Bonuses? They're Kidding. Right?

I wasn't going to write this morning. I swear I wasn't. I have a job to finish but it can wait until the afternoon when it warms up to the temperature where I can do it. I was just going to spend the morning doing the reading that I usually do which is time consuming in itself. Then I ran across an article, cross referenced it to make sure I wasn't being misled and I wasn't being at all. Then I got to thinking that we must now be living in the Twilight Zone where things just can't really be real but they are.

Life in these United States is getting to be quite surreal under the Obama administration. I am also positive that once this little incident becomes more than a little incident, the administration will once again say, "We didn't know anything about this." Just as they didn't get us in this fix of losing $500 billion in loan guarantees when Solyndra went belly up after this administration pushed for those loan guarantees even after being forewarned that the company already had one foot in the grave and one on the banana peel. Just like Obama never used Solyndra as the platform to launch his "green initiative" promoting a fairy tale. That I am getting used to, but this sort of nonsense needs to be squished like a bug.

Of all the times to be handing out bonuses Solyndra has picked this one. They must be following the lead of the overpaid executives at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac who are also constantly at the government feed bucket. Then again, they have Obama in their corner. In court documents filed in bankruptcy court the company's attorneys propose to hand out over a half a million dollars in bonuses to "key" executives in order to keep them in place. Now mind you, these are probably the same people who were major contributors to the company going tits up in the first place. There must be some logic here. They want to keep some of the same people in place who drove the car into the ditch in the first place? Where is Bain Capital when we need them?

We're talking bonuses in the range of $10-50K for providing motivation because so many of the others caught with their hands in the cookie jar got just exactly what they had coming - THE AXE! So lets just extend the cookie jar out there one more time and see if there are any cookies left in it? If this is Obama's idea of creating a "pro-business environment" then we're truly screwed.

Here's another puzzler. If, in fact, none of the receivers of this largesse are key executives or sitting on the board of directors, who are they? The names were not disclosed in those court documents. They should be. The proposed bonuses are purportedly going to nine equipment engineers, general business and finance types and two information technology workers. Now let me see if I have this straight. All these people work for a company in bankruptcy who can't produce so much as an effective widget much less a cost competitive solar panel and they want to continue to prop it up with bonuses. The question is "who" wants that to happen? If it is this administration then that is the wrong answer. They're the ones who got us in this mess and caused $500 billion of our tax dollars to go up in smoke and mirrors in the first place.

What's the top divvy out? $50K is supposed to go to a "senior director" who receives a base salary of $206,499. what was he directing when the balloon went up? Nice work if you can get it. Then two "senior managers" are set to receive bonuses of $30K and 32K respectively. Notice the word "senior" in both descriptions. In other words, they were there when the stuff hit the fan. So we are supposed to keep them because they are essential to this bankrupt company? My next question is crucial in all of this. And just where is this half a million dollars in largesse by a belly up company coming from? Hell, we can't even get the names of the people receiving these cookies so I don't expect an upfront answer to that last one.

This company received $500 million in federal loan guarantees two years ago and one year after receiving our dough Obama touted Solyndra as being the business model of the future. Good grief! Now understand this also. Last year the company employed 1,100 employees in the business of jousting with windmills. Today only 84 remain. So they want to take half a million dollars and spread it out over the remainder of a disaster case? I'll ask again, "Where is Bain Capital when we need em?"

Here's how company lawyers rationalized this nonsense and I quote, “Within the last few months, the debtors have experienced a serious loss of personnel, which has made the continuation of the sales process in an orderly fashion more difficult." Well DUH, they were trying to sell something that no one wanted to buy at the price they were trying to sell it for.

But wait it gets deeper. They wrote to the court that, “The further loss of experienced personnel may seriously jeopardize the ongoing sales efforts and, should it continue, require the engagement of experienced consultants at a much higher cost than maintaining the existing personnel.” There are just 84 people left on the carcass. It got worse when they contended that the bonus money “will motivate the eligible employees to work as hard as possible” to achieve a Chapter 11 restructuring plan and sale." Really? A total of 84 people are going to work that hard?

Three (3) of the employees make less than 100K a year so we're not talking about the "little people" Pelosi. Eight (8) make more than $150K base. As mentioned earlier, the highest paid widget maker makes $206,499 and his carrot is $50K. This sort of thing is amazing and mirrors the thinking witnessed during the last Fannie/Freddie congressional hearings. You have to pay for incompetence in order to keep it.

This isn't capitalism, it is crony capitalism at its sickest point. Obama knew from all reports, as did his senior advisers at the time, that Solyndra was a bad risk. They went ahead with losing $500 million of our money based upon a "green" crap shoot because it fit Obama's agenda. That's my take on the way it went down. Then he had the balls to tour the plant a year later and tell the nation that this was the future of business in America? And now they want bonuses? If that is the case folks, we're in deep kimchee without a pair of chop sticks.

As Always,

The Frog Prince