Obama the Idiot VC
"Greentech, cleantech, come and get it. It's cheap, it's reliable, it'll save the American economy"
More or less that was the pitch made a couple years ago as Obama was coming into office. One of the things he did is started playing the US government as a venture capitalist, pumping loans (granted, just loans, not really being a VC, but still) into random ass companies which happened to be making "green" products.
Oh, and by "random ass" I mean companies which were associated with the administration in some way, mostly from Obama's big 'ol fundraising campaign.
The one which really has the President sweating right now (actually, who am I kidding, he is so wrapped up in delusional grandeur I doubt he ever feels he has made a wrong decision), is Solyndra. Which, as I mentioned a while back, got an idiotic $530 million dollar loan. The company went bankrupt as everyone other than el Presidente expected, and tax payers are out 1/2 a billion dollars. Not a lot of money I know, but it would be enough for everyone in America to buy something off the dollar meal, and 2.5billion chicken nuggets would be way better than one dipshit bankrupt and legally dubious solar panel manufacturer.
But the best part of this story? It has become clear from released emails that the Obama administration pressured the agencies responsible into giving the loan (the idea of the loan being the administration's to start with)... and who was the major investor in the company? A billionaire "bundler" fund raiser for Obama's campaign, who also got a few swanky White House meetings before the loan was approved (Obama's minders insist these meetings were just to talk about the guy's charity.... yeah....)
Honestly, the only thing that amazes me about this story is that more of those loans have not yet blown up. Much as I love SpaceX and the Lotus Elise, Tesla motors is clearly a POS company headed for the scrapheap: it also got $500MM or so, and has managed to build... a couple thousand cars. The only things keeping it alive are the fact it went public (with much hupla, but with seriously sketchy financials), and now ToMoCo has decided it wants in on the Tesla action, building a Teslified Rav4. Still though, the company's long promised "people's sedan" (read $50,000+ and mediocre performance) the Model S is still total vaporware. Oh yeah, and Elon Musk? Major Obama supporter and contributor.
The other "green" car company to get a loan was Fisker.... we loaned them about $500 million also, and so far have seen about 500 $100,000 hybrids roll of the assembly line.
More or less that was the pitch made a couple years ago as Obama was coming into office. One of the things he did is started playing the US government as a venture capitalist, pumping loans (granted, just loans, not really being a VC, but still) into random ass companies which happened to be making "green" products.
Oh, and by "random ass" I mean companies which were associated with the administration in some way, mostly from Obama's big 'ol fundraising campaign.
The one which really has the President sweating right now (actually, who am I kidding, he is so wrapped up in delusional grandeur I doubt he ever feels he has made a wrong decision), is Solyndra. Which, as I mentioned a while back, got an idiotic $530 million dollar loan. The company went bankrupt as everyone other than el Presidente expected, and tax payers are out 1/2 a billion dollars. Not a lot of money I know, but it would be enough for everyone in America to buy something off the dollar meal, and 2.5billion chicken nuggets would be way better than one dipshit bankrupt and legally dubious solar panel manufacturer.
But the best part of this story? It has become clear from released emails that the Obama administration pressured the agencies responsible into giving the loan (the idea of the loan being the administration's to start with)... and who was the major investor in the company? A billionaire "bundler" fund raiser for Obama's campaign, who also got a few swanky White House meetings before the loan was approved (Obama's minders insist these meetings were just to talk about the guy's charity.... yeah....)
Honestly, the only thing that amazes me about this story is that more of those loans have not yet blown up. Much as I love SpaceX and the Lotus Elise, Tesla motors is clearly a POS company headed for the scrapheap: it also got $500MM or so, and has managed to build... a couple thousand cars. The only things keeping it alive are the fact it went public (with much hupla, but with seriously sketchy financials), and now ToMoCo has decided it wants in on the Tesla action, building a Teslified Rav4. Still though, the company's long promised "people's sedan" (read $50,000+ and mediocre performance) the Model S is still total vaporware. Oh yeah, and Elon Musk? Major Obama supporter and contributor.
The other "green" car company to get a loan was Fisker.... we loaned them about $500 million also, and so far have seen about 500 $100,000 hybrids roll of the assembly line.
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