MORE EX-IM BANK HANKY PANKY: Timothy Carney at the Washington Examiner reports that the controversial Export-Import Bank funneled $10.3 million in loan guarantees to Solyndra after the company had already manufactured, shipped and installed the solar panels to a solar farm in Belgium. As Carney observes:
So why would Ex-Im agree to subsidize exports that had already been made, shipped, and installed? This seems odd if Ex-Im was trying to support U.S. jobs at Solyndra. It makes sense if Ex-Im was trying to change the financing of an existing export, so as to shore up Solyndra’s financing. In other words, Ex-Im may not have helped Solyndra make a sale (which is what it is supposed to do), but it may have slowed down Solyndra’s cash-flow trainwreck — a crucial objective for the Obama administration, which had stuck out its neck holding up Solyndra as the poster company for the new subsidized green economy.
“I’ll take crony capitalism for $100, Alex.” For the Obama Administration, Solyndra was too political to fail.