Surprise: ABCNews Covers Solyndra, Top of the Show

Spread the love

Loading

I tried to goad @jaketapper the other day, saying his network would cover it for thirty seconds, with twenty seconds of that “context” about Enron.

Not what they did though.

Not the longest report, but the questions were properly framed — “Did the White House rush a half billion of your dollars to a company certain to fail?”

And more at Hot Air, as Mark Levin interviews an employee who said everyone knew Solyndra was going to fail.

From an ABCNews print article:

Department of Energy officials said the rates for all of its green energy loans were set by the bank using a formula, and Solyndra’s favorable terms were not the result of special treatment.“All borrowers under the [government loan guarantee] program receive the same treatment,” Energy Department spokesman Damien LaVera wrote to iWatch and ABC News in response to questions.

Um, no. What happens is that all borrowers in equivalent situations with equivalent risk and equivalent likelihood of repayment may get the same treatment.

But the whole point of analyzing these companies is to define them, categorize them in terms of risk and such.

That’s why it’s important to know how these “models” came to the incorrect conclusion that Solyndra would be fantastically profitable.

Note in the below video, at 3:36, Congressman Morgan Griffith tries to find out why all the models predicted that Solyndra’s profits would — are you ready? — double the year following the loan.

How did they come up with that? What detailed economic model suggested a doubling of profits (during a horrendous global economy, with a business model doomed to fail) in a year?

Why, they based it on… projections provided by Solyndra CEOs.

Video here

0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of

1 Comment
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

ABC News’ coverage doesn’t surprise me so much.
ABC has been taking the lead in mainstream media coverage of this.
Jake Tapper in particular.

Gee, the Hot Air essay quotes an ex-employee, Mohammed Walahi, as saying the solyndra plant was throwing away about $100,000 worth of faulty solar panels every day!

“If they are wasting $100,000 a day, how much is that a month or a year? Of course that’s going to lead to bankruptcy.”

Yup.
Also in the same essay, was this point:

Of 18 Energy Department loans cited in the bank’s report, Solyndra’s rate was lowest. Eight other Energy Department projects, each also backed by the Federal Financing Bank, came with rates three or four times higher, the report shows…

Department of Energy officials said the rates for all of its green energy loans were set by the bank using a formula, and Solyndra’s favorable terms were not the result of special treatment.

Well, if someone ”used a formula” and yet risky solyndra ended up with the lowest interest rate, I might suggest you have a real mathematician go over the work and find the error that MUST be there somewhere.

I also watched financial news this AM on both Fox and CNBC.
It appears that Obama is not learing from his mistakes.
He is AGAIN rushing through 16 or 18 more ”green” loans.
He needs to rush because the last date to get them out is Sept 30.