{"id":11331,"date":"2011-09-19T15:17:03","date_gmt":"2011-09-19T19:17:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=11331"},"modified":"2011-09-20T11:01:56","modified_gmt":"2011-09-20T15:01:56","slug":"solyndras-not-the-disease-its-just-a-symptom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/11331\/solyndras-not-the-disease-its-just-a-symptom\/","title":{"rendered":"Solyndra’s Not the Disease, It’s Just a Symptom"},"content":{"rendered":"

The bad news about the Obama Administration’s more than half a billion dollar investment in Solyndra — the California solar energy company that has gone bankrupt and laid off approximately 1,100 employees — keeps piling up. In addition to being a waste of taxpayer money, there are also issues about whether or not the federal loan guarantees were properly vetted<\/a>, about private investors getting to jump in front of the taxpayers <\/a>as secured creditors, and about why Solyndra received dramatically lower interest rates <\/a>than similarly situated firms.<\/p>\n

While all those issues are both troubling and relevant, the proliferation of trees runs the risk of obscuring the forest here. That’s why this passage from Matthew Continetti’s new piece in the Weekly Standard <\/a>is so valuable:<\/p>\n

In today\u2019s economy, risks are socialized while profit is privatized. The government uses deficit spending to shape investment decisions and support markets that otherwise wouldn\u2019t exist. Political connections determine the recipients of government largesse. Rentiers conceal their self-interest behind the organic hemp cloak of environmentalism and global \u201ccompetitiveness.\u201d The illusion can be maintained for a time, but in the end the bill comes due. There\u2019s no money left. And everything disappears.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ably stated. There’s a reason they’re starting to call it “venture socialism”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The bad news about the Obama Administration’s more than half a billion dollar investment in Solyndra — the California solar energy company that has gone bankrupt and laid off approximately 1,100 employees — keeps piling up. In addition to being a waste of taxpayer money, there are also issues about whether or not the federal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2964,1441,2006,3048,3043],"class_list":["post-11331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-alternative-energy","tag-department-of-energy","tag-environmental-policy","tag-solar-power","tag-solyndra"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11331"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11342,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11331\/revisions\/11342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}