
FBI alleges that DC Solar Scammed Berkshire Hathaway for Millions - airstrike
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-04/the-couple-who-feds-say-scammed-buffett-s-berkshire-hathaway
======
joncrane
"Funny" story: DC Solar was a big sponsor of NASCAR in multiple series.

Ross Chastain, an amazing driver who was a watermelon farmer, was finally
getting his big break and going to a very good car with full season
sponsorship from DC Solar. (Most drivers in order to succeed need some kind of
sponsorship connection and this was one of those amazing talents with few
connections guys so fans were super excited).

Literally within a few weeks of the announcement of sponsorship came the news
that DC Solar had been raided by the FBI and the sponsorship was off.

Ross Chastain is back running subpar equipment sponsored by his family's
watermelon farm business.

~~~
themodelplumber
Sad. Can the HN community sponsor a car. Crazy idea maybe but we are not known
for messing around.

~~~
brookside
Nascar, to me, is a celebration of pointless CO2 emissions.

It is literally people driving around in a circle in last-century technology,
mainly as an advertising platform for selling inefficient non-race vehicles.

We can do better in 2019, and I'd personally be ok if the whole sport
shuttered, not just one team.

~~~
clouddrover
> _driving around in a circle in last-century technology_

As a criticism I think this lacks perspective. Presumably you want them to be
driving electric cars in a circle. Electric cars are 19th century technology:

[http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/223/electric-car-
timeline.html](http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/223/electric-car-timeline.html)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_electric_vehicl...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_electric_vehicle)

[https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-02/the-history-birth-
dea...](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-02/the-history-birth-death-
resurrection-of-the-electric-car/11053928)

Formula E is good. It's improving year by year and the Gen2 car is a clear
improvement over the Gen1 car. You can watch past races on their YouTube
channel:

[https://www.youtube.com/user/FIAFormulaE](https://www.youtube.com/user/FIAFormulaE)

But let's not kid ourselves. Formula E is not yet at the level of Formula 1.

~~~
WalterBright
I know electric cars are the future, but they're just boring compared to a
smoking, snorting, shaking, thundering ICE engine.

I quit watching hydro races when they switched from Allison V-12s to jet
engines. Maybe if they added afterburners, it would make it fun again :-)

No surprise I love steam locomotives, too. Diesel-electric, sorry.

------
doodlebugging
I think the best part about this is that you can buy one of their generators
at auction next week, along with what looks to be any spare parts or
miscellaneous things needed to make your own if your are so inclined and your
skills are up to it.

[https://www.cagp.com/events/dc-solar-
auction/](https://www.cagp.com/events/dc-solar-auction/)

~~~
mikestew
16K panels and 2K inverters, man, if Sacramento weren't such a hike from
Seattle, I'd pop down and pick up a little something to put on the roof at
home. I mean, two _thousand_ inverters? Stick around to the end and they've
got to be begging you to take them home, or I'm showing my abject ignorance of
the California industrial inverter market.

~~~
icelancer
I gotta imagine some national (global?) reseller will buy up a lot.

------
jdofaz
They have (had?) a few of their solar chargers in the cell phone waiting lots
for Sky Harbor airport in Phoenix. I've charged at them a couple times, I
thought they were pretty cool. Sad to find out they were part of a scam.

I'm guessing they are gone because I don't see them on
[https://www.plugshare.com](https://www.plugshare.com) anymore.

I took a picture of it when I charged there back in February
[https://jasondavis.org/2019/02/06/SolarDcCharger.html](https://jasondavis.org/2019/02/06/SolarDcCharger.html)

------
Someone1234
So if the generators exist, it is shady but investors keep their profits. If
the generators don't exist then it is still shady, also a scam, and everyone
loses money (+ jail time for some).

The question I'd have is why haven't the federal government closed this
loophole either way? I understand incentivising solar, but this is rather
having the federal government pay the full cost (or more in some cases).

~~~
bryanlarsen
The most efficient solution is a carbon tax that fully captures externalities.
But $10/gallon gas would cause riots.

~~~
vonmoltke
> The most efficient solution is a carbon tax that fully captures
> externalities.

I'm all for that once someone comes up with a rigorous, apolitical calculation
for what that value is. It's much easier to identify the existence of unpriced
externalities than it is to quantify them. I know people associated with the
IMF have attempted to do so[1], but they still admit the calculations are
"contentious".

[1]
[https://www.imf.org/~/media/Files/Publications/WP/2019/WPIEA...](https://www.imf.org/~/media/Files/Publications/WP/2019/WPIEA2019089.ashx)

~~~
ajross
> I'm all for that once someone comes up with a rigorous, apolitical
> calculation for what that value is.

Which is just code for "I'll never support this because I'll never believe
you". Dismissing something as "policital" is the easiest out. All it takes is
for your political enemies to support something and you have a built-in excuse
to refuse to believe it. That is exactly the behavior that led to the
circumstance we're in right now, where literally half the voting population of
the USA straight up refuses to recognize scientific consensus.

So... this isn't helpful. If you really want good analysis, get in there and
help with it. Or at least be willing to accept something as "good enough". But
what you wrote there is nothing more than a fancy excuse.

~~~
smallnamespace
> apolitical

I don't believe this is possible for something as wide-ranging as the effects
of increased climate change.

Every paper that attempt these estimates use a 'local' projection of
(predicted change) * (current prices to mitigate those changes).

But even ignoring the huge error bars around the scale of changes we'll see,
the large-scale changes that reach across all of society will also change all
the prices as well; not to mention it's not easy to predict far future prices
anyway.

This also ignores the fact that the marginal impact of a ton of CO2 in the
future depends on how much CO2 is then in the air, which means you're now in
the realm of predicting what current politicians will do ... which is
inherently political, since it'll make some people look good or bad.

------
nabla9
Let's hope that Buffet proposes a bet for Justin Sun. Similar to the $1
million bet he made against Protégé Partners hedge fund fund manager.

~~~
Wheaties466
What does Tron(TRX) have to do with this article?

~~~
nabla9
Nothing anymore.

The original URI was
[https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-04/warren...](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-04/warren-
buffett-s-fake-solar-generators)

------
rofo1
"Not only did Berkshire bite, sinking $340 million alone, but so did insurer
Progressive Corp."

"The company was supposed to use the money to build mobile generators, which
supply power at sporting events and other outdoor venues. But evidence
suggested DC Solar “engaged in nearly no legitimate business,” the government
said."

This is uncharacteristic slip of Berkshire Hathaway, isn't it? I am surprised.

Can anyone recall when (if) Berkshire Hathaway invested in a Ponzi scheme
before this?

~~~
squaresmile
From
[https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-04/warren...](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-04/warren-
buffett-s-fake-solar-generators)

> Here is the essential fact of that alleged scam: Warren Buffett’s Berkshire
> Hathaway invested $340 million in it, and in exchange claimed $377 million
> of income tax benefits.

> The health of the underlying business is irrelevant. Investors don’t need to
> go to the factories and sporting events to see if the generators are good,
> because they are not really buying the generators. They are buying the tax
> benefits, and those are mostly not manufactured in a factory; they are
> manufactured in spreadsheets and legal documents.

~~~
ecolonsmak
So are they complicit in the crime then?

~~~
icebraining
Nah, since they would make money anyway, they have plausible deniability.

------
ineedasername
Maybe someone more knowledgeable could explain if/where my thinking is flawed,
but: It seems like this sort of fraud is greatly assisted by the extreme cloak
of secrecy that private corporations are allowed to operate under. Maybe the
full range of disclosers publicly traded companies are required to would be
too much, but the opposite extreme really seems too opaque.

------
mrjudgejoebrown
I know a couple of people that have worked there over the years. Everyone with
half a brain knew fraud likely was happening.

~~~
duxup
>The company built and leased only a fraction of the more than 12,000 mobile
units it had claimed were in use,

It sounds like you couldn't help but know.

------
bayareanative
Warren Buffett is monopolizing Nevada to keep Tesla and others out of the
solar business there. Who's the crook?

------
dang
Url changed from
[https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-04/warren...](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-04/warren-
buffett-s-fake-solar-generators), which points to this.

------
cincinnatus
Solar. Generator. Isn't that an oxymoron? I don't believe this equipment is
real.

~~~
sp332
They did have them manufactured, and they shipped some of them.
[http://www.dcsolardistribution.com/products/mobile-
generator...](http://www.dcsolardistribution.com/products/mobile-generators/)
It's a trailer with solar panels.

~~~
VBprogrammer
At first I mourned the environmental cost caused by this fraud. After seeing
the 'generators' at least I can let that slide. I think this is probably the
best example of 'virtue signalling' I've ever seen.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
How do you mean? That's what a solar generator trailer looks like. Lots of
companies make them.

~~~
VBprogrammer
My point was that those trailers have 2500kw of solar (under ideal
conditions). There intended purpose is to put them onto a site temporary for
an event. The process of moving then a few miles uses more energy than you'd
expect to gain from them over a few days.

------
JustSomeNobody
Can't say I'm feeling a whole lot of empathy for BH given the way they prey on
home buyers.

