Fallen Grace

As I'm reading the news reports of the implosion that was Solyndra, I was taken by the fact that the Republicans are blaming President Obama for the Solyndra fiasco. After all, he touted the solar systems manufacture as a model for green technology and job creation. It was Obama who paraded the company in front of the media, and Obama made it a big deal.

But according to ABC World News, top officials took a new tack Wednesday while testifying before Congress about the company's abrupt shut-down and bankruptcy: the loan, they said, was actually the Bush administration's idea. The Energy Department's top lending officer told Congress that the Solyndra loan application was not only filed during President Bush's term, but it surged towards completion before Obama took office in January 2009.

But, this does not absolve Obama from partial blame. He had ample opportunity to review and quash the loan before it was issued.

"By the time the Obama administration took office in late January 2009, the loan programs' staff had already established a goal of, and timeline for, issuing the company a conditional loan guarantee commitment in March 2009," Jonathan Silver, who heads the Energy loan program, told ABC World News.

Even after the loan was restructured in 2011, the Energy Department and other administration officials continued to tout Solyndra's prospects. You can't tell me that he didn't know something was up if the loan had to be restructured.

So everybody owns a piece of this, Bush and the GOP for ramming it down the throats of the taxpayer and Obama for telling us what a great idea it was. I don't know about the rest of you, but these kinds of things make me question the sanity of the system and ours for letting it continue. What do we do when we, as a society, wake up and realize it's gone to far?

But Politicians are only responsible for pushing through a bad loan. What truly killed Solyndra was China according to Green Tech (CNET). They're reporting that the problem for Solyndra—and others—was that prices for solar-grade silicon plummeted as capacity increased and Chinese manufacturers ramped up solar panel volume, causing a crash in prices in late 2008 and 2009. Solyndra also had a manufacturing process which required specialized equipment, contributing to a technology with higher production costs, explained Shyam Mehta, a senior analyst at GTM Research. As a result, Solyndra was delivering products to customers but not able to make a profit.

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So I guess the real question I think is why are the CEO and CFO going to take the Fifth when they go before Congress? The company's statement said both executives were following the advice of counsel, but it also continued to defend the firm's actions. The company came under scrutiny after filing for bankruptcy despite receiving nearly $530 million in federal taxpayer-backed loans.

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I wonder what's got them so worried that they have to stand on their Fifth Amendment rights? When I was growing up, I was taught that the truth was always the best policy and that I should never break the Law. If you follow the second rule, the first one can never come back to bite you. Just ask Barry Bonds. He knows this rule first hand, but that's a whole 'nother blog subject. If the Solyndra executives had been square with the government, they wouldn't have to cover their butts by taking the Fifth. But it won't matter, like all major companies, there's records and emails. Unless the government tipped its hand, there's a paper trail. If hands were greased, it will turn up and guilty parties will pay. That's what happens in high-profile cases. They made the government look bad so someone will pay. Politicians hate getting a black eye.