Wow. But Solyndra may actually be worse than Enron (link goes behind a pay firewall):
“It’s going to be very similar to Enron’s legacy in the oil and gas industry,” Rhone Resch, president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association, told reporters on Friday. “Just in the sense of a history that flared out fairly quickly and fairly publicly.”
Of course, Enron’s historic flameout in the early 2000s has many differences from the downfall of Solyndra, the California solar company that filed for bankruptcy protection earlier this month and had its offices raided by the FBI.
In 2001, the Houston-based energy company’s bankruptcy reorganization was then the country’s largest — and Solyndra won’t even come close. Enron’s woes also led to the dissolution of its accounting firm, Arthur Andersen.
Solyndra can claim to have gotten significant attention inside the White House, including a personal visit from President Barack Obama. But Enron founder and CEO Kenneth Lay was even more tight with President George W. Bush, who nicknamed him “Kenny Boy.”
Nice try Politico, but when Kenny Boy called Bush for help from the White House, he didn’t get that help. Solyndra, on the other hand, did.
And the problem going forward is, given how huge the first stimulus was and how “green” companies like Solyndra fit with the president’s agenda, we have no idea if there are other Solyndras out there, or how many there might be. Sheriff Joe wasn’t minding the store on the one we do know about, and probably hasn’t been minding it on any others.
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