RUSH: Let me start this story from the top because this is not from last week and it’s not from the week before. This is a new story from the San Francisco Bay area. A solar company, Solyndra, is to declare bankruptcy. President Obama touted the facility only a year ago. “Solyndra, a major manufacturer of solar technology in Fremont, has shut its doors, according to employees at the campus. … Shortly after it opened a massive $700 million facility, it canceled plans for a public stock offering earlier this year and warned it would be in significant trouble if federal loan guarantees did not go through. The company has said it will make a statement at 9am California time, though it’s not clear what that statement will be,” of course that has come and gone.
A report from the NBC San Francisco affiliate: “The employees have been given yellow envelopes with instructions on how to get their last checks.” There never was a business
here. You understand this? This is the sad thing. There never was a business here! We can only survive with $700 million in loan guarantees? You know, Kathryn and I started a new business, TwoIfByTea.com. We’d never even think of loan guarantees from the government to either start the business or go public with it! There never was a business there. “Solyndra was touted by the Obama administration as a prime example of how green technology could deliver jobs.” Yeah, well, pink slips today, not yellow slips today. The president visited the facility in May of last year. It was May 26, 2010. At Solyndra, Inc., here’s a portion of what Obama said…
OBAMA MAY 26, 2010: It’s here that companies like Solyndra are leading the way toward a brighter and more prosperous future.
RUSH: And they’re outta business today. I mean, it’s a kiss of death. This guy comes to visit your business, if you’re a green business, solar business, or wind business and this guy touts you, you are finished. You’re practically finished anyway. There is no business there, and the only way these people could start up of us with these loan guarantees. In other words, “federal funding.” So here you have the poor people that work at this company who bought into this, I’m sure. I’m sure they thought they were cutting edge. I am sure they thought they were gonna save the planet. I’m sure they bought into all this. If you work at Solyndra and you got canned today, believe me, my heart goes out to you.
I really feel sorry for you because you’re part of a scam every bit as big as anything this country has seen with the federal government involved in it. “Solyndra was touted by the [regime] as a prime example of how green technology could deliver jobs. The President visited the facility in May of last year and said ‘it is just a testament to American ingenuity and dynamism and the fact that we continue to have the best universities in the world, the best technology in the world, and most importantly the best workers in the world. And you guys all represent that.'” Now they’re all fired because there was never a business there.
And here we are. My friends, we are just 176 hours away from Obama telling us that “going green” is going to create untold numbers of new American jobs. Now the story is on AP: “Solar Company That Got Federal Loan Shuts Down — A California solar panel manufacturer that received a $535 million loan from the federal government and needed $700 million more has announced layoffs of 1,100 people,” 1,100 people for a nonexistent business, and now they’ve been laid off. I’m sure these people really thought they were gonna matter. I thought they really — I’ll betcha they bought into this. They were gonna change the world. They plan to file for bankruptcy now.
“Solyndra, LLC, based in Fremont, California, announced that global economic conditions have forced the company to suspend its manufacturing operations.” Now, global economic conditions. However, the prime ingredient for a solar company is still there. What is that? (interruption) That’s right, Snerdley, way to go. The sun! The sun is still there. It may be behind clouds, but it’s still there. (interruption) Nah, wait a minute, now. Don’t just let that go! This is crucial. Solar power comes from the sun. The sun is still there, and yet this company shuts down because of “global economic conditions”?
The sun is still putting out much as it ever did, just like in Las Vegas, and yet they can’t harness it. It’s there every day. It doesn’t cost anything. It’s just there. Eleven hundred people, I’m sure, thought that they were part of something that was going to revolutionize and clean the planet. I’ll betcha they bought into this. So the federal government’s investment in this solar company has turned out to be a $600 million mistake. That’s a lot of green. That is a lot of green, and I’m not kidding: Our hearts go out to all the people at Solyndra. Eleven hundred people. Play it here, audio sound bite number 29. Again, Obama, May 26th of last year in Fremont, California.
OBAMA MAY 26, 2010: It’s here that companies like Solyndra are leading the way toward a brighter and more prosperous future.
RUSH: He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He hasn’t the slightest clue about solar energy or wind energy or green energy. This global competition business, they had to shut down global economic conditions and force the company to shut down. That probably means that the ChiComs are selling solar panels for less than they can sell ’em in San Francisco. That’s what that means. (interruption) Well, I just… (interruption) No, that’s the thing, Snerdley, I think you’re still gonna have a bunch of these doofus CEOs that are gonna welcome Obama even though Obama walks into your company, it’s the kiss of death.
It’s like Gore showing up, you can be guaranteed a freaking snowstorm when Gore shows up to talk about global warming. Obama shows up to tout your business, you don’t have long for the world. But people want to be close to the president. They think it’s a big deal, especially if he comes handing out money. ‘Cause somebody got this money, this $535 million. Somebody got that money. (interruption) Well, they got some of it. I mean, the employees have been paid for a year, and they’re gonna get their last paycheck. Somebody got some of the money, but it didn’t matter. There was no business there. Again, if it was indeed “global economic conditions,” it simply means the ChiComs are selling cheap solar panels out there at prices that this outfit in San Francisco can’t match, pure and simple.
It has to be what it means.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Solyndra, solar firm, San Francisco (raspberry) down the tubes. Just to remind you.
August 15th: “Massachusetts-based Evergreen Solar today filed for bankruptcy protection, following a month-long sales decline of its solar panel business.” Okay, so that’s two, Solyndra and Evergreen Solar. Well, look at this. From August 26th: “SpectraWatt Files for Bankruptcy, Second U.S. Solar Company This Month.” Now it’s the third. “New York-based solar company SpectraWatt Inc. filed for bankruptcy protection last week – the second US solar company to do so this month. Like Evergreen Solar which filed earlier this month, SpectraWatt blames increasing competition from low-cost manufacturers in China.”
And then from March 13th of 2010: “Robbinsville Solar Company in Bankruptcy.” From the New Jersey Times: “A cloud has passed over the local renewable energy industry as a township-based solar manufacturing concern, once trumpeted as a leader in green technology, has been forced to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.” So in the last 16 months, four solar companies have filed for bankruptcy, three of them touted by Obama. I know one got federal funds; I don’t know about the other three. (interruption) Yeah, that’s right, okay, it’s two. So the one in Massachusetts did, Evergreen, they did, okay, and it’s the ChiComs. They can manufacture and sell the things cheaper than we can no matter how much the government subsidizes.
RUSH: All right. Here’s another one. Just in. “Clean Burn Fuels LLC, a 60 MMgy ethanol plant in Raeford, N.C., has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and temporarily shut down.
The company hopes to restart and emerge from bankruptcy before the year is over. … The plant, which has been producing since August 2010, has been hard hit by high corn prices, the company said in a statement.” Now, what has made corn prices go up? Ethanol! An ethanol plan has shut down because of the price of ethanol. Clean Burn Fuels filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and says they’ve been hard hit by high corn prices. Well, the only reason corn prices are going up is because of ethanol!
Now, Snerdley, you asked a very good question a moment ago: Why can’t we compete with the ChiComs on anything? Let me tell you something. Let me give you a little what-for here. In every one of these solar or wind or ethanol, any one of these plants, they all got federal and state money — and they got tax breaks — and they still couldn’t make it. They were given the tools to compete with the ChiComs and somehow it still didn’t work. If the federal government’s gonna give you $700 million, $526 million, either in loan guarantees (which basically they’re gonna forgive the loan), what they’re helping to do is compete against lower costs in China, and you still don’t make it? It’s not as though they were not given assistance.
They got tax breaks in addition to the money they were given, and it still didn’t work out. Now, you ask why can’t we compete. We can. My question is (and I think this is the important one): How much are we taxpayers losing from all these so-called investments, as the libs call it? Because every one of these cockamamie ideas is one of theirs. They’re all bombing out. They’re all leading and contributing to deficits and debt, and it’s all political. There’s not one business reason to do any of this! There is no solar energy business out there. There is no wind energy business. This is all being done to be simply prop up an incompetent, man-child president.
That’s the only reason any of this is being done: To make him look like he’s smarter than everybody else, make it look like only Obama is capable of jump-starting this new clean energy field. There is no business there. You know, I’m not a solar or wind expert, but when your primary source is still up there, and there’s not a damn thing anybody can do to it, and you still can’t make money? We’re not there yet, is what tells me. We haven’t figured out how to harness it yet. The market will tell us; this is not the market. This is the government subsidizing something that doesn’t yet really exist and has no reason to exist, purely for the political advancement of a doofus, a jackass.