"more than $76 million in grants, land, loans, tax incentives, and other aid.... last month it persuaded the state to lend it another $5 million.... gambling with taxpayer dollars....
No wonder they want to bring crime-ridden casinos here.
They LIKE TO GAMBLE with YOUR MONEY!
Evergreen has lost $308 million since its founding.... it plans to spend $55 million by the end of the year... to complete its factories in Massachusetts and Michigan, and start work on a new wafer manufacturing plant in China.... could be forced to narrow the focus of its Devens plant to manufacturing solar wafers, its core strength, and shift the rest of its manufacturing process elsewhere.... force the company to cut jobs in Massachusetts"
Yup, GREEN will SAVE US!
Related: Green Jobs Going Global
Oh, MOVING OUT of STATE, are they?
Yup, MORE TAX LOOT TRASHED as YOUR SERVICES are DECIMATED, Bay-Stater!
"Cloudy outlook for state’s bet on solar energy firm; Evergreen, touted by Patrick, is slumping badly" by Todd Wallack and Andrea Estes, Globe Staff | October 17, 2009
Even before he won office, Governor Deval Patrick was counting on Evergreen Solar Inc. to energize the state’s economy.
Patrick visited the Marlborough company on the campaign trail, urging it to build a solar panel factory here, instead of in competing states such as New York and Oregon. Once in office, Patrick sealed the deal by offering Evergreen more than $76 million in grants, land, loans, tax incentives, and other aid. It was one of the largest investments the state has ever made in the success of a private company.
Patrick now casts Evergreen as “a symbol of the future,’’ a leader in the state’s burgeoning clean energy industry with the potential to create thousands of jobs. The company, with nearly 700 employees in the state, has more than doubled its local payroll since 2007.
But now state officials are quietly fretting about Evergreen’s future.
Battered by the ailing economy, stiff global competition, and plunging prices for solar panels, Evergreen says it may be forced to downsize its new manufacturing plant, at the old Fort Devens Army base northwest of Boston.
As it is EXPANDING in MICHIGAN and CHINA!!!!
See: China Blots Out Sun in Massachusetts
The company says it expects to burn through most of its $83 million in cash by year-end, and last month it persuaded the state to lend it another $5 million. Its stock, which peaked at nearly $19 per share in late 2007, closed at $1.83 yesterday.
“There are a lot of investors who believe they are not viable in their current form,’’ said Christopher Blansett, a JPMorgan Chase & Co. analyst who thinks the company will survive because of its technological edge but may have to cut jobs in Massachusetts to do so. “The stock is trading like it’s going to go into bankruptcy.’’
And YOU WASTED $80 BILLION DOLLARS, Mass. taxpayers!!!
The company’s challenges underscore the risks the state faces whenever it places a big bet on an emerging industry or firm.
Do YOU LIKE THEM BETTING with YOUR TAX MONEY -- and LOSING IT, Bay-Stater? But TAKE the SERVICE CUTS!!! HOW MANY SERVICES would $83 MILLION dollars buy? It would FIX MY TOWN FOREVER!
While such investments create the tantalizing possibility of luring new companies to Massachusetts and creating high-paying jobs, they also carry enormous risks if the companies fail, wasting taxpayers money and providing little in long-term gains.
And WHAT HAVE I BEEN RAGING ABOUT for YEARS, readers?
Turns out I AM RIGHT AGAIN!
Evergreen’s struggles are particularly sensitive for the Patrick administration, because the governor made such a personal push for the firm. Indeed, at a closed-door meeting earlier in March, a state economic development official warned it could be a “PR nightmare’’ if Evergreen collapses, according to handwritten records of the meeting obtained by the Globe under a public rec
ords request.
Or MOVES OUT of STATE, huh?
Despite the risk, some state economic development and administration officials insist such investments are vital to compete with other states and countries and bring new jobs to Massachusetts.
At WHAT COST, Massachusetts?
And WHERE ARE THOSE JOBS?
“This is what it takes to build a new economy,’’ said Robert Culver, chief executive officer of MassDevelopment, a quasi-public agency that has handled much of Evergreen’s aid.
What, RIPPING OFF TAXPAYERS and GIVING NOTHING BACK is the NEW ECONOMY?
Culver pointed out that the investment in Evergreen helped the state attract “one of the largest, if not the largest solar panel manufacturers in the country.’’
Evergreen’s sales are up. The company says it sold roughly 203,000 solar panels in the first half of this year, compared with 132,000 in all of 2008. But Michael El-Hillow, Evergreen’s chief financial officer, acknowledged the company faces “intense competition’’ from other solar companies around the globe. “We’re a small company in Massachusetts trying to find a way,’’ he said.
A big problem is the price of solar panels, which keeps dropping, in part because of sinking demand and competition from China. Low prices could help build a market. But they also make it hard to turn a profit....
Many critics question whether it is the government’s role to be gambling with taxpayer dollars and to be choosing one company over another. “It’s very dangerous to have bureaucrats making decisions that venture capitalists struggle with,’’ said state Senator Mark Montigny, chairman of the Senate Committee on Bonding, Capital Expenditures & State Assets, who calls incentives such as those awarded to Evergreen “giveaways.’’
Yeah, and we have loads of them:
Governor Guts State ServicesPigs at the State Trough
A Slow Saturday Special: Statehouse Slush Fund
Biotech Giveaway Was Borrowed Money
Massachusetts Residents Taken For a Ride
UBS Picks Up Pike
Slow Saturday Special: Day at the Movies
The Hollywood Heist of Massachusetts
Why Massachusetts Needed to Raise Taxes
Massachusetts' Business Tax Increase Was a Corporate Tax CutTax Increase Fails to Save Massachusetts Services
Blood All Over Massachusetts State Budget
Evergreen’s incentive package from the state included nearly $21 million in direct grants to the company, $22.6 million in tax incentives, $13 million in grants to build roads, upgrade electrical transmission lines, and upgrade other infrastructure to support the 450,000-square-foot Devens plant, a $1-per-year lease for 23 acres at Devens worth $2.3 million, and $17.5 million in loans.
Meanwhile, the roads around here are s***.
The company ultimately decided to forfeit the $17.5 million in loans, because it worried the terms of the debt could interfere with its efforts to borrow an even larger amount of money from outside lenders. But after its efforts to borrow elsewhere failed, the company recently asked MassDevelopment for a new $5 million loan.
DEBT is NEVER A GOOD THING for BUSINESS and PEOPLE!
It ALL COMES back to BANKS AGAIN!!!!
Although the loan would be secured by Evergreen’s equipment, MassDevelopment staff members warned last month that the company does not currently generate enough cash to pay it back....
The $5 million request is also double the $2.5 million limit allowed under MassDevelopment’s own guidelines....
But Ian Bowles, Patrick’s secretary of energy and environmental affairs, said he felt the state was obligated to make the loan, because it was part of the original incentive package in 2007, even though the initial loan offer expired. Besides, Bowles said, it’s important to help support key local companies, such as Evergreen, which, in addition to having 699 full-time workers in Massachusetts, has 230 temporary workers in Marlborough and Devens.
“This is one of the largest clean energy companies’’ in the state, Bowles said, “and it is a priority of the Commonwealth to help Evergreen in whatever way we can.’’ Bowles said he was aware of the company’s challenges, but pointed out that many other solar companies face similar problems and said he thought Evergreen had done a “remarkable job’’ of cutting costs and taking other steps to improve finances....
*************
Evergreen.... has told investors it plans to spend $55 million by the end of the year in order to make its loan payments, complete its factories in Massachusetts and Michigan, and start work on a new wafer manufacturing plant in China....
Blansett said he is optimistic that Evergreen can survive because it has pioneered technology that allows it produce silicon wafers - thin, shiny strips used to make solar cells - more cheaply than anyone else. Evergreen’s “string ribbon’’ technology allows it to use significantly less silicon than normally required to make the wafers.
But Blansett said Evergreen has had a harder time competing on the other steps involved in making solar panels, particularly with companies with lower labor costs in China.
Evergreen has lost $308 million since its founding in 1994, including $84.6 million in the first six months of this year. Unless the situation improves, El-Hillow said, Evergreen could be forced to narrow the focus of its Devens plant to manufacturing solar wafers, its core strength, and shift the rest of its manufacturing process elsewhere. That in turn could force the company to cut jobs in Massachusetts....
El-Hillow also said the state’s incentive package is not as large as it might seem, because only a portion of the money is in cash. For instance, the package includes $7.5 million in state tax credits. But Evergreen will only be able to cash in those incentives if it turns a profit. As for the possibility the company may not survive, El-Hillow said that many predicted the company’s demise three years ago. “The company has defied the odds before,’’ he said. “We’re still here.’’
Did you really want to BET ODDS with YOUR TAX LOOT, Bay-Stater?
Also see: Sun Shines at Night in Massachusetts
As for Michigan.....
"Michigan governor struggles to bring in new jobs; State’s industries especially hit hard" by Dana Hedgpeth, Washington Post | October 11, 2009
LANSING, Mich. - If the future of American manufacturing lies in green industries, the Michigan governor’s pursuit of jobs offers a cautionary tale.
Four years ago, Jennifer M. Granholm set out to remake her state, which took an exceptional walloping with the decline of the auto industry, as a pioneer in creating environmentally friendly jobs. Today, however, jobs are still disappearing much faster than she can create them, raising questions about how long it will take Michigan and other hard-hit states to find new industries to employ their workers.
Since taking office in 2003, Granholm has created 163,300 positions, her office says. She expects that a recent infusion of more than $1 billion from the Obama administration aimed at nurturing car battery and electric-vehicle projects will generate 40,000 more positions by 2020.
Related: Watertown Battery-Maker Pours Battery Acid in Boston-Power Wound
Yeah, let's pit STATE against STATE!
In the past decade, however, as the auto industry has grown smaller, Michigan has lost 870,000 jobs - about 632,000 of them during Granholm’s tenure. The number is expected to reach 1 million by late next year, the end of her term.
Related: "Green Stimulus Money Costs More Jobs Than It Creates, Study Shows
Every “green job” created with government money in Spain over the last eight years came at the cost of 2.2 regular jobs, and only one in 10 of the newly created green jobs became a permanent job, says a new study released this month. The study draws parallels with the green jobs programs of the Obama administration. President Obama, in fact, has used Spain’s green initiative as a blueprint for how the United States should use federal funds to stimulate the economy. Obama's economic stimulus package,which Congress passed in February, allocates billions of dollars to the green jobs industry."
I have often noticed the disparity between the TENS of THOUSANDS of JOBS we are SHEDDING with the GREEN PROMISE of HUNDREDS!!!
In her effort to attract employers, the governor has taken up the latest arms in the economic arsenal - tax credits, loans, Super Bowl tickets, and a willingness to travel as far as Japan for a weekend to try to persuade an auto parts company to bring more jobs to Michigan.
So much for the environment.
That what you want tax dough being used for, taxpayers?
She has won solar and wind energy, electric car batteries, and movie production jobs.
Oh, that last one is NOT A GOOD IDEA!
See: Slow Saturday Special: Day at the Movies
About 10,800 of the new positions came from overseas companies, according to her office, the fruits of visits to seven countries. “We have great bones as a state,’’ she said. “We know how to build stuff. We will build on that strength and diversify this economy. We will lead the nation in creating jobs in renewable energy. We’re not going to be viewed as Luddites.’’
In a state hit so hard by the recession, though, securing every new job has required enormous effort: mobilizing the state bureaucracy, negotiating tax deals with a politically divided legislature, dispelling impressions that Michigan is a prounion state and inhospitable to business. Granholm’s confidence was severely tested three years ago when appliance maker Electrolux closed its century-old refrigerator plant in Greenville, 160 miles northwest of Detroit, and moved to Mexico, taking 3,000 jobs from the town of 8,000.
As Granholm told the story in her office, overlooking the state Capitol, tears welled up in her eyes. She had spent months calling, e-mailing, and meeting with city and state officials trying to sway the company to take a package worth about $70 million in tax breaks to stay in Michigan. Electrolux left anyway.
Granholm visited with workers at an orchard near the plant within days of the last refrigerators coming off the assembly line, and the employees ate a “last supper’’ of boxed lunches while a band played. Her staff had scheduled 45 minutes. She stayed three hours, listening to workers’ stories. “I went to say, ‘I’m sorry,’ ’’ Granholm said. “We couldn’t save it. I can’t even say it now. I stayed until the last guy left.’’
Granholm remembered coming home and telling her husband, “I just don’t know what to do for people.’’ A $37 million tax package helped persuade Michigan-based United Solar Ovonic to build a solar panel production plant on the Electrolux property instead of pursuing a South Carolina offer.
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