George Rebane

President Obama’s visit to Fremont’s solar panel maker Solyndra caused a lot of confusion.  Union construction workers at the site were told to take the day off without pay.  And then there are reports that inside the plant non-union workers were similarly told to take the day off.  Apparently this was so as to minimize the total number of people within rifle shot of the President while outside, and minimize the potential unfriendlies inside the plant within pistol shot.  Security is complicated when the President travels, and I fully agree with the Secret Service in imposing such arrangements to minimize the likelihood of harm to our president.  There is, of course, some irony involved in the risk assessments, and the dunning of paychecks of the unreliable workers told to stay home.

Solyndra is one of these ARRA funded companies – to the tune of over half billion dollars – that is creating about a thousand ‘permanent’ jobs, and, of course, some temporary jobs for unionized construction workers in the interval.  The company’s product will only be marketable with the government’s gun to the head of its customers.  Were it otherwise, no stimulus would have been necessary. In the meanwhile the money to fund this government enterprise (no free-market capitalist will call it anything else), was taken from people who could have put it to much better use in helping our economy recover.  This is the invisible impact of tribute monies whose public use is touted by the socialists.

How would one assign the wages of Solyndra’s workers – public or private?  USA Today reported yesterday (here) government data shows that the total share of America’s private sector wages has fallen to 41.9%, which is an historic low.  And with the government building more Solyndras from coast to coast, this percentage is guaranteed to head for the mud.  Meanwhile, government sector wages are in a relentless climb.

Solyndra will fold like a house of cards the minute people are free not to buy its solar panels.  (The lands of the former Soviet empire are generously dotted with the rusting hulks of abandoned factories.)  And this underlines the similar fate of all such mandated green job efforts across the land that are starting to flesh out the structure and form of our new command economy.