To clear up a few points....

One......

George Kaiser may be a distant relative of the Kaiser of shipbuilding fame, but it is doubtful they ever met. George went to school in Tulsa and then on to Harvard. He joined a small oil and gas company owned by his uncle and then did very well for himself. He made some of his money from owning The Bank of Oklahoma which he bought when it went broke some years ago. If you understand Oklahoma then you know that banking here is just another branch of the oil business.

If you don't know oil then you should stay away from lending to that business. But if you do know oil......

George is famous for, among other things, telling lawmakers that ALL tax breaks for oil companies should be done away with. If you hit oil the last problem you have is not enough money. If you don't hit oil then all the tax breaks in the world are of little use to you.

George is also one of the top 50 Americans when it come to supporting charity.

George's uncle fled the Nazi's with just the clothes on his back and came to the US where he landed in Oklahoma and drifted into the oil business. He was lucky and hit more wells than dusters. When George took over he took a more scientific approach and did even better than his uncle. He is now considered to be worth about $4,000,000,000 which would make him one of the 100 richest Americans according to Forbes.

Two......

I am fully supportive of any investigation into this solar company loan, but I suspect that the Republicans will soon allow it to die a quite death. I am already hearing on right wing radio statements such as 'These are the facts I chose to believe'. Sounds like the facts of the Bush Administration concerning this entire event are coming to light and the right wing press is trying to figure out how to back away from this mess. One thing that has come out but has not been widely reported on is that there were 148 applications for the available funds in 2006. Eleven projects were selected and this was one of them.

Why? It is now suspected that the second largest investor in this company, a member of the Walton family, had something to do with this. But that is currently just talk and that is why this needs to be looked into.

Three......

The cost of Ethanol being greater than gasoline is not a factor in its' use as it is well known that ethanol contains less BTU content than gasoline. Ethanol is used for its' ability to pump oxygen into the air which reduces pollution. MTBE used to be used for this purpose, but it mixes well with water and is toxic to humans. When MTBE leaks into a water table the water table is destroyed; when Ethanol leaks into a water table it combines with the water and is diluted to the point of being almost undetectable.

Four.....

Something I don't understand but have been told by people that are better at accounting than myself is that the US is on the hook for $75 million, not $550 million. This has something to do with the way the contract is written.

The value of this solar companies' property is said to exceed $1 Billion, which is hard to believe, and if this is true the US would not lose a penny on this deal. All of the property, both real and personal, will be sold off and the proceeds will pay back the investors.

The cost to the taxpayers remains to be seen, but any statement that the US has 'lost' anything on this is currently unfounded.