Solyndra Execs Plead Fifth at Congressional Hearing

This is the one that is really ticking me off and no one else seems to be posting anything on it. I can't wait to see if anyone can defend this, except to say it is their right to keep from INCRIMINATING themselves.

---

Solyndra Execs Plead Fifth at Congressional Hearing More Than a Dozen Times

Published September 23, 2011

| FoxNews.com



Top executives from a bankrupt California solar energy company pleaded the Fifth Amendment more than a dozen times Friday in a congressional hearing that went nowhere but gave members the opportunity to pose dozens of questions about the loss of a half billion dollars in government loans.

Solyndra Inc. CEO Brian Harrison and the company's chief financial officer, Bill Stover, had notified the House Energy and Commerce Committee they were going to invoke their Fifth Amendment right to decline to testify to avoid

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/09/23/solyndra-execs-plead-fifth-at-congressional-hearing-more-than-dozen-times/#ixzz1YoOeOZ98

Not in the legal sense, but in my mind they DID incriminate themselves.

To me the real culprit in this is Obama for pushing this company and making such a big deal about green jobs.

Having spent many years in the semiconductor industry in Silicon Valley (Solyndra is in the area, and similar technology), I'll just make a guess of what happened.

Prior to the early 80's, most semiconductor companies had their own manufacturing capacity. But after that, the manufacturing process became much more complex and a manufacturing facility could cost over $1 billion. So most (if not all) startup companies were called "fabless". They did the design, some testing, and the support for their products, but they "paid" to have them manufactured by another larger company (often overseas). The payment could be cash, sharing the technology, or some combination. They also usually rented their office space.

The problem I see that Solyndra had is that they had a very unique version of technology which I assume they couldn't have been manufactured by a regular solar cell company. I think they were in effect "forced" to spend hundreds of millions to build their own manufacturing capability.

For the last several years, I think Solyndra was legit, although they had a faulty business plan which assumed the cost of silicon based solar cells wouldn't drop much. Solyndra did develop a good product and sold it world wide, so it's not a matter of them having some fake technology. But they had this huge investment they had to make into their manufacturing facility and their own office space.

Once they got involved with the government, it's like making a deal with the devil. Yes, it's easier to get large sums of cash than from venture capitalists, but when things go wrong, the government will go after you and make it much more public than private investors can do. I think the Solendra execs did lie and mislead the government about what was going on financially as things went bad, and now they face much more heat than what would of happened if they were financed with private money. But it's very difficult to get as much money as our government gave them from private sources.

Had they been able to get fully funded by private investors, they still would of probably lied or mislead them to keep getting as much money as they could. Maybe they really thought they could eventually make it. But they still would of eventually failed as they did. At least in that case they probably wouldn't of had to testify before Congress and take the 5th. It would of just been a bankruptcy.

Again, just my guess...

And now the California Democratic Party is a creditor of Solyndra. Can you say money laundering?

Money Laundering!

Personally I find these congressional hearings worthless and a waste of my tax dollars. And Solyndra is proving my point again. Just take these cheats to court instead of giving Congress more air time.

I think the biggest waste of tax dollars is letting unskilled government officials pick private sector companies THEY think are worth investing in with our money. And if they really were capable, then they were obviously corrupt...can't have it both ways.

CriticalBill wrote: I think the biggest waste of tax dollars is letting unskilled government officials pick private sector companies THEY think are worth investing in with our money. And if they really were capable, then they were obviously corrupt...can't have it both ways.

Would Bill "Mr. Green Energy" Ritter plead the 5th too if he was in front of Congress too?