If they can acctually show another company anywhere in the world that is really manufacturing and selling the same dumbass design I might agree tht they qualify.

But solyndra didnt gou under because of global competition, it went under because their product was a piece of shit

I thought it went under because Trina Solar in China was able to significantly cut its prices, making Solyndra uncompetitive.

Well christopher, are they selling the same design?

I lost my job to India six.montjs ago, where do I get in line for my handout?

where do I get in line for my handout?

See that window there, where the sign says "Big Buck Donations to Obama '12"?

That's the line you want.

...the company fell victim to global market forces -- officials say a glut of solar panels out of China, coupled with slackening demand in Europe, drove down the price of panels and helped put Solyndra out of business.

Oh, I see. The company "fell victim to global market forces." Well that explains it.

Good thing other American companies (e.g., Ford, Boeing, IBM, Hewlitt-Packard, VF Corp) don't have to worry about "global market forces."

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So, if I lose my job because my company went under and any company anywhere in the world is manufacturing a similar product, I'm a "victim" of off-shoring and am eligible to get extra benefits?

What part of "we're broke" do these idiots not understand?

Well christopher, are they selling the same design?

I dunno, not that well-versed in design. All the reading that I've done is on the financials, and quality never came up; it was that Solyndra was not cost-competitive.

You can get a guy in India to proofread your work for probably 35 cents an hour.

You don't want Indians editing your work as a general rule. And those who are truly fluent in English don't work anywhere near that cheaply. English fluency is too valuable a skill; you can't hire anyone fluent in English for that rate. Even in cheaper places like Malaysia and Bangladesh someone who can read and write English well commands far more than that.

Should the government give handouts to freelance copyeditors across America?

I'm not defending the handouts.

But, there's lots of jobs for freelance copyeditors out there on marketplaces like Elance and oDesk and vWorker (to name just a few). Global competition has pushed the rates down, there's no doubt about it, but there's work.

What part of "we're broke" do these idiots not understand?

What do you mean by "we're broke"? People are falling over themselves to buy treasuries. Last I checked, real yields on government bonds were negative. If anything, we should be borrowing more and spending it on any project likely to be revenue neutral or positive in the long term.

My understanding of what Solyndra was doing: They were trying to manufacture a "thin film" solar collector, which basically consists of a very thin silicon film sputtered onto plastic. It was a novel idea, but they were never able to get the fabrication costs down low enough for it to be cost competitive with conventional solar cells, not to mention other means of generating electricity. Total cost of ownership for solar power is currently running about $1 per kilowatt-hour of power generated, which is 8-10x the cost of conventional power generation.

Went to their website, downloaded their catoluge, and no they are not selling the same piss poor design,

Seriously who the fck is stupid enough to invest hunndereds of millions into a solor panel that is designed to not collect primary sunlight?

What genius said " Hey, instead of direct sunlight lets try to catch and absorb the light that bounces off of somethig else first"

I was a history major, but I still paid enough attention in math and science to kill a few thousand people if I really wanted to - anyone with even the most basic skills in science or even logical thought should have known this as a bad idea - Hell, Bush thought it was a bad idea

One of the things you ought to do is understand money. Randall Munroe, at XKCD, has explained things thusly.

Win! (even though some things are, um, distressing)

There is a missing element in the chart. The relationship between wealth, income and spending is not displayed. For instance, Donald Trump has not locked away his billions; those dollars are a measure of market interest in the things he controls.

fell victim to global market forces

You missed the key word there Conan - "victim". They've been officially assigned victim status. Nothing is their fault now.

It is time to do a major protest by withholding our tax payments to these asshats in washington. UP your withholding to 10 so that nothing or very little gets deducted from your paycheck. Keep the money in the bank and keep it for six months or until taxes are due. If millions of Americans do this, maybe then they will listen and stop this nonsense. This is a lot of money we are talking about. It is time to protest this nonsense.

If millions of Americans do this, maybe then they will listen and stop this nonsense

The key word is "If"