The Solyndra debacle just grows and grows. Now a local Oakland investigative site, the Bay Citizen, did what no national networks would do and filed a Freedom of Information Act request only to discover that Solyndra lied when it said it was only firing 1,100 people at the time of its bankruptcy:
Solyndra layoffs larger than previously reported
Documents show nearly 1,900 people lost their jobs as solar panel maker closedOn the day it closed, Solyndra said it was laying off 1,100 full-time and temporary employees.
But 1,861 workers lost their jobs as the solar panel manufacturer shut its doors, according to U.S. Labor Department documents provided to The Bay Citizen under the Freedom of Information Act.
The documents also show the Fremont-based company increased production in 2011, even though it failed to sell all the panels it made the previous year.
By the time it closed last August, Solyndra had an unsold inventory of more than 23 megawatts – enough solar panels to power about 23,000 homes.
Analysts said the revelations are likely to add new fuel to the partisan fire surrounding the demise of Solyndra, which received a $535 million federal loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy in 2009.
If Solyndra was already going bankrupt, why did they (with the collusion of the media) lie about the number of job losses? Were they trying to minimize political damage to the Obama administration?
The full article raises many more trouble questions, such as the possibility that Solyndra’s management was completely out of touch with reality, manufacturing literally mountains of unwanted solar panels despite having very few orders for them:
In interviews, former Solyndra employees said they weren’t aware of the lost orders, but also were not surprised to hear that Solyndra’s production of solar panels far outstripped its sales.
“We would walk into the warehouse and such see piles and piles of pallets of panels, and we also heard stories of off-site warehouses,” said Michael P. Kohlstadt, who worked as a research and development engineer at Solyndra until the company folded.
“We all wondered what was happening there, and some of us asked if there were orders, but we never got a straight answer,” he said.
This gets fishier by the minute. It’s like Solyndra was intentionally trying to burn through all its taxpayer-supplied cash before the bankruptcy hit. Why?
Kudos to Aaron Glantz at the Bay Citizen for doing the footwork that the major news organizations wouldn’t do.
This gets fishier by the minute. It’s like Solyndra was intentionally trying to burn through all its taxpayer-supplied cash before the bankruptcy hit. Why?
There’s a certain business mind-set you see around town, that the more money sunk into something, the more chances you get to save it. Seen more often in failing businesses than in successful ones, and can you guess why that might be? Same thing was apparently at play in the recent JPMorgan “London Whale” business, they just kept doubling down hoping things would turn for them. This is considered “big league”. Yeah right.
I’ll have to take a picture and post it sometime but in my hometown they started a “Renewable Energy Business Park” or something like that. They got Sanyo to come in and make solar panels with some lucrative tax breaks. The bulk of the place is still undeveloped, just paved roads, curbs and trees. One could easily take a picture of “The Renewable Energy Business Park” sign with only the trees in the background and think that the trees may be the only renewable energy this park will ever produce at a profit.
Why are non of these principle officers in jail?
This is malfeasance at a minimum and corruption/embezzlement at worst.
Ask the question:Who bought all the inventory and equipment when the company was/will be liquidated? Who took over the leases or bought the deeds of trust for the office and warehouses?. My suspicions tell me it was /would be company connected to the principal investors and managers of Solyndra aka Obama’s campaign contributors.