan a "2,000-page clusterf-k." Asked to assess another cluster-you-know-what - the debt-ceiling debate - Stewart observes: "You can blame the intransigence of Tea Party Republicans all you want, but Democrats had a chance to pass a budget before they lost the midterm election. "They didn't do it because they were afraid that those votes would cost them the House," Stewart continues. "They had the ability to avoid the entire f-ing thing. And they didn't do it, out of cowardice."

Posted by: Comrade Arthur at September 15, 2011 11:03 PM (5Z/+/)

3 His *bit* is to roll tape, then stare at the camera with a perplexed face and tap his pencil. *pause for effect* Then almost say something. Then funny face again. Tap pencil. Repeat. Talented and funny are two different things.

Posted by: Johnny (John E.) at September 15, 2011 11:13 PM (nRTou)

4 " Green Energy really is the future " Yeah. 80 years from now, John Stewart's great grandkids will love it. But his kids and grandkids will hate it because they'll have to pay for it and suffer though the trial and error and stupidity it takes trying to get there with subsidies and quack research and ignorance of the facts of how it actually works. Too many people are ignorant of the fact that the REQUIRED conventional power backup (to have power available all of the time) for a wind farm, assuming it is fully functional, is 90% of the wind farm's output. So you need a windfarm and enough normal gas, nuke, or coal to make up 90% of the peak that the windfarm produces. That means that switching to wind means using MORE resources over all than the conventional power alone. Wind is not ready. Solar is not ready. Both are fragile. Nukes are verboten by der pointy headed schmarties. Cold fusion, regular fusion, and geothermal are pretty much not happening in any significant way. The giant solar collector satellites that sends down broadcast energy from orbit aren't real and won't be for a long time. Water power and dams supposedly kill the poor fishies and rivers. Right now the best bet are expensive parabolic solar collectors powering stirling engines and they aren't that great. Green Power is a lie and a dream. It's like chairman Mao giving the people acupuncture and dried ground tiger tits because he couldn't afford to give them real medicine to the degree that they need it. It is a head fake. It is a potential tragedy not unlike the 'great leap forward'. Scientists lie to engineers, who lie to techs, who lie to employees, who lie to supervisors, who lie to managers, who lie to a board that lies to officials, who lie to politicians, who lie to their constituents, all to keep the subsidies flowing out of families to taxes and to encourage "investment" from the dumber venture-capitalists and favor seekers. Anyone who doubts it is required to lie to themselves to keep from being labeled a denier. Courts, federalm state, and local agencies, and the legislatures and congress, to get new regulations and standards passed to keep the subsidies going and the conventional energy prices on the rise. It is a sick cycle that is really a spiral because it does not sustain the current infrastructure. Gives us you coal and we'll give you a promise that we can't keep, but who cares, you're a dumb serf who is just a cobblestone paving the road to a 'historically inevitable' communist paradise anyway. Marx said so.

Posted by: cackfinger at September 15, 2011 11:14 PM (a9mQu)

5 I have a green energy program I plan to implement starting day one.

I'm taking the House Progressive Caucus and turning them into human solar panels.

Posted by: Rick F'n Perry at September 15, 2011 11:27 PM (CJIam)

6 It's not easy being green.

Posted by: Obama at September 15, 2011 11:31 PM (YFrne)

7 (Writing AttackWatch as we speak)

Posted by: WheelmanForHire at September 15, 2011 11:31 PM (tQJlw)

8 Jon Stewart is a douchebag. But credit where due. His bit on the NY-9 results was screamingly funny. http://tinyurl.com/3gr9mgu

Posted by: Dumb_Blonde at September 15, 2011 11:32 PM (dLuqr)

9 OT: I just made (and ate) a spectacular sam-ich.

Posted by: Mister Christopher at September 15, 2011 11:46 PM (cjGZv)

10 who's on the other side of the loan? Thats who the WH was protecting, the company that loan Solyndra the money

Posted by: 4rc at September 16, 2011 12:03 AM (88Pt/)

11 This is unpossible. There is nothing funny about Barack Obama.

Posted by: Neal Marks - Washington Correspondent at September 16, 2011 12:13 AM (ZgvjV)

12 10 who's on the other side of the loan? Thats who the WH was protecting, the company that loan Solyndra the money

Posted by: 4rc at September 16, 2011 04:03 AM (88Pt/)

That's small potatoes - about $75 million they threw down the pit to keep the company solvent a few more months. But how the heck do you spend $500 million in less than a year? They had 1100 employees; if you figure the average cost including benefits and taxes was $100K each, that is still only $110 million . . . the factory was already under construction, where did the rest of the money go?

Posted by: Adjoran at September 16, 2011 12:20 AM (VfmLu)

13 The money went to pay back early investors. thats why its fucking fraud and people need to go to jail

Posted by: Zakn at September 16, 2011 12:21 AM (7F9i5)

14 the factory was already under construction, where did the rest of the money go?

Posted by: Adjoran at September 16, 2011 04:20 AM (VfmLu)

offshore.

my guess is the first bank of the Grand Cayman Isles.

Posted by: Gushka goes blue at September 16, 2011 01:15 AM (QNeKQ)

15 While the company may avoid default with a restructuring, there is also a good chance it will not.

Not a chance in hell. Their buisness model has always been shit. As for "other green businesses" doing well, how about all those CA geothermal plants that have gone belly up. In addition a wood chip ethanol boondoggle in GA that I am familiar with went belly up last month.

The fat is that like the Carter years, all these "green" industry boondoggles exist for only one profit center and that is government money. When that government money dries up the buisness model collapses.

You can not defy the laws of economics for long. Green shit is simply not profitable. The only way it exists at all is either due to government subsidy or government mandates.

Posted by: Vic at September 16, 2011 01:24 AM (M9Ie6)

Here are some more that have gone under.

And this is really the tip of the iceberg.

Posted by: Vic at September 16, 2011 01:31 AM (M9Ie6)

17 http://tinyurl.com/3gr9mgu

Whoa.

Posted by: Mister Christopher at September 16, 2011 01:37 AM (cjGZv)

18 If people start going to jail for sh*t like this then there would be a lot less of it. Taxpayer money is not monopoly money. It's there to pay the legit bills of the country. And crap like this is why I cringe everytime I hear "raise taxes".

Posted by: Case at September 16, 2011 01:42 AM (FD6YW)

19 If Obama said Solyndra would work and it didn't, doesn't that mean reality is wrong? And really, couldn't Obama just fix this with another Big Dreamy Speech?

Posted by: Koolaid Drinking Obamabot at September 16, 2011 01:43 AM (6uDBc)

20 When your business plan is to steal as much govt money as possible then I would Say that Solyndra was very successful.

Obama's Teapot Dome, couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

Posted by: Velvet Ambition at September 16, 2011 01:55 AM (KwL7a)

21 If only Solyndra's employees were unionized; say a local of the UAW or AFL perhaps, the government could just step in and save it from default. Just like Chrysler and GM. Problem solved. Jeez, just use Dodd/Frank and declare it too big to fail. Then... Profit!!!

Posted by: J.J. Sefton at September 16, 2011 02:01 AM (UlUS4)

22 Rocco, now he is a funny man. Too bad his joke is not PC enough to link.

Posted by: sTevo at September 16, 2011 02:03 AM (VMcEw)

23 As for "other green businesses" doing well, how about all those CA geothermal plants that have gone belly up. In addition a wood chip ethanol boondoggle in GA that I am familiar with went belly up last month.

Posted by: Vic at September 16, 2011 05:24 AM (M9Ie6)

I'm pretty sure that a ballyhooed one in the Cleveland area went tits up. The whole green thing's a fucking scam and anybody with a bit of scientific insight has known this.

If Leibowitz and others are dropping a dime on this, Soros must be yanking some puppet strings. Those cocksuckers are incapable of independent ethical thinking.

Posted by: Captain Hate at September 16, 2011 02:11 AM (RKzwg)

24 OK JS had a funny line:

OK FOX news, you better call your doctor, because that erection is going to last more than 4 hours.

That was comical.

Posted by: sTevo at September 16, 2011 02:17 AM (VMcEw)

25 Behold, the awesome understanding of ChuBarky for the feasibility and economics of green energy!

Posted by: No Whining at September 16, 2011 02:23 AM (Ulyg2)

26 AT Barak Whobama

That is an ideological failure most of all; the Left has just decided that America is in decline, and let the world go to hell. It is another dangerous fantasy. Political fantasies have real consequences, like Ahmadinejad and his nuclear weapons in Iran, which can be traced straight to Jimmy Carter's delusional beliefs. Today, Jimmy Carter still thinks he was right in 1979. These people are dangerous.

Great, and Carter just endorsed Romney. Maybe Carter has insight to the Moron end times scenario. That, or Carter is vying for one of those 144,000 positions thru the ultimate works program, endorsement.Crazy, I know.

Posted by: sTevo at September 16, 2011 02:31 AM (VMcEw)

27 Could someone clue me into why Peanut Farmer would indorse Romney and not Teh One. Heck, if it weren't for Obama, Carter would still be the worst prez ever, instead of the 2d worst Prez ever.

Posted by: Lurkin'no'mo at September 16, 2011 02:44 AM (6zvrq)

28 Jimmuh was saying he could be happy with a Mitten's admin not that he preferred Mittens over Ogabe.

Posted by: sven10077 at September 16, 2011 02:56 AM (AEIYh)

29 funny how the KosKids have been salivating about finding an energy scandal with the Koch brothers, which they thought would discredit conservatives - and instead they get an energy scandal involving Kaiser, one of Obama's biggest financers. Funny how the world turns.

Posted by: Tom Servo at September 16, 2011 02:57 AM (/7hoP)

30 Thanks, Sven

Posted by: Lurkin'no'mo at September 16, 2011 02:59 AM (6zvrq)

31 30 Lnm, NP, I think just as interesting as Dhimmi's little bit on mitt is Barry doubling down on stupid and saying he's doing better election chance wise now than in '08 on ABC. Tells me he may be on vitamin LSD.

Posted by: sven10077 at September 16, 2011 03:04 AM (AEIYh)

32 Hellooooo, Jon Stewart?

Posted by: Fast & Furious at September 16, 2011 03:08 AM (MMC8r)

33 Romney will have the Southern vote locked up with Jimmys endorsement. Perry is screwed.

Posted by: Jean at September 16, 2011 03:14 AM (OfinX)

34 Clown nose off, clown nose on

Posted by: toby928© at September 16, 2011 03:39 AM (GTbGH)

35 I question Jon Stewart's conservatism.

Posted by: Empire of Jeff at September 16, 2011 03:54 AM (vzFJV)

36 2

Stewart says he's sure the President is "pleased with what he's done," but adds: "I would have preferred to see something a little more transformative."

Posted by: Comrade Arthur at September 16, 2011 03:03 AM (5Z/+/)

Yup. This camera-mugging dickface's sole lament regarding democrat politicians is that, gosh darn it, they just aren't leftist enough. I'll bet the prick wouldn't consider obamacare a "clusterfuck" if it comprised the complete and unequivocal government takeover of the entire US healthcare system rather than the mere staged approach to that end.

May he suck the barbed cock of Satan.

Posted by: Herr Blücher at September 16, 2011 04:07 AM (xw9IB)

Obama's 2012 Campaign Motto

"I'll just take a mulligan here"

Posted by: buzzsaw at September 16, 2011 04:09 AM (M3mVf)

38 Romney will have the Southern vote locked up with Jimmys endorsement. Perry is screwed.

I seriously doubt that. I don't see a doofus like Carter having much influence over Republican voters other than to look at any candidate other than Romney.

Posted by: Iron Balls McGinty at September 16, 2011 04:11 AM (Gkhxf)

39 "Okay, I admit the set-up for each news bit -- "Well at least they didn't X," roll tape of them doing X -- was decent." That's is the same set-up he used for the James O'Keefe ACORN thingummy a while back. I guess when you find something that works, right?

Posted by: elizabethe at September 16, 2011 04:18 AM (3hu5M)

40 38 IBM,

Oh I know the coveted Peanut Chamberlain Seal of Approval changed my vote....

I am now "Leaning Perry will vote for Mickey Mouse over Ogabe" rather than "undecided"...

Posted by: sven10077 at September 16, 2011 04:20 AM (AEIYh)

41 Obama is a stuttering clusterf*ck of a miserable failure.

Posted by: steevy at September 16, 2011 04:26 AM (fyOgS)

42 Hiya! Yeah, ha ha ha ha. Nice ta see ya! Yeah!
The jobs bill...needs to be passed. And Right. Now. These people at this fine
company, this solar Cylinder techno thing they got is pretty interesting. I might want to invest in it myself. They need those jobs. To create more jobs. And more jobs. For the American peeeple. That's new technology at work. Creating green jobs for as far as the eye can see. Millions of 'em.
So let's get this jobs bill passed. Right. Now. It's the patriotic thing to do.

Posted by: Joe Biden at September 16, 2011 04:38 AM (uCa4P)

43 "Romney will have the Southern vote locked up with Jimmys endorsement. Perry is screwed." Um, no. We're actually still pretty damned embarrassed about him down here. Carter's endorsement is pretty close to the kiss of death for a good chunk of Republican Southerners.

Posted by: Mandy P., Teahadi from Hobbitton at September 16, 2011 05:12 AM (qFpRI)

44 Wasn't their business model pretty much: "Sell widget at $1 that costs $3 to make?"

Posted by: Jimmuy at September 16, 2011 05:14 AM (Y+dny)

45 The theme here is that Obama, the child-king, had such good intentions that he couldn't see the incompetence/duplicity of these dirty capitalist pigs. They let him down and if he has any flaw, it's being too good of a person and thus naive. This scandal is not one of incompetence, this was a money-laundering scheme,

Posted by: AmishDude at September 16, 2011 05:15 AM (73tyQ)

46 Yeah, fiscal discipline. We knew the money was soaked in gasoline, but we threw the match in anyway, the first time. It's a win though. We can spin this because we didn't throw the match the second time.

Posted by: no good deed at September 16, 2011 05:25 AM (mjR67)

47 Hey, our bad judgement could easily be portrayed as bad judgement. When people say they don't want you to get the wrong idea, they usually mean they don't want you to get the right idea.

Posted by: Michael at September 16, 2011 05:29 AM (0S4wt)

48 I guess I'm just a provincial rube, but using the term "optics" as a euphemism for "PR nuclear fucking disaster" is incredibly annoying.

Posted by: Phinn at September 16, 2011 05:34 AM (5yZsp)

49 Green Energy really is the future.

I have a copy of the Brooklyn Eagle from January 1, 1900, which was devoted to the wonders of the upcoming 20th century. Some of the predictions were correct (votes for women, for example, and deadlier warfare); but in the area of energy, their hot prediction was liquid air. Liquid air, they said, would turn the earth into paradise.

The article is a concatenation of misunderstanding and wishful thinking. It's fine example of how people can zero in on a technology that is "promising" and plant all their hopes on it, while ignoring its limitations.

Fortunately, the Obama administration was not around 100 years ago, or they would have had liquid-air subsidies and price supports coming out the wazoo. The entire economy would have been bent to realize the wondrous potential of liquid air. And in 2011, we'd be several generations behind where we are now, because all of our investment capital would have been squandered, by choice, on a faddish, useless technology.

I'm all in favor of newer, more efficient techologies - who isn't, after all? But the market is the testing ground that will tell us what really works and what doesn't. The JEF can no more command a technology to work, than he can command the ocean to recede: but that won't stop him from trying.

Man, November 2012 can't get here soon enough!

Posted by: Brown Line at September 16, 2011 05:41 AM (VrNoa)

James Earl Carter

The Original SCOAMF

Posted by: buzzsaw at September 16, 2011 05:50 AM (M3mVf)

BTW, you all miss the point. Solyndra was not an administration error. It was another demonstration of the failure of capitalism to choose the correct future. Likewise the problem with providing a stimulus that is just a bit too small.

Rest assured that once we pass our ObamaPower bill, this will all be rectified.

Posted by: scoamf at September 16, 2011 05:55 AM (M3mVf)

Ace posting at 2:53 A.M?

Ace, you aren't a machine.

Pace yourself.

Posted by: journolist at September 16, 2011 05:58 AM (Fb9Q0)

Somewhat buried in the AP story is this nugget:

A 2009 report by the Energy Department's inspector general warned that the DOE lacked the necessary quality control for the loan guarantee program, which was created in 2005 to support clean-energy projects that could not obtain conventional bank loans due to high risks.

Forget about the later warnings. And forget even about about the 2009 report and the lack of quality control. The premise itself beginning in 2005 -- let's back companies that the market (the commercial banking industry) has already decided are not credit-worthy because their business plans are too risky -- is ridiculous. It's one thing for the government to try to select winners to back financially with our money. I think that's stupid too, and not what government ought to be doing, and not something that the government does well. But at least you're starting off with a chance of picking a winner. Here, the feds were selecting companies that the market had already decided were losers and pretending that, if Obama sprinkiled his magic unicorn dust on them, they could somehow be transformed into winners.

Obama '12: Experience Matters!*

* Note the irony.

Posted by: The Regular Guy at September 16, 2011 06:01 AM (qHCyt)

54 Wow. It's almost like Jon Stewart has recently discovered that Barack Obama is a Stuttering Clusterfuck of a Miserible Failure or something.

Posted by: marie at September 16, 2011 06:05 AM (W7Seu)

55 All this for a frickin' photo-op.

Yes, they really are that stupid/petty/vain/immature/idiotic.

Posted by: Kathy from Kansas at September 16, 2011 06:37 AM (2AfqM)

56 Soylent Green might save SS and Medicare.

Posted by: Tattoo De Plane at September 16, 2011 06:45 AM (lNGfM)

57 Sounds like there is more shady stuff that could be uncovered:

http://tinyurl.com/69b8jbr

Posted by: Strangebrew at September 16, 2011 07:18 AM (yVRJq)

58 I was just wondering: Solyndra had 1,100 employees. If you pay each of them $50,000 a year for the two years covered by the government loan, that comes to a total of $110 million. This is just a back-of-the-envelope guesstimate, but not an unreasonable one.

So, where'd the other $440 million go?

Or do I even need to ask?

Posted by: Brown Line at September 16, 2011 07:35 AM (VrNoa)

59 Wasn't their business model pretty much: "Sell widget at $1 that costs $3 to make?"

Worse than that. Their model was to sell for $3 panels that cost $6 to make and which Asian competitors sell for $1.50 at a profit.

Posted by: Ian S. at September 16, 2011 07:40 AM (tqwMN)

60 Why should we listen to Obama on ANYTHING economic, especially his jobs bill. Every 'investment' he's made is like a giant bonfire of money.

Posted by: The Schwalbe : © at September 16, 2011 08:02 AM (UU0OF)

61 RE Stewart et al. "...and making some claim that only 0.3% (or something) of our government's green energy investments have gone bad."

Is that the role of government now? Finding company's in which to "invest"? Who knew?

Kinda missing the forest for the trees.

Posted by: AnonymousDrivel at September 16, 2011 10:20 AM (r4t7/)

62 Oops. Companies, not "company's." I blame Bush.

Posted by: AnonymousDrivel at September 16, 2011 10:21 AM (r4t7/)

63 > 47 Wasn't their business model pretty much: "Sell widget at $1 that costs $3 to make?" Not quite. Sell widget for $3 that cost $6 to make while a competitive Chinese product sells for $1.50.

Posted by: Comrade Arthur at September 16, 2011 11:10 AM (5Z/+/)

64 They say he's the most important man in the news, and...

Slight problem - Jon Stewart's show has nothing to do with "news".

Posted by: Blacque Jacques Shellacque at September 16, 2011 12:02 PM (dr4y0)

65 Government has no business giving failing businesses subsidies. Instead, they should be teaching them marketing and sales skills so they can survive this recession.

Posted by: karol at October 15, 2011 09:19 AM (8R+JA)

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