More on Solyndra

I wrote yesterday about the Solyndra scandal -- the bankrupcty of a "solar panel" company backed by $535 million in federal loan guarantees that just happened to be connected to a big cbundler for the Obama 2008 Presidential campaign.   It also turns out that the loans were at a ridiculously low interest rate, which further supports the inference of a fraudulent, insider deal.   Here's the key chart:

Anyway, I took a look at Solyndra's web-page, which hasn't shut down yet (the miracle of the Internet).   They have a timeline for the company that reads as follows:

History

2005	Founded by Dr. Christian Gronet
2006	Established headquarters in Fremont, California
2007	Began production in Fab 1
2008	Commenced commercial solar panel shipments Opened office in Germany
2009	Largest single Solyndra installation in U.S. 529kW Received $535 million DOE loan guarantee for construction of Fab 2 Groundbreaking for Fab 2 with Vice President Biden, Energy Secretary Chu, and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger Reached $100 million in annual revenues
2010	Shipped 65MW as of July, 16 million modules produced. Largest Solyndra project in Europe, 3 megawatts in Belgium Exceeded 1000 installations around the world Visit of President Barack Obama, May Brian Harrison joins as President and CEO Largest U.S. installation 1MW, Frito Lay Approximately $140 million in revenues
2011	Fab 2 in production, ramping to 300MW 3MW Belgium installation Launched greenhouse product Shipped 100th megawatt

Now, it seems weird to me that a company that was only founded in 2005, that only established offices in 2006, that only started production in 2007, and that only began shipping product in 2008, should suddenly get a $500 million + federal loan guarantee in 2009.  

But here's what really made me crazy:  apparently they received a $535 million DOE loan guarantee either the same year (2009) or maybe even before they reached $100 million in annual revenues.    Imagine this is a 30 year loan.   Even at a ridiculously low rate of interest (read: fraudulently low), Solyndra would still have something like $10 million just in interest payments per year.   On $100 million in revenue?   Really?

So, like everything else the federal government touches, this is a situation where (wink, wink) no one really ever expected that the money would be paid back.
  
An alternative theory is even more cynical:  this was never a real "business" to begin with.   It was just, on one side of the transaction, a front for fraud; on the other side of the transaction, a Potemkin village/Hollywood sound stage for the permanent campaign of Barack Hussein Obama.  

Speaking of which, here is Obama, just over a year ago, at the Solyndra plant:

Does this stuttering clusterf*** of a miserable failure ever go anywhere without his f***ing teleprompter?