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Getbig Main Boards => Politics and Political Issues Board => Topic started by: andreisdaman on June 02, 2011, 07:30:45 PM
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Obama gets the credit for saving the auto industry...after many said that he should not bail them out with loans..Obama, showed great bravery in going ahead and giving GM and Chrysler loans anyway and SAVED THE U.S. AUTO INDUSTRY FROM COMPLETE AND TOTAL COLLAPSE...Obama saved 20,000 jobs....and GM and Chrysler are now selling more cars, making better cars, and are both showing profits again....ALL LOANS HAVE BEEN PAID BACK WITH INTEREST..the American people made money on the deal
lets remember that the conservatives and Republicans DID NOT WANT TO BAIL OUT THE AUTO INDUSTRY AND DIDN'T CARE THAT THE US WOULD BE TOTALLY OUT OF THE AUTO BUSINESS....
I don't know how Berzerk Fairy can even show his face in these threads any more...I keep schooling him big time...
PLUS...he still won't explain why he has his mother in his avatar :D
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$14 billion of US taxpayer dollars to save 20,000 jobs and two failed companies that, unlike Ford, were far too stupid to save themselves. You really are one pathetically stupid douche bag.
Nice meltdown, though.
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$14 billion of US taxpayer dollars to save 20,000 jobs and two failed companies that, unlike Ford, were far too stupid to save themselves. You really are one pathetically stupid douche bag.
Nice meltdown, though.
you're the one melting..still repeating lies
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you're the one melting..still repeating lies
I just posted a WSJ article from today that quotes Obama's own crony, you stupid fuck. Good job owning me with an article from April 2010, though. You really are right on par with Blacken for Getbig's dumbest.
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I just posted a WSJ article from today that quotes Obama's own crony, you stupid fuck. Good job owning me with an article from April 2010, though. You really are right on par with Blacken for Getbig's dumbest.
Jesus your dumbness never ceases...the article is from 2010 because THATS WHEN GM REPAID THE LOAN IN FULL!!!...can you read???...
now that I've owned you yet again, lets get to why you have your mother dancing naked in your avatar..thats more interesting
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Jesus your dumbness never ceases...the article is from 2010 because THATS WHEN GM REPAID THE LOAN IN FULL!!!...can you read???...
now that I've owned you yet again, lets get to why you have your mother dancing naked in your avatar..thats more interesting
Where in that Gallup thread did I mention GM, you fucking retard? I said "auto bailouts". Jesus, you are one stupid fuck.
This thread is definitely not going the way you intended it to.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303745304576359530678869402.html
LOL.
The best part has to be you bragging about US taxpayers paying $14 billion to save 20,000 jobs. Hahahahahaha!
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Jesus your dumbness never ceases...the article is from 2010 because THATS WHEN GM REPAID THE LOAN IN FULL!!!...can you read???...
now that I've owned you yet again, lets get to why you have your mother dancing naked in your avatar..thats more interesting
In fairness, GM did repay the loan but the Treasury still spent around 50 billion to buy a shareholders stake in the company. I share that the Treasury still owns. So yes, the loans were repaid but the 50 billion that bought the shares of GM are still on the books.
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Let's cheer for saving two failed companies that will rinse and repeat the same shitty business tactics that got them into that position in the first place. And if that's not good enough, let's cheer for that $700k/job the US taxpayer spent to save a union!
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Where in that Gallup thread did I mention GM, you fucking retard? I said "auto bailouts". Jesus, you are one stupid fuck.
This thread is definitely not going the way you intended it to.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303745304576359530678869402.html
LOL.
The best part has to be you bragging about US taxpayers paying $14 billion to save 20,000 jobs. Hahahahahaha!
OH MY GOD>>you can't be that GODDAMN DUMB...AUTO BAILOUTS were to GM AND CHRYSLER.....GM PAID LOANS BACK....CHRYSLER PAID LOANS BACK....
admit you were wrong and lets move on so you can keep SOME self respect...
again..lets talk about why your mother is in your avatar
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OH MY GOD>>you can't be that GODDAMN DUMB...AUTO BAILOUTS were to GM AND CHRYSLER.....GM PAID LOANS BACK....CHRYSLER PAID LOANS BACK....
admit you were wrong and lets move on so you can keep SOME self respect...
again..lets talk about why your mother is in your avatar
Are you retarded? Seriously?
It was Obama's top auto and manufacturing adviser, Ron Bloom, that gave the $14 billion number today. So you're calling Obama a liar now? Another bit of advice: read the article before opening that cock holster of yours.
Just stop. This is fucking embarrassing for you.
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In fairness, GM did repay the loan but the Treasury still spent around 50 billion to buy a shareholders stake in the company. I share that the Treasury still owns. So yes, the loans were repaid but the 50 billion that bought the shares of GM are still on the books.
yes but that obligation is now down to about 14 billion or so and Fiat and other consortiums have pledged to buy out the rest of the U.S obligation....we will have gotten back all of our money....but thanks for pointing that out
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Are you retarded? Seriously?
It was Obama's top auto and manufacturing adviser, Ron Bloom, that gave the $14 billion number today. So you're calling Obama a liar now? Another bit of advice: read the article before opening that cock holster of yours.
Just stop. This is fucking embarrassing for you.
please don't talk about anything else..you are owned and won't apologize or own up to you being wrong....
NOW FOR THE TENTH TIME....WHY DO YOU HAVE YOUR MOTHER IN YOUR AVATAR???
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please don't talk about anything else..you are owned and won't apologize or own up to you being wrong....
Hit with reality so he falls back on failed tactics. Boring. Thanks for playing. You have officially reached "Blacken700" status.
"The White House's top auto and manufacturing adviser, Ron Bloom, later specified the loss at closer to $14 billion."
"The White House's top auto and manufacturing adviser, Ron Bloom, later specified the loss at closer to $14 billion."
"The White House's top auto and manufacturing adviser, Ron Bloom, later specified the loss at closer to $14 billion."
"The White House's top auto and manufacturing adviser, Ron Bloom, later specified the loss at closer to $14 billion."
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
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Hit with reality so he falls back on failed tactics. Boring. Thanks for playing. You have officially reached "Blacken700" status.
"The White House's top auto and manufacturing adviser, Ron Bloom, later specified the loss at closer to $14 billion."
"The White House's top auto and manufacturing adviser, Ron Bloom, later specified the loss at closer to $14 billion."
"The White House's top auto and manufacturing adviser, Ron Bloom, later specified the loss at closer to $14 billion."
"The White House's top auto and manufacturing adviser, Ron Bloom, later specified the loss at closer to $14 billion."
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
sigh....this is like talking to a child
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Andre-- the American car companies are a catastrophe with the exception of Ford. All are financed with billions in taxpayer money. The "saving" of the auto industry amounted to fattening the pockets of a few union bosses, saving the jobs of 20 thousand or so obsolete American Autoworker Union employees and a perpetual cycle of tax rebate bribes where the government essentially paid consumers to purchase cars.
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andreisdabitch...
haha - you are a moron. Let's have this talk again in a few years. You think USA is recovering? The shit is just starting.
Credit card debt is out of control. Millions more homes ready to foreclose. No manufacturing jobs were created. Massive affirmative action going on putting minorities into non productive jobs (Radioshack, Bestbuy, Lowes, Home Depot, etc. etc.). Politics in the USA run by lawyers instead of scientists and engineers (China). Gas prices going up. Discussions going on about raising the debt ceiling (yeah, that's a sign of a nation winning). Nasa being dismantled in lieu of welfare.
Should I go on? Andreis, the country is in a hot mess. There are so many distractions most sheople don't know what's going on. When the shit hits the fan they are open for a rude awakening.
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Andre-- the American car companies are a catastrophe with the exception of Ford. All are financed with billions in taxpayer money. The "saving" of the auto industry amounted to fattening the pockets of a few union bosses, saving the jobs of 20 thousand or so obsolete American Autoworker Union employees and a perpetual cycle of tax rebate bribes where the government essentially paid consumers to purchase cars.
good try and I guess that makes sense from your point of view.....frommy point of view and the view of most Americans...
Auto industry saved from total collapse
20. 0000 jobs saved or else the economy would have really tanked
many thousands more peripheral jobs which depend on the auto industry saved
there are other benefits but why bother listing them...you guys don't get it
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sigh....this is like talking to a child
So you're calling Obama and his top auto advisor liars? ::)
And speaking of children, just look at your responses in this and Gallup thread. You're like what, almost 50, too? :-X
good try and I guess that makes sense from your point of view.....frommy point of view and the view of most Americans...
Auto industry saved from total collapse
20. 0000 jobs saved or else the economy would have really tanked
many thousands more peripheral jobs which depend on the auto industry saved
there are other benefits but why bother listing them...you guys don't get it
20,000 jobs that wouldn't have made the economy any worse than it is. But yeah, you defending saving jobs at a cost of $700k/job.
Responding to you is honestly making my head hurt. You really are THAT fucking stupid.
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andreisdabitch...
haha - you are a moron. Let's have this talk again in a few years. You think USA is recovering? The shit is just starting.
Credit card debt is out of control. Millions more homes ready to foreclose. No manufacturing jobs were created. Massive affirmative action going on putting minorities into non productive jobs (Radioshack, Bestbuy, Lowes, Home Depot, etc. etc.). Politics in the USA run by lawyers instead of scientists and engineers (China). Gas prices going up. Discussions going on about raising the debt ceiling (yeah, that's a sign of a nation winning). Nasa being dismantled in lieu of welfare.
Should I go on? Andreis, the country is in a hot mess. There are so many distractions most sheople don't know what's going on. When the shit hits the fan they are open for a rude awakening.
this thread is not about all those things you just mentioned..ONLY about the AUTO BAILOUTS...I can address that stuff as well if you like but why waste my time....
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So you're calling Obama and his top auto advisor liars? ::)
And speaking of children, just look at your responses in this and Gallup thread. You're like what, almost 50, too? :-X
20,000 jobs that wouldn't have made the economy any worse than it is. But yeah, you defending saving jobs at a cost of $700k/job.
Responding to you is honestly making my head hurt. You really are THAT fucking stupid.
your continuing stupidity in the face of adversity would be commendable..if only you were't such a retard...I tell you what..since you are incapable of knowing right from wrong I will let up and leave you alone....you are too dumb to debate me and besides you need critical thinking skills to do so which you lack....
go back to studying for your GED....I'll even help you if you want..see??..no hard feelings
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You keep talking shit yet you refuse to actually refute Obama and his top auto adviser. Says a lot. Thanks for playing.
This thread was a magnificent backfire. Then again, 99.99% of your posts are. Sup, economy threads! LOL!
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You keep talking shit yet you refuse to actually refute Obama and his top auto adviser. Says a lot. Thanks for playing.
This thread was a magnificent backfire. Then again, 99.99% of your posts are. Sup, economy threads! LOL!
its really funny that you use a quote from one of Obama's allies to prove your point and when I do the same and use a conservative quote to prove my point you say that the said conservative has no credibility and doesn't know what he is talking about....
case in point: when speaker of the house Boehner said that Obama did a great job handling the Egyptian crisis and that he was a legitimate citizen of the U.S...you stated that Boehner didn't know what he was talking about....can you imagine that???..BOEHNER>>>THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE>>>THIRD IN LINE TO THE PRESIDENCY>>DOESN"T KNOW WHAT HE IS TALKING ABOUT?????????
I just keep tripping you up and owning you.....that is what this thread is about..its showing everyone your hypocrisy and exposing you as a dumbass know-nothing...
in that regard, this thread is a resounding success so far!!!
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its really funny that you use a quote from one of Obama's allies to prove your point and when I do the same and use a conservative quote to prove my point you say that the said conservative has no credibility and doesn't know what he is talking about....
case in point: when speaker of the house Boehner said that Obama did a great job handling the Egyptian crisis and that he was a legitimate citizen of the U.S...you stated that Boehner didn't know what he was talking about....can you imagine that???..BOEHNER>>>THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE>>>THIRD IN LINE TO THE PRESIDENCY>>DOESN"T KNOW WHAT HE IS TALKING ABOUT?????????
I just keep tripping you up and owning you.....that is what this thread is about..its showing everyone your hypocrisy and exposing you as a dumbass know-nothing...
in that regard, this thread is a resounding success so far!!!
And? I hate to break it to you but I've been a registered independent since I turned 18. Thus I'm able to call Boehner an asshole when it fits and also criticize your leftist Gods when I feel like it. I don't blindly follow party lines like you fucking sheeple do.
Egypt has turned into a massive cluster-fuck and Boehner is right there with your God-King with egg on their faces.
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Anybody know what ever came of this?
A top Senate Republican on Thursday accused the Obama administration of misleading taxpayers about General Motors' loan repayment, saying the struggling auto giant was only able to repay its bailout money by dipping into a separate pot of bailout money.
Sen. Chuck Grassley's charge was backed up by the inspector general for the bailout -- also known as the Trouble Asset Relief Program, or TARP. Watchdog Neil Barofsky told Fox News, as well as the Senate Finance Committee, that General Motors used bailout money to pay back the federal government.
"It appears to be nothing more than an elaborate TARP money shuffle," Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said in a letter Thursday to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.
GM announced Wednesday that it had paid back the $8.1 billion in loans it received from the U.S. and Canadian governments. Of that, $6.7 billion went to the U.S. treasury.
But Grassley said in his letter that a Securities and Exchange Commission form filed by GM showed that $6.7 billion of the tens of billions the company received was sitting in an escrow account and available to be used for repayment. He called on Geithner to provide more information about why the company was allowed to use bailout money to repay bailout money, and how much of the remaining escrow money GM would be allowed to keep.
"The bottom line seems to be that the TARP loans were 'repaid' with other TARP funds in a Treasury escrow account. The TARP loans were not repaid from money GM is earning selling cars, as GM and the administration have claimed in their speeches, press releases and television commercials," he wrote.
Vice President Biden on Wednesday called the GM repayment a "huge accomplishment."
But Barofsky told Fox News that while it's "somewhat good news," there's a big catch.
"I think the one thing that a lot of people overlook with this is where they got the money to pay back the loan. And it isn't from earnings. ... It's actually from another pool of TARP money that they've already received," he said Wednesday. "I don't think we should exaggerate it too much. Remember that the source of this money is just other TARP money."
Barofsky told the Senate Finance Committee the same thing Tuesday, and said the main way for the federal government to earn money out of GM would be through "a liquidation of its ownership interest."
Grassley criticized this scenario in his letter.
"The taxpayers are still on the hook, and whether TARP funds are ultimately recovered depends entirely on the government's ability to sell GM stock in the future. Treasury has merely exchanged a legal right to repayment for an uncertain hope of sharing in the future growth of GM. A debt-for-equity swap is not a repayment," he wrote.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/04/22/grassley-slams-gm-administration-loans-repaid-bailout-money/#ixzz1OBtGLvxo
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The Inherently Ideological Evaluation of the GM Bailout
June 2, 2011 9:24 A.M. By Jim Manzi
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/268637/inherently-ideological-evaluation-gm-bailout-jim-manzi
Megan McArdle has done consistently excellent reported pieces on the GM bailout, and her recent evaluation of its net effect on the U.S. Treasury is no exception. Her bottom line is that the deal caused U.S. taxpayers to:
burn $10-20 billion in order to give the company another shot at life. To put that in perspective, GM had about 75,000 hourly workers before the bankruptcy. We could have given each of them a cool $250,000 and still come out well ahead compared to the ultimate cost of the bailout including the tax breaks
This is in line with the Obama administration’s $14 billion estimate of the net cost to the Treasury, as reported in the Wall Street Journal. If anything, I think this understates the case on the direct costs, because it does not consider other direct transfers of economic value like the government support for Delphi that inflated the value of the asset that GM sold to create a big chunk of their headline profits this past quarter, green-car development subsidies, and uncompensated interest costs on the government investment.
But no matter what realistic direct bailout costs you estimate, the objection of bailout defenders is that it is dwarfed by the other receipts or avoided expenditures created by the bailout. According to the Wall Street Journal, this is exactly the defense offered by the Obama administration:
The White House report said the money invested in GM and Chrysler ultimately saved the government tens of billions of dollars in direct and indirect costs, including the cost of unemployment insurance and lost tax receipts that the government would have incurred had the big Detroit auto makers collapsed.
There is a lot to this point, but it’s not really so simple. You can’t compare all of these net tax receipts (or more broadly, economic activity) to what would happen in “the world as it is today, minus GM.”
First, in the event of a bankruptcy, you don’t burn down the factories, erase all the source code on all the hard disks, make it illegal to use the brand name Chevrolet, and execute all of the employees. Others take ownership of the assets, and the employees go on with their lives. Some of these assets will be put to use generating revenues, profits, and taxes, and some of these former employees will get jobs or start businesses, and generate revenues, profits, and taxes. In order to measure the effect of the bailout over, say, five or ten years, you have to compare the actual taxes collected to what would happened over this same period in the counterfactual case where the bankruptcy was allowed to proceed. What owners would have bought the factories and IP assets, and what would they have done with them? What businesses would the former employees have started? Who would have moved to Arizona and retired? What new industry clusters will evolve in Arizona because of this transfer of people?
Second, some of the profit GM makes today would have been made by other companies that picked up some of the slack if the company lost market share after a bankruptcy. They would pay taxes on these profits, and as far as government receipts are concerned, money is money. How would auto industry structure evolve over time given whatever changes happened to the assets currently owned by the legal entity GM, or the employees currently paid by it?
Anybody who tells you they can answer all of these questions reliably is full of it.
And that doesn’t even start to get to the really long-run considerations of what effects this has on rule of law and moral hazard (or if you want to make the case for the bailout, social solidarity and degradation of the working class).
I hold the belief, quite strongly, that the net effect of the GM bailout will be negative. More precisely, I hold the belief that over a series of many such decisions, a mindset that would have been stringent enough not to have sanctioned the GM bailout is likely to lead to better overall economic outcomes for America. This belief is ideological — not in the sense that I just hold it for inexplicable reasons that cannot ever be changed by empirical analysis, but in the sense that I don’t believe that human beings currently have the capability to conduct the kind of analysis that should convince a rational observer to change his mind about the GM bailout in isolation from a more profound paradigm-shift-like change in his beliefs about the world.
The GM bailout is not an isolated case of this problem. And as I’ve argued many times, impressive-sounding empirical analysis is typically insufficient to measure the effect of important economic interventions like the stimulus program. If you can’t even measure what effect already-executed programs have had, how likely is it that you can predict the effects of future programs?
Acceptance of this degree of ignorance doesn’t cut equally against all ideological positions. It leads naturally to a call for decentralized decision-making, experiments, and entrepreneurial groping toward knowledge.
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And? I hate to break it to you but I've been a registered independent since I turned 18. Thus I'm able to call Boehner an asshole when it fits and also criticize your leftist Gods when I feel like it. I don't blindly follow party lines like you fucking sheeple do.
Egypt has turned into a massive cluster-fuck and Boehner is right there with your God-King with egg on their faces.
hahahahahaah independent,the getbig pussy calls himself an independent,yeah it's very independent of you living with your mommy.oh and i didn't know that was your mommy dancing,you must have been adopted because she 's hot,and has bigger arms than you :D
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Hahahahaha, how mad is this kid?
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hahahahahaah independent,the getbig pussy calls himself an independent,yeah it's very independent of you living with your mommy.oh and i didn't know that was your mommy dancing,you must have been adopted because she 's hot,and has bigger arms than you :D
More nonsense from you. Hey obama is really got the economy roaring now huh?
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More nonsense from you. Hey obama is really got the economy roaring now huh?
Notice that neither Andre nor BlackenWhorkMonsVenusCoh ibiaetcetcetc will actually refute Obama's own adviser?
Let's all celebrate only losing $14 billion on bailing out 20,000 union thugs and two companies that aren't the least bit competitive in anything they do. FUCK YEAH!
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Hahahahaha, how mad is this kid?
As the economy gets worse and worse, Team Dildo is goingto get even angrier and lash out even harder as their
God King is proven to be the failure we all said he would be and that they donated money to.
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As the economy gets worse and worse, Team Dildo is goingto get even angrier and lash out even harder as their
God King is proven to be the failure we all said he would be and that they donated money to.
You're right. The closer 2012 gets the angrier and angrier they'll become. Blacken's still waiting for Obama to pay for his gas and time's running out on that.
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You're right. The closer 2012 gets the angrier and angrier they'll become. Blacken's still waiting for Obama to pay for his gas and time's running out on that.
Just look at what thy are claiming as accomplishments?
ObamaCare - laughable and pathetic that anyone would cheer that mess on.
OBL - Fine.
Ths? GMAFB - how hard is it to spend other peoples money and give it t people who will donate to your campaign? Yeah real hard.
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Just look at what thy are claiming as accomplishments?
ObamaCare - laughable and pathetic that anyone would cheer that mess on.
OBL - Fine.
Ths? GMAFB - how hard is it to spend other peoples money and give it t people who will donate to your campaign? Yeah real hard.
The Obamacare one really makes me laugh. Thousands of waivers issued, being issued, and even Piglosi and Reid are clamoring to jump on the board the waiver ship. That looks like success to me!
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You're right. The closer 2012 gets the angrier and angrier they'll become. Blacken's still waiting for Obama to pay for his gas and time's running out on that.
when you can live on your own give us a call,mr. independent :D :D :D
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when you can live on your own give us a call,mr. independent :D :D :D
You run close to 20 gimmicks on here, have amassed tens of thousands of posts between them as you log hour after hour on here and you don't own your own business. Sorry, there is no way you're working let alone working in a job above burger-flipper.
Stick to sucking benefits out of the people who do work and pay taxes, you pathetic welfare-leeching degenerate. :D :D :D :D
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As the economy gets worse and worse, Team Dildo is goingto get even angrier and lash out even harder as their
God King is proven to be the failure we all said he would be and that they donated money to.
Hey, make up your mind here.
Are they "Team Kneepadder" or "Team Dildo"?
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You run close to 20 gimmicks on here, have amassed tens of thousands of posts between them as you log hour after hour on here and you don't own your own business. Sorry, there is no way you're working let alone working in a job above burger-flipper.
Stick to sucking benefits out of the people who do work and pay taxes, you pathetic welfare-leeching degenerate. :D :D :D :D
Blacken lives in a group home resembling Shutter Island.
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Hey, make up your mind here.
Are they "Team Kneepadder" or "Team Dildo"?
They're quite good at multitasking. Just ask Blacken and andre. Nothing they love more than getting double-teamed by Odumbo and one of his cronies.
Blacken lives in a group home resembling Shutter Island.
;D
Watch out now or he'll start following you around the board and lobbing incoherent posts at you.
Your to stupid go love plain and watch more fox idiot :D :D :D :D
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tell everyone you live at home with mommy ;D,and for 333386, he lives in an apartment in the getto,now that's nice :D :D :D
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tell everyone you live at home with mommy ;D,and for 333386, he lives in an apartment in the getto,now that's nice :D :D :D
Hey blackass - can you give us your opinion why the economy still sucks and is getting worse despite the fact that obama got nearly everything he wanted so far?
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Obama gets the credit for saving the auto industry...after many said that he should not bail them out with loans..Obama, showed great bravery in going ahead and giving GM and Chrysler loans anyway and SAVED THE U.S. AUTO INDUSTRY FROM COMPLETE AND TOTAL COLLAPSE...Obama saved 20,000 jobs....and GM and Chrysler are now selling more cars, making better cars, and are both showing profits again....ALL LOANS HAVE BEEN PAID BACK WITH INTEREST..the American people made money on the deal
lets remember that the conservatives and Republicans DID NOT WANT TO BAIL OUT THE AUTO INDUSTRY AND DIDN'T CARE THAT THE US WOULD BE TOTALLY OUT OF THE AUTO BUSINESS....
I don't know how Berzerk Fairy can even show his face in these threads any more...I keep schooling him big time...
PLUS...he still won't explain why he has his mother in his avatar :D
Now that's spin at it's finest.
Bindare hit the nail on the head. Even the SIG says that GM used TARP money from one account to pay off the TARP loan from another account.
Doesn't matter how they are flipping the money around (loans, stocks, whatever), GM still owes 27 Billion. It remains to be seen if they'll get it paid back or not.
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Notice that neither Andre nor BlackenWhorkMonsVenusCoh ibiaetcetcetc will actually refute Obama's own adviser?
Let's all celebrate only losing $14 billion on bailing out 20,000 union thugs and two companies that aren't the least bit competitive in anything they do. FUCK YEAH!
sigh.....Ronald Reagan , who is as conservative as they come bailed out the banks when there was the infamous savings and loan disaster in the 80's
Reagan also bailed out Chrysler as well with a billion dollar loan guarantee....so there was ample precedent for what Obama did.....the gov't has been doing this for years.....you act as if its something Obama made up
THE OWNING OF BERZERK FAIRY CONTINUES...did you beg the mod to change the title of the thread, crybaby???
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Just look at what thy are claiming as accomplishments?
ObamaCare - laughable and pathetic that anyone would cheer that mess on.
OBL - Fine.
Ths? GMAFB - how hard is it to spend other peoples money and give it t people who will donate to your campaign? Yeah real hard.
I already listed Obama's many achievements ..if you choose to ignore them then so be it..its your ignorant stupidity..not mine
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Have you seen the recent sales numbers? He saved nothing.
Andre - fail.
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Hey, make up your mind here.
Are they "Team Kneepadder" or "Team Dildo"?
HA!..coming from Team Cell-Tech :D
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Blacken lives in a group home resembling Shutter Island.
HA!..funny :)
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tell everyone you live at home with mommy ;D,and for 333386, he lives in an apartment in the getto,now that's nice :D :D :D
BOTH TRUE!!! :D..GOOD ONE ;)
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Attacking me personally will not change the fact that the messiah has failed. He didn't save anything, he simply stole money from taxpayers to give it to his union thugs friends.
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Attacking me personally will not change the fact that the messiah has failed. He didn't save anything, he simply stole money from taxpayers to give it to his union thugs friends.
whose attacking you???...telling the truth about you is not an attack ;)
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Hey andre - you do realize bmw, toyota, kia, and others make vehicles here too right?
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Hey andre - you do realize bmw, toyota, kia, and others make vehicles here too right?
of course but whats your point?
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Why didn't they need a massive bailout?
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of course but whats your point?
Bottom line is GM still owes 27 Billion so how can this possibly be considered a success at this point?
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In the land of make believe and obamaland - the worse things are, the better.
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In the land of make believe and obamaland - the worse things are, the better.
Reminds me of the double counting with Obamacare.
We'll borrow money from the government over here, and pay of what we owe the government over there...and then we'll claim success and mindless Obamabots will flock to support us. ::)
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Its called obamanomics - an entirely new way of looking at things.
The is terrible is good. What is good is racist and bad.
Debt is good
Inflation is good
High taxes are good.
And on and on and. Hope and change baby.
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The truth behind Chrysler’s fake auto bailout pay back
Washington Examinier ^ | 5/24/11 | Conn Carroll
It is not every day that the White House and Democratic National Committee celebrate a supposedly private company’s debt restructuring plan, but such is the marriage of big government and big business under the Obama administration. The New York Times reports: “Chrysler said Tuesday that it had paid back $7.6 billion in loans from the American and Canadian governments, marking another significant step in the revival of the company, the smallest of the Detroit automakers.”
But as The Truth About Cars reports, the loan pay back is just another Obama con job:
Back in November of 2009, when GM announced that it would repay its government loans, it didn’t take much investigation to realize that The General was simply shuffling government money from one pocket to the other and that true “payback” was still a ways off. … And now that our government finds itself “contemplating a runaway deficit and getting rid of its 8 percent of Chrysler’s equity,” would you believe that a similar federal money-shuffle is under way? Believe it.
American taxpayers have already spent more than $13 billion bailing out Chrysler. The Obama administration already forgave more than $4 billion of that debt when the company filed for bankruptcy in 2009. Taxpayers are never getting that money back. But how is Chrysler now paying off the rest of the $7.6 billion they owe the Treasury Department?
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
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The truth behind Chrysler’s fake auto bailout pay back
Washington Examinier ^ | 5/24/11 | Conn Carroll
It is not every day that the White House and Democratic National Committee celebrate a supposedly private company’s debt restructuring plan, but such is the marriage of big government and big business under the Obama administration. The New York Times reports: “Chrysler said Tuesday that it had paid back $7.6 billion in loans from the American and Canadian governments, marking another significant step in the revival of the company, the smallest of the Detroit automakers.”
But as The Truth About Cars reports, the loan pay back is just another Obama con job:
Back in November of 2009, when GM announced that it would repay its government loans, it didn’t take much investigation to realize that The General was simply shuffling government money from one pocket to the other and that true “payback” was still a ways off. … And now that our government finds itself “contemplating a runaway deficit and getting rid of its 8 percent of Chrysler’s equity,” would you believe that a similar federal money-shuffle is under way? Believe it.
American taxpayers have already spent more than $13 billion bailing out Chrysler. The Obama administration already forgave more than $4 billion of that debt when the company filed for bankruptcy in 2009. Taxpayers are never getting that money back. But how is Chrysler now paying off the rest of the $7.6 billion they owe the Treasury Department?
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
I posted 4 different articles about this but facts just don't penetrate thick skulls. You should read the comments on CNN. NO ONE believes this bullshit but a few on this board.
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Reminds me of the double counting with Obamacare.
We'll borrow money from the government over here, and pay of what we owe the government over there...and then we'll claim success and mindless Obamabots will flock to support us. ::)
Whats that?! I can't hear you over the roar of the raging manufacturing that has returned to the USofA!! ::)
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President Obama: Economy on bumpy 'road to recovery'
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President Barack Obama on Friday told workers at a Chrysler plant in Toledo, Ohio, that the economy is on a bumpy “road to recovery,” hours after the release of a lackluster jobs report.
“This economy took a big hit,” Obama said. “Just like if you have a bad illness … it’s going to take a while for you to mend, and that’s what’s happening to our economy.”
Without mentioning the Labor Department’s May jobs report that showed the unemployment rate increasing from 9 percent to 9.1 percent, Obama said the economy has faced “headwinds” in recent months, including rising gas prices, the earthquake in Japan and instability in the Middle East.
“We’re going to pass through some rough terrain that even a Wrangler would have a tough time with,” Obama said, in reference to the Jeep truck produced at the Toledo plant. The quip was met with boos from the otherwise supportive employees in the audience.Obama’s visit to the Chrysler plant was supposed to hammer home the point that his administration’s bold rescue of the auto industry prevented the loss of millions of jobs.
Amid a rising unemployment rate and a tepid 54,000 jobs created in May, though, Obama also sought to ease fears that the country could be slipping back into recession.
“We’ve got to rebuild this whole economy for a new age so that the middle class doesn’t just survive, but it thrives,” Obama said.
In Toledo, where manufacturing job losses have accelerated during the economic downturn, Chrysler employs more than 1,700 workers producing Jeep and Dodge vehicles.
Obama said that because the government stepped in to stabilize the auto industry, thousands of Chrysler jobs and employees of local businesses were saved — including local restaurant Rudy’s Hot Dog, where Obama stopped for a quick meal en route to the plant.
“We had a few options: we could have followed the status quo and kept the automakers on life support … but that would have just kicked the problem down the road,” Obama said. “Or we could have done what lots of folks in Washington thought we should do, and that is nothing. That would have triggered a cascade of damage across the country.”
On Thursday night, just ahead of Obama’s visit to Ohio, the Treasury Department took final steps to divest itself of Chrysler stock, selling its remaining stake to Italian automotive and finance company Fiat. The U.S. government will recoup more than $11.2 billion in federal dollars committed as part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program’s automotive financing initiative. Treasury expects to collect an additional $560 million in proceeds from the transaction with Fiat.
Obama praised Chrysler for repaying “every dime and more of what it owes the American taxpayer” six years ahead of schedule. And with Treasury’s sale of its stock, Obama said the company soon will be 100 percent privately owned.
The controversial auto bailout provided more than $81 billion to save General Motors and Chrysler. Since then, GM repaid its outstanding federal loans five years sooner than expected, and the initial offering of its public stock in November became one of the largest in U.S. history.
Now, the president said, the industry is thriving.
“This industry is back on its feet, repaying its debts, gaining ground,” Obama said. “I placed my bet on you. I put my faith in the American worker. And I’ll tell you what, I’m going to do that every day of the week.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0611/56216.html#ixzz1OFOqnXzH
Welcome to the recovery.
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yes but that obligation is now down to about 14 billion or so and Fiat and other consortiums have pledged to buy out the rest of the U.S obligation....we will have gotten back all of our money....but thanks for pointing that out
The Chrysler bailout was a different animal in comparison to the GM bailout. The U.S. govt. was able to pretty much give Chrysler to Fiat for almost nothing while GM required a large loan and the U.S. govt. taken a very, very large stake in the company as well. The Treasury is actually a one of, if not the, biggest shareholders in GM and needs the share price of GM to be around 50 dollars to break even....so far it's not happening and if the U.S. govt. unloads all GM stock this summer they are going to lose quite a bit money.
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Thread backfire!
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Thread backfire!
awesome thread because it showed your hypocrisy, dickface
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awesome thread because it showed your hypocrisy, dickface
Did you read anything we posted?
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Did you read anything we posted?
Of course not. He's fucking Blacken 2.0. A completely embarrassing moron.
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Of course not. He's fucking Blacken 2.0. A completely embarrassing moron.
its embarrassing that your mother is dancing naked in your avatar, dickface.....
as for you 3333 its embarrassing for you to even ask that question
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First - mother jokes are worthy of 12 yo, not 40 yo married men.
Second - there are many articles in this thread showing that the govt is playing three card monte w the money.
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First - mother jokes are worthy of 12 yo, not 40 yo married men.
Second - there are many articles in this thread showing that the govt is playing three card monte w the money.
I stoop to the level of my opponent..its all he understands..he can't comprehend on an adult level
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I stoop to the level of my opponent..its all he understands..he can't comprehend on an adult level
He says as I and everyone else on this board runs intellectual circles around him.
The saddest part of all this is that you're nearly 50. Double my age with half the brains and 10x the immaturity. And that's saying a lot because I'm an immature douche.
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He says as I and everyone else on this board runs intellectual circles around him.
The saddest part of all this is that you're nearly 50. Double my age with half the brains and 10x the immaturity. And that's saying a lot because I'm an immature douche.
wow..you finally told the truth about something
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Email Print 71Comments Share
June 3, 2011
Obamanomics in a Nutshell
By Rich Lowry
It's a sign of grim times indeed when the Obama administration is touting a potential $14 billion loss to the taxpayers as a great economic success.
The White House is running on its auto bailouts as courageous acts that saved the industrial Midwest. To critics of government intervention, the administration holds up the revival of General Motors and Chrysler as proof of the efficacy - nay, the necessity - of bailout economics.
It's a telling point of pride. In bragging about the bailouts, the administration is boasting of a process shot through with lawlessness and political favoritism, not to mention reckless disregard for taxpayer dollars. Few acts have so powerfully captured Pres. Barack Obama's corporatism.
The administration believes it trumps all criticism with one data point: GM and Chrysler are still with us. GM has even been making money, and had the biggest IPO in American history last November.
Yet, as Megan McArdle of The Atlantic tartly observes, it shouldn't have been in doubt that if government threw $80 billion at two companies, not expecting to get all of it back, it could save them. She points out that the loss from the bailouts (the administration's estimate is $14 billion) will be close to the entire market capitalization of GM in 2007. It will be several times as big as the company's 2008 market capitalization.
McArdle figures that, at a cost of roughly $10 billion to $20 billion, we might as well have given GM's pre-bankruptcy workforce of 75,000 hourly workers $250,000 each and called it a day.
On top of the bailout, the government has given GM a special tax break - CNN calls it "a sweetheart deal" - that will save it $14 billion on its U.S. tax bill. The government also is trying to induce consumers to buy GM's signature new product, the absurdly expensive electric Chevy Volt, by giving them a $7,500 tax credit on its $41,000 sticker price.
With all this support, GM should be the world's greatest industrial concern. It's hardly that, although it's much improved. We can thank Chapter 11, the tried-and-true method for turning around bankrupt companies that still have value.
Writing in the journal National Affairs, Todd Zywicki makes a distinction between "economically failed" companies that disappear when they go bankrupt and "financially distressed" companies that can still work. With a skilled workforce, advanced factories, and prized brands, GM was the clearly the latter. "Virtually every major airline has been through bankruptcy at least once, as have K-Mart, Macy's, and a host of other familiar brands that are still very much in business," Zywicki writes.
Somewhere in GM there was a viable car company trying to get out. Through Chapter 11, GM pared down wages and benefits, shed uneconomical dealerships, and ditched unnecessary brands. This was a classic restructuring. If anything, without government intervention, it would have been more thoroughgoing and effective.
As an exercise in what Zywicki calls "state capitalism," the bailout was a procedural horror show. It was probably illegal to funnel TARP funds into the companies; they may not have been car companies worthy of the name any longer, but they certainly weren't "financial institutions." Chrysler's creditors, who held secured bonds and were guaranteed repayment first, got forced into taking 29 cents on the dollar. In contrast, the United Auto Workers' pension plan got 40 cents on the dollar. The creditors of both Chrysler and GM were denied their usual right to have a say in the reorganizations.
The government was in a strong position to bully some of these creditors, because they themselves received TARP funds. Once they had their hooks in them, the Obama administration and Congress made the companies to do their bidding, insisting they build politically correct hybrid cars and keep open politically favored dealerships.
Ultimately, the moral stature of capitalism depends on a structure of rules that applies to firms large and small, politically connected and not. By this standard, the auto bailouts fail miserably, and so perfectly distill Obamanomics.
Rich Lowry is the editor of National Review.
© 2011 by King Features
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Thread backfire!
Big time.
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The Real Cost of the Auto Bailouts
The government's unnecessary disruption of the bankruptcy laws will do long-term damage to the economy.
By DAVID SKEEL
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303745304576361663907855834.html
President Obama's visit to a Chrysler plant in Toledo, Ohio, on Friday was the culmination of a campaign to portray the auto bailouts as a brilliant success with no unpleasant side effects. "The industry is back on its feet," the president said, "repaying its debt, gaining ground."
If the government hadn't stepped in and dictated the terms of the restructuring, the story goes, General Motors and Chrysler would have collapsed, and at least a million jobs would have been lost. The bailouts averted disaster, and they did so at remarkably little cost.
The problem with this happy story is that neither of its parts is accurate. Commandeering the bankruptcy process was not, as apologists for the bailouts claim, the only hope for GM and Chrysler. And the long-term costs of the bailouts will be enormous.
In late 2008, then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson tapped the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Fund to lend more than $17 billion to General Motors and Chrysler. With the fate of the car companies still uncertain at the outset of the Obama administration in 2009, Mr. Obama set up an auto task force headed by "car czar" Steve Rattner.
Under the strategy that was chosen, each of the companies was required to file for bankruptcy as a condition of receiving additional funding. Rather than undergo a restructuring under ordinary bankruptcy rules, however, each corporation pretended to "sell" its assets to a new entity that was set up for the purposes of the sale.
With Chrysler, the new entity paid $2 billion, which went to Chrysler's senior lenders, giving them a small portion of the $6.9 billion they were owed. (Fiat was given a large stake in the new entity, although it did not contribute any money). But the "sale" also ensured that Chrysler's unionized retirees would receive a big recovery on their $10 billion claim—a $4.6 billion promissory note and 55% of Chrysler's stock—even though they were lower priority creditors.
View Full Image
AFP/Getty Images
President Obama visited an assembly plant in Toledo, Ohio, that makes Jeep Wranglers, June 3.
If other bidders were given a legitimate opportunity to top the $2 billion of government money on offer, this might have been a legitimate transaction. But they weren't. A bid wouldn't count as "qualified" unless it had the same strings as the government bid—a sizeable payment to union retirees and full payment of trade debt. If a bidder wanted to offer $2.5 billion for Chrysler's Jeep division, he was out of luck. With General Motors, senior creditors didn't get trampled in the same way. But the "sale," which left the government with 61% of GM's stock, was even more of a sham.
If the government wanted to "sell" the companies in bankruptcy, it should have held real auctions and invited anyone to bid. But the government decided that there was no need to let pesky rule-of-law considerations interfere with its plan to help out the unions and other favored creditors. Victims of defective GM and Chrysler cars waiting to be paid damages weren't so fortunate—they'll end up getting nothing or next to nothing.
Nor would both companies simply have collapsed if the government hadn't orchestrated the two transactions. General Motors was a perfectly viable company that could have been restructured under the ordinary reorganization process. The only serious question was GM's ability to obtain financing for its bankruptcy, given the credit market conditions in 2008. But even if financing were not available—and there's a very good chance it would have been—the government could have provided funds without also usurping the bankruptcy process.
Although Chrysler wasn't nearly so healthy, its best divisions—Jeep in particular—would have survived in a normal bankruptcy, either through restructuring or through a sale to a more viable company. This is very similar to what the government bailout did, given that Chrysler is essentially being turned over to Fiat.
The claim that the bailouts were done at little cost is even more dubious. This side of the story rests on the observation that GM's success in selling a significant amount of stock, reducing the government's stake, and Chrysler's repayment of its loans, show that the direct costs to taxpayers may be lower than many originally feared. But this doesn't mean that taxpayers are off the hook. They are still likely to end up with a multibillion dollar bill—nearly $14 billion, according to current White House estimates.
But the $14 billion figure omits the cost of the previously accumulated tax losses GM can apply against future profits, thanks to a special post-bailout government gift. The ordinary rule is that these losses can only be preserved after bankruptcy if the company is restructured—not if it's sold. By waiving this rule, the government saved GM at least $12 billion to $13 billion in future taxes, a large chunk of which (not all, because taxpayers also own GM stock) came straight out of taxpayers' pockets.
The indirect costs may be the worst problem here. The car bailouts have sent the message that, if a politically important industry is in trouble, the government may step in, rearrange the existing creditors' normal priorities, and dictate the result it wants. Lenders will be very hesitant to extend credit under these conditions.
This will make it much harder, and much more costly, for a company in a politically sensitive industry to borrow money when it is in trouble. As a result, the government will face even more pressure to step in with a bailout in the future. In effect, the government is crowding out the ordinary credit markets.
None of this suggests that we should be unhappy with the recent success of General Motors and Chrysler. Their revival is a very encouraging development. But to claim that the car companies would have collapsed if the government hadn't intervened in the way it did, and to suggest that the intervention came at very little cost, is a dangerous misreading of our recent history.
Mr. Skeel, a professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania, is the author of "The New Financial Deal: Understanding the Dodd-Frank Act and its (Unintended) Consequences" (Wiley, 2010).
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Mitt Romney owns Erika Hill on auto bailout
Its great moments like these that Mitt has that has caused me to view him as the favorite so far. The debates are not going to be very good for Obama. But I am going to also take a serious look at Tim Pawlenty.
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Bailed-Out GM Spends Millions on Phantom Carbon Offsets (w/animated video)
National Legal & Policy Center ^ | June 6, 2011 | Paul Chesser
A report on the Businessweek Web site Thursday illustrated how Chevrolet, General Motors’ subsidiary which gets most of its media love these days over the hyper-sensationalized electric Volt, is building its “Green-cred” in ways other than by the vehicles it manufactures.
But just as with the tax credit program for the Volt, in which dealers were discovered to be selling the vehicles to other dealers who then claim the $7,500 credit for themselves, all is not what it appears to be.
The story is about a program Chevy announced late last year, in which the company promised to purchase carbon dioxide offsets that would fund “environmentally-friendly” projects, which would counterbalance the emissions created by the 1.9 million vehicles the company expects to sell in 2011. Among the projects Chevrolet said would be funded were forestry projects, methane capture from landfills, wind farms, solar farms, and energy efficiency projects and upgrades.
With pride, GM announced the program in November:
“GM has made great progress in reducing our environmental impact, but we know we can do more,” said General Motors CEO Dan Akerson. “Chevrolet’s investment is an extension of the environmental initiatives we’ve been undertaking for years because the solution to global environmental challenges goes beyond just vehicles.
“This is an opportunity to connect with Chevy customers through clean energy projects that directly impact them.”
And the company received plaudits from an environmental activist group for its plans:
"Chevy’s Volt and its clean energy investment both exemplify the bold leadership businesses can take today to address our changing climate," said (Eileen) Claussen, (president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change). "Its commitment to community-focused clean energy and energy efficiency investments will drive change and increase awareness across the country."
So did the Chevrolet program produce real, meaningful carbon dioxide reduction? The Businessweek report focused on one such efficiency program, and it does not show great integrity:
Based on the first transaction in Chevrolet's $40 million plan, the actual carbon (dioxide) reductions will be far less than promised. The automaker is paying almost $750,000 to bolster a state program in Maine that insulates homes for low-income families. The investment is enough to weatherize 170 houses and reduce carbon emissions by 1,224 tons through 2014, according to the Maine State Housing Authority. Yet Chevrolet is receiving credits for 45,738 tons worth of reduced carbon—the total savings Maine expects through 2014 from weatherizing all 5,500 homes in the program.
Why? Because a nonprofit that allegedly tracks the legitimacy of carbon dioxide offsets, called the Verified Carbon Standard Association, allowed the State of Maine to sell credits for its program to partial contributors that allowed them to take credit for offsetting the entire program. According to Businessweek, the housing authority received $41.9 million from the federal stimulus program, which covered 80 percent of the weatherization project. Grants from other government programs paid for most of the rest.
So in effect, Chevrolet/GM received credit for the purchase of carbon dioxide offsets that would have occurred anyway without the benefit of the company’s “investment.” The magazine noted that Chevy was not ignorant of the program’s design, reporting, “the General Motors division acknowledged that U.S. funds from an economic stimulus grant and other programs would contribute to the home improvements.”
Still, the company takes full credit for its phantom environmental actions – it even created a website: chevycarbonreduction.com . There Chevy claims, “We are working to find the right projects. Ones that will make a lasting difference in communities around the country.” An animated video, which pushes the “scientists say too much (CO2) is bad for the environment” alarmist position, amplifies Chevy's message to Greens:
VIDEO 1:51 minutes
Why is Chevy doing this, the video narrator asks? She altruistically answers, “Our children, our future, and the simple fact that we’re all in this together. Today, tomorrow, and into a brighter future.”
That’s GM: sponging off taxpayers not only to save the company and its unions, but also using them to score points with eco-extremists.
Paul Chesser is associate fellow for the National Legal & Policy Center and is executive director for American Tradition Institute.
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GM chief pushing for higher gas taxes. (Obama Motors Shafts Public)
The Detroit News ^ | 06-07-11 | David Shepardson
Detroit — General Motors Co. CEO Dan Akerson wants the federal gas tax boosted as much as $1 a gallon to nudge consumers toward more fuel-efficient cars, and he's confident the government will soon shed its remaining 26 percent stake in the once-bankrupt automaker.
"I actually think the government will be out this year — within the next 12 months, hopefully within the next six months," Akerson said in a two-hour interview with The Detroit News last week.
He is grateful for the government's rescue of GM — "I have nothing but good things to say about them" — but Akerson said the time for that relationship to end is coming because it's wearing on GM.
“It’s kind of like your in-laws: It was a nice long weekend. We didn’t say a week,” Akerson said with a laugh.
And while he is eager to say goodbye to the government as a part owner of GM, Akerson would like to see it step up to the challenge of setting a higher gas tax, as part of a comprehensive energy policy.
A government-imposed tax hike, Akerson believes, will prompt more people to buy small cars and do more good for the environment than forcing automakers to comply with higher gas-mileage standards.
(Excerpt) Read more at investmentwatchblog.com ...
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TEXTBOOK DEFINITION OF FASCISM
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So since they can't get people to buy the cars they want us to, tax gas more to make us ::)
How much more crony capitalism can GM get?
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So since they can't get people to buy the cars they want us to, tax gas more to make us ::)
How much more crony capitalism can GM get?
Should have let these assholes collapse.
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President Obama’s phony accounting on the auto industry bailout
By Glenn Kessler
(Charles Dharapak/AP)
“Chrysler has repaid every dime and more of what it owes American taxpayers for their support during my presidency.”
— President Obama, June 4, 2011
This post has been updated.
With some of the economic indicators looking a bit dicey, President Obama traveled to Ohio last week to tout what the administration considers a good-news story: the rescue of the domestic automobile industry. In fact, he also made it the subject of his weekly radio address.
We take no view on whether the administration’s efforts on behalf of the automobile industry were a good or bad thing; that’s a matter for the editorial pages and eventually the historians. But we are interested in the facts the president cited to make his case.
What we found is one of the most misleading collections of assertions we have seen in a short presidential speech. Virtually every claim by the president regarding the auto industry needs an asterisk, just like the fine print in that too-good-to-be-true car loan.
Let’s look at the claims in the order in which the president said them.
“Chrysler has repaid every dime and more of what it owes American taxpayers for their support during my presidency — and it repaid that money six years ahead of schedule. And this week, we reached a deal to sell our remaining stake. That means soon, Chrysler will be 100 percent in private hands.”
Wow, “every dime and more” sounds like such a bargain. Not only did Chrysler pay back the loan, with interest — but the company paid back even more than they owed. Isn’t America great or what?
Not so fast. The president snuck in the weasel words “during my presidency” in his statement. What does that mean?
According to the White House, Obama is counting only the $8.5 billion loan that he made to Chrysler, not the $4 billion that President George W. Bush extended in his last month in office. However, Obama was not a disinterested observer at the time. According to The Washington Post article on the Bush loan, the incoming president called Bush’s action a “necessary step . . . to help avoid a collapse of our auto industry that would have had devastating consequences for our economy and our workers.”
Under the administration’s math, the U.S. government will receive $11.2 billion back from Chrysler, far more than the $8.5 billion Obama extended.
Through this sleight-of-hand accounting, the White House can conveniently ignore Bush’s loan, but even the Treasury Department admits that U.S. taxpayers will not recoup about $1.3 billion of the entire $12.5 billion investment when all is said and done.
The White House justifies not counting the Bush money because, it says, that money was completely spent when Obama was making a tough political decision on whether to extend another loan. In other words, a decision to do nothing at the time would have resulted in the immediate loss of the $4 billion that Bush had extended.
This is chicanery. Under the president’s math, Chrysler paid back 100 percent of Obama’s loan and less than 70 percent of Bush’s loan. A more honest presentation would combine the two figures to say U.S. taxpayers got back 90 percent of what they invested. In fact, that is how the Treasury and other administration officials frequently portray it; it is just when Obama speaks that the numbers get so squishy.
The White House justifies saying that Chrysler will be in 100 percent “in private hands” because there will no longer be government ownership once Fiat completes its purchase of the U.S. stake. For the record, the United Auto Workers will own 46 percent of the company.
“All three American automakers are now adding shifts and creating jobs at the strongest rate since the 1990s.”
The White House says the data to back this claim concerning the Big Three automakers is not public information. The official Bureau of Labor Statistics data refers to the entire auto industry — including foreign auto manufacturers, auto parts manufacturers, auto parts dealers and auto dealers. If you look at the data, the 113,200 jobs added between June 2009 and May 2011 amounts to about a 5 percent increase — from a rather low base.
UPDATE, 10:45 AM: Yen Chen, automotive business statistical analyst at the Center for Automotive Research, says CAR's analysis of Big Three auto data shows this statistic is correct. The Detroit Three are expected to add 10,000 hourly and 5,000 salaried workers this year, from a base of 115,805 hourly workers and 56, 432 salaried workers. That's an increase of about eight percent in each case. More than 16,000 hourly workers were added in 1991, but from a much higher base--440,000-- and 10,000 were also added in 1995, when there were 433,000 hourly workers. Meanwhile, salaried workers have been on a steady decline since 1990 (when the big Three employed 157,000).
“GM plans to hire back all of the workers they had to lay off during the recession.”
This is another impressive-sounding but misleading figure. In the five years since 2006, General Motors announced that it would reduce its workforce by nearly 68,000 hourly and salary workers, creating a much smaller company. Those are the figures that generated the headlines.
Obama is only talking about a sliver of workers — the 9,600 workers who were laid off in the fourth quarter of 2008. About 4,100 were sent home for a few weeks. Another 5,500 were put on indefinite leave, meaning there were no jobs at the time for them. All but 1,000 have returned to work, and the rest should be back at work by year’s end, according to GM spokesman Greg A. Martin.
“In the year before I was President, this industry lost more than 400,000 jobs, and two great American companies, Chrysler and GM, stood on the brink of collapse. Now, we had a few options. We could have done what a lot of folks in Washington thought we should do — nothing.”
This is quite a straw man — that many people wanted to do nothing. It was never so black and white. The debate was over the right course to take in the bankruptcy process.
The Wall Street Journal published Monday an interesting conservative critique of the government’s intervention by David Skeel, a law professor at University of Pennsylvania. Skeel says that the revival of the auto industry “is a very encouraging development,” but “to claim that the car companies would have collapsed if the government hadn’t intervened in the way it did, and to suggest that the intervention came at very little cost, is a dangerous misreading of our recent history.”
To support the claim that “a lot of folks” wanted to do nothing, the White House referred us to statements by the House minority leader, John Boehner (R-Ohio), and Sens. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) and Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.).
We do not read Boehner’s quote that way; in this 2009 comment, he is questioning the administration’s approach while saying, “The success of our automotive industry is critical.”Shelby and Kyl in 2008 were protesting the use of taxpayer funds by Bush to delay a bankruptcy filing; they preferred immediately putting the companies through the bankruptcy process.
It will be up to historians to decide what the best solution would have been for taxpayers and the auto industry. We can understand why the president wants to portray himself as making a lonely and tough decision. But the debate was not either/or, bur rather what was the best policy to bring the automakers back to financial health.
The Pinocchio Test
The president is straining too hard. If the auto industry bailout is really a success, there should be no need to resort to trumped-up rhetoric and phony accounting to make your case. Let the facts speak for themselves.
Three Pinocchios
(About our rating scale)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/president-obamas-phony-accounting-on-the-auto-industry-bailout/2011/06/06/AG3nefKH_blog.html
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The Washington Post SHREDS Obama For Being Dishonest In His Latest Speech On The Auto Bailouts
Business Insider ^ | 06/07/2011 | Gregory White
________________________ ________________________ _________
President Obama spent last week talking about the success of the auto bailout, but his conclusions about its success may be a bit misleading, according to the Washington Post's Glenn Kessler.
The title of the piece is: President Obama’s phony accounting on the auto industry bailout.
Kessler spells out four examples of things President Obama has said since June 4 on the topic of the auto bailout that aren't completely correct.
* Chrysler has repaid every dime to the government: The U.S. government only got 90% back of their combined loans to Chrysler, made during both the Bush and Obama presidencies.
* Auto industries adding jobs at fastest rate since 1990s: Bureau of Labor statistics don't back up the government's claims (they say data isn't public for three big auto manufacturers).
* GM will bring all workers back lost during recession: GM announced workforce cuts of 68,000 in 2006. It cut 9,600 workers in Q4 2008. 8,600 of those are now back at work, and the others will soon, according to GM.
* Washington thought we should "do nothing" to protect Chrysler and GM: Not so clear cut; some questioned Obama's methods, but did not oppose support altogether.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
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Obama falsely claims that GM repaid bailout… Again
http://patriotstatesman.com/2011/06/obama-falsely-claims-that-gm-repaid-bailout%E2%80%A6-again/ ^
For the second time President Obama has falsely claimed that General Motors repaid the bailout they received from the American taxpayers.
The first time Obama lied to the American people about GM repaying its loan was in April 2010. This past Saturday the president was at it again telling a crowd in Ohio “Chrysler has repaid every dime and more of what it owes American taxpayers for their support during my presidency.”
Glenn Kessler does an outstanding job ripping the president apart at his blog the Fact Checker but the key to Obama’s argument are the words “during my presidency.” You see President Obama is just playing politics by not counting the first bailout that GM received while President Bush was still in office. It has gotten to the point that if Obama is speaking you can assume he’s lying. This guy makes Bill Clinton look like Abe Lincoln.
The president also touts the fact that the administration is in the process of completing its divestiture of GM stock. On the surface this sounds great but according to the Wall Street Journal, the government still owns some 500 million shares and is selling them at nearly a fifty-percent loss of the taxpayer’s hard earned money. When all is said and done, Italian automaker Fiat will own a majority stake in General Motors with the United Auto Workers owning the other forty-six percent.
When you think about it the UAW made out like bandits. They made just over $23 million in donations to the Democrat Party from 2000 to 2008, with over $4 million going to Obama, and walked away with significant ownership in the world’s second largest auto maker. Not a bad return on their investment wouldn’t you say? A $4 million investment gets you a forty-six percent stake in a company with a market cap (value) of $45 billion.
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It really says a lot about how badly Obama is lying when even the WaPo is calling him out on it.
Why is anyone surprised, though? This guy has told lies from day fucking one. Hi, Obamacare lowering costs! ::)
Funny that andreisadick has vanished from this thread.
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It really says a lot about how badly Obama is lying when even the WaPo is calling him out on it.
Why is anyone surprised, though? This guy has told lies from day fucking one. Hi, Obamacare lowering costs! ::)
Funny that andreisadick has vanished from this thread.
WAPO sliced and diced obama like a fillet
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Ohio restaurant referenced by Obama is closing
AP ^ | 06/09/11 | Staff
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TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) — An Ohio restaurant mentioned last week by President Barack Obama as an indirect beneficiary of the government's Chrysler bailout will go out of business Sunday after a more than 70-year history.
Co-owner Richard Lawrence of New Chet's Restaurant in Toledo says business has fallen victim to the economy and the workplace smoking ban approved by Ohio voters in 2006.
(Excerpt) Read more at cleveland.com ...
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Ha ha ha jha ha ha-
FAIL!
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New Study Throws Water on Obama Fuel-Economy Goals
By Drew Winter
WardsAuto.com, Jun 8, 2011 9:05 AM
http://wardsauto.com/ar/fuel_economy_study_110607
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A new report says the Obama Admin.’s proposed 62 mpg (3.8 L/100 km) fuel-economy target for 2025 could kill hundreds of thousands of jobs, put a $55,000 sticker on an ordinary family car and deliver only minor savings to consumers.
The study was produced by the Ann Arbor, MI-based Center for Automotive Research, which has been a darling of the White House in recent months.
The automotive think tank has supplied much of the data that support government claims the bailouts of General Motors and Chrysler saved 1.2 million jobs, billions in tax revenues and billions more in welfare and unemployment checks that never had to be paid out.
But it’s unlikely the White House will be touting CAR’s new study on proposed corporate average fuel economy standards. The paper, which forecasts what the U.S. vehicle market will look like in 2025, is expected to officially be released in the next few days.
“These mandates are so tough, why would (the White House) be interested in destroying an industry they just saved?” one of the study’s authors, Sean McAlinden, CAR chief economist and vice president of research, tells Ward’s.
Currently, auto makers must meet a U.S. fleet average fuel economy of 35.5 mpg (6.6 L/100 km) by 2016.
Beginning this year with ’12 vehicles, fleet-fuel economy will increase an average 4%.
Sean McAlinden, CAR chief economist
Last year, the Obama Admin. proposed new CAFE rules beginning in 2017 that would require average increases of 3% to 6% per year, achieving 47 mpg (5 L/100 km) by 2025 at the low end and 62 mpg at the high end.
Obama has been favoring standards at the high end of the scale, and some environmental groups are pressing for faster increases of 7% or more annually beginning in 2017.
If gasoline prices are $6.00 per gallon in 2025, a case can be made for continued 3% annual improvements in fuel economy beginning in 2017.
But more dramatic increases would prove catastrophic to the U.S. auto industry, says Jay Baron, president and director-manufacturing systems at CAR and a co-author of the study.
“The changes are so radical for the vehicle to make these (2025) standards, we will have to completely and utterly redesign the body and chassis, supply chain and fabrication,” he says.
The new rules would require “huge changes” in powertrains, Baron says.
“When you go to 4%, 5%, 6% and even 7% reductions, there will be hundreds of thousands of job losses per year. What we’re arguing against is extremism,” says McAlinden, pointing out a 62-mpg fleet average translates into a 71-mpg (3.3 L/100-km) average for cars and 41-mpg (5.7 L/100-km) average for trucks.
CAR says the study was completely self-funded.
– with David E. Zoia
dwinter@wardsauto.com
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It really says a lot about how badly Obama is lying when even the WaPo is calling him out on it.
Why is anyone surprised, though? This guy has told lies from day fucking one. Hi, Obamacare lowering costs! ::)
Funny that andreisadick has vanished from this thread.
haven't disappeared..unlike you, I don't just keep talking when I have nothing to say...I will come back when I am ready
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Ha ha ha ha - hey do you agree with obama that ATM's are to blame for the piss poor economy?
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Ha ha ha ha - hey do you agree with obama that ATM's are to blame for the piss poor economy?
I didn't hear about this...what did he say
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I didn't hear about this...what did he say
GM Spends Taxpayer Money to Lobby for More Taxpayer Money
National Legal & Policy Center ^ | July 5, 2011 | Mark Modica
According to CNBC, General Motors has ramped up its lobbying efforts to the tune of $3.58 million in the first quarter of 2011. This is nearly triple the $1.36 million it spent in the first quarter of the prior year. It is also over double the $1.67 million spent by non-bailed out Ford in the same quarter. The $50 billion that taxpayers gave to bail out GM is now partially being distributed back to President Obama, Congress and a variety of agencies in an effort by GM to, well, receive more taxpayer money.
One of the requests made by GM lobbyists is to increase the number of Chevy Volts that qualify for the $7,500 tax credit from 200,000 to 500,000. At the current rate of sales, that's about a 100 years of subsidies! It is also an additional $2.25 billion of taxpayer money added to the current $1.5 billion of subsidies already approved. That is an awful lot of money for a vehicle that offers questionable benefits to the environment.
Other areas of handouts requested by GM include pension payment help from the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corp., the government agency that took over responsibility for $6.1 billion of pension obligations to Delphi Corp., GM's former parts arm. Delphi salaried retirees were treated much more poorly than UAW retirees regarding pensions and benefits retained after the GM bankruptcy process. Congress has recently held hearings on the unfair treatment that blatantly favored UAW members over other classes.
It is absurd that a company that has the US government as its largest shareholder spends millions of dollars to lobby that same government. Treasury should sell its taxpayer owned shares in GM now to avoid such conflicts of interests. Actions like the purchase of thousands of Chevy Volts by the Obama Administration and General Electric (headed by Obama crony, Jeff Immelt) will continue to be questioned as long as Obama has a vested interest in the success of GM as he campaigns for reelection. Any future perceived success by GM may come at the cost of billions more of taxpayer dollars.
Mark Modica is an NLPC Associate Fellow
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GM Spends Taxpayer Money to Lobby for More Taxpayer Money
National Legal & Policy Center ^ | July 5, 2011 | Mark Modica
According to CNBC, General Motors has ramped up its lobbying efforts to the tune of $3.58 million in the first quarter of 2011. This is nearly triple the $1.36 million it spent in the first quarter of the prior year. It is also over double the $1.67 million spent by non-bailed out Ford in the same quarter. The $50 billion that taxpayers gave to bail out GM is now partially being distributed back to President Obama, Congress and a variety of agencies in an effort by GM to, well, receive more taxpayer money.
One of the requests made by GM lobbyists is to increase the number of Chevy Volts that qualify for the $7,500 tax credit from 200,000 to 500,000. At the current rate of sales, that's about a 100 years of subsidies! It is also an additional $2.25 billion of taxpayer money added to the current $1.5 billion of subsidies already approved. That is an awful lot of money for a vehicle that offers questionable benefits to the environment.
Other areas of handouts requested by GM include pension payment help from the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corp., the government agency that took over responsibility for $6.1 billion of pension obligations to Delphi Corp., GM's former parts arm. Delphi salaried retirees were treated much more poorly than UAW retirees regarding pensions and benefits retained after the GM bankruptcy process. Congress has recently held hearings on the unfair treatment that blatantly favored UAW members over other classes.
It is absurd that a company that has the US government as its largest shareholder spends millions of dollars to lobby that same government. Treasury should sell its taxpayer owned shares in GM now to avoid such conflicts of interests. Actions like the purchase of thousands of Chevy Volts by the Obama Administration and General Electric (headed by Obama crony, Jeff Immelt) will continue to be questioned as long as Obama has a vested interest in the success of GM as he campaigns for reelection. Any future perceived success by GM may come at the cost of billions more of taxpayer dollars.
Mark Modica is an NLPC Associate Fellow
Kinda ranks up there with paying off one loan with another loan.
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GM Stuffs Truck Inventory Channels to Goose Earnings
National Legal & Policy Center ^ | June 6, 2011 | Mark Modica
It looks like General Motors is up to its old tricks as it stuffs inventory channels with higher profit trucks. GM is able to record revenue when vehicles are shipped to dealerships as opposed to actually being sold to consumers, so the move will help to paint a false picture of positive second quarter earnings.
The Detroit Free Press reports that GM's truck inventory has swelled to a bloated 122 days worth of sales as opposed to an average of 60 to 70 for other vehicles. This compares to a 79 day inventory supply of similar trucks at Ford. Peter Nesvold, a Jefferies & Co. analyst, said it best when he stated what many of us have known for a while, "There's no credibility. It's unbelievable that after this huge taxpayer bailout and the bankruptcy, that we're right back to where we were." He went on to ask, "Is GM falling into old, bad habits?"
The US Treasury has stated that they will wait until after second quarter earnings are reported to sell the taxpayers' ownership stake in GM. Why is Treasury so sure that GM share price will only go up after earnings and is not at risk of falling further? The Obama Administration and Democrats have scoffed at past ideas of investing Social Security assets into equity markets because of the risks to capital. Now they seem to have no problem gambling with the taxpayers' stake in GM by market timing its exit. Perhaps the administration and GM are overconfident in the ability to drive share price by fudging earnings with such tricks as channel stuffing. As Obama continues to campaign on the perceived "success" at GM, the pressure is on to put a good face on second quarter earnings, credibility be damned.
First quarter earnings at GM also looked pretty good on the surface. The problem was that most of the profits were derived from non-operating income. Money managers and analysts saw past the surface and GM share price did not react well. It will be interesting to see what tricks GM might have up its sleeve when second quarter numbers are reported and more interesting to see how share price reacts. I'm guessing that the figures will once again look good on the surface, but be of questionable quality. It seems that trickery is the modus operandi at GM when it comes to financial reporting.
The higher profits that come from higher truck sales, or put more accurately, rising truck inventories, will goose GM's numbers on the surface. The underlying truth is that truck sales are down compared to lower profit cars. As an asides, it baffles me that GM CEO, Dan Akerson, has stated that he wants higher gas prices so that car sales will improve at the expense of higher profit trucks. Worse yet is the focus on the Chevy Volt, which loses money with every sale. It is absurd for the leader of a publicly traded company to campaign for actions that will negatively impact profitability. And campaigning is exactly what is happening at Government Motors.
Aggressive spending on incentives and plant investments should also have a negative impact on second quarter earnings. Remember that GM wants to be able to boast of strong sales and UAW job creation as part of the public opinion campaign effort, and this comes at a cost. There is also a cost to stuffing the truck inventory channel that has been overlooked. Typically, GM must pay dealerships to take the excess inventory since dealerships incur finance costs for the vehicles. Higher commodity costs may weigh on earnings as well. I don't know if GM will be able to mask these issues, but I believe they will try. At a time when GM should be focusing on the basics, it is again relying on smoke and mirrors to give the impression of financial strength. This short sighted strategy may play well on the campaign trail, but the inevitable result will be an eventual second trip to bankruptcy court if GM does not get its house in order. And, hopefully, taxpayers will not be footing the bill the next time around.
Mark Modica is an NLPC Associate Fellow.
fail
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House asks: Did Obama's auto bailout chief say, 'I did this all for the unions'
By: Byron York | Chief Political Correspondent Follow Him @ByronYork | 07/08/11 11:05 AM
Investigators for the House Committee on Government Oversight and Reform are asking the White House official who oversaw the government bailouts of General Motors and Chrysler whether he told the truth in recent testimony before the committee. Ron Bloom, Assistant to the President for Manufacturing Policy, is quoted in a 2009 newspaper account and a 2010 book saying of the auto bailouts that he "did this all for the unions." But when Bloom appeared before the committee on June 22, he flatly denied ever saying those words. Other White House officials have reportedly defended Bloom by suggesting that he did indeed say those words but was joking. And that has led committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa to ask what is going on.
On November 24, 2009, Detroit News reporter David Shepardson wrote about a dinner held at Washington's Rosa Mexicano restaurant in July of that year, after GM had come out of bankruptcy. Both Bloom and Steven Rattner, the Wall Street figure who played a key role in the bailouts, spoke to the group. "Rattner praised the team's intensity and focus and said the group was among the best he had ever worked with," Shepardson reported. "Bloom, the former adviser to the United Steelworkers, joked that he 'did this all for the unions.'" (The article is not available on the paper's website, but here is a copy of it on a United Auto Workers site.)
In September 2010, Rattner published a book entitled Overhaul: An Insider's Account of the Obama Administration's Emergency Rescue of the Auto Industry. He also described the dinner at Rosa Mexicano:
Such celebrations, I reminded my colleagues, are standard on Wall Street at the successful close of a deal. But in those victories, the objective is private gain. This victory was different. I choked up as I spoke about our commitment to quality. "I've worked with a lot of talented people in my life but never with a group smarter or more dedicated than Team Auto," I said. And I thanked my colleagues for the enormous sacrifices that each had made. "In this deal, in this incarnation," I said, "you have epitomized what it means to serve your country."
Fortunately, after I spoke, Ron Bloom was there to lighten the mood. "I did this all for the unions," he jokingly declared. Everyone laughed and the war stories began to fly…
The only difference between the two accounts is that Rattner says Bloom made the statement "jokingly." Readers can judge for themselves whether it was the kind of joke that is also true. But in any event, Rattner says Bloom was joking.
Fast forward to June 22. During Bloom's appearance before the Committee on Government Oversight and Reform, Republican Rep. Dan Burton asked Bloom about the dinner:
Rep. Burton: Well, did you say this at a dinner? There was a dinner and it was reported by David Shepardson, Washington correspondent for the Detroit News. At a farewell dinner of the Auto Task Force held in the restaurant Rosa Mexicano in late July 2009 that you allegedly said "I did this all for the unions."
Mr. Bloom: No I did not say that.
Rep. Burton: You didn't say that?
Mr. Bloom: No sir.
Rep. Burton: So, you were misquoted?
Mr. Bloom: That's correct.
Rep. Burton: Well, I'm going to call that guy up and ask him if you said that. You know that you are under oath here?
Mr. Bloom: I'm fully aware.
Rep. Burton: You made no comment like that at all?
Mr. Bloom: No sir.
So now the question is: Did Bloom say it, not say it, or did he say it and it was a joke? Bloom says he didn't say it. But ABC News reports that a White House source is referring reporters to Rattner's book, adding that Rattner "clearly writes that Bloom made the comment as a joke."
That has Republicans on Capitol Hill confused. "Bloom is denying having said it in the first place, but the White House is saying it's just a joke," says a Hill source. "Well, you can't have it both ways."
Now Issa has written a letter to Bloom, giving him "an opportunity to clarify" his testimony to the committee. "Despite your five denials, two independent sources documented you saying these words," Issa wrote. "It appears that either a respected reporter and your former boss in the Obama administration have both given inaccurate accounts of your comments to the public, or your testimony was not completely truthful. Therefore, if you would like to amend or clarify your testimony for the record, we encourage you to do so as soon as possible."
Hill sources are not making any threats; they say simply that they are going to wait for Bloom's response and then see what comes next. But there's no doubt that want to know what was really said at that dinner celebrating the auto bailouts.
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2011/07/house-asks-did-obamas-auto-bailout-chief-say-i-did-all-unions#ixzz1RXNGulHF
FAIL
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Chevy Volt Costing Taxpayers Up to $250K Per Vehicle
Analyst: 'This might be the most government-supported car since the Trabant
By Tom Gantert | Dec. 21, 2011 Follow Tom Gantert on Twitter
Each Chevy Volt sold thus far may have as much as $250,000 in state and federal dollars in incentives behind it – a total of $3 billion altogether, according to an analysis by James Hohman, assistant director of fiscal policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
Hohman looked at total state and federal assistance offered for the development and production of the Chevy Volt, General Motors’ plug-in hybrid electric vehicle. His analysis included 18 government deals that included loans, rebates, grants and tax credits. The amount of government assistance does not include the fact that General Motors is currently 26 percent owned by the federal government.
The Volt subsidies flow through multiple companies involed in production. The analysis includes adding up the amount of government subsidies via tax credits and direct funding for not only General Motors, but other companies supplying parts for the vehicle. For example, the Department of Energy awarded a $105.9 million grant to the GM Brownstown plant that assembles the batteries. The company was also awarded approximately $106 million for its Hamtramck assembly plant in state credits to retain jobs. The company that supplies the Volt’s batteries, Compact Power, was awarded up to $100 million in refundable battery credits (combination tax breaks and cash subsidies). These are among many of the subsidies and tax credits for the vehicle.
It’s unlikely that all the companies involved in Volt production will ever receive all the $3 billion in incentives, Hohman said, because many of them are linked to meeting various employment and other milestones. But the analysis looks at the total value that has been offered to the Volt in different aspects of production – from the assembly line to the dealerships to the battery manufacturers. Some tax credits and subsidies are offered for periods up to 20 years, though most have a much shorter time frame.
GM has estimated they’ve sold 6,000 Volts so far. That would mean each of the 6,000 Volts sold would be subsidized between $50,000 and $250,000, depending on how many government subsidy milestones are realized.
If battery manufacturers awarded incentives to produce batteries the Volt may use are included in the analysis, the potential government subsidy per Volt increases to $256,824. For example, A123 Systems has received extensive state and federal support, and bid to be a supplier to the Volt, but the deal instead went to Compact Power. The $256,824 figure includes adding up the subsidies to both companies.
The $3 billion total subsidy figure includes $690.4 million offered by the state of Michigan and $2.3 billion in federal money. That’s enough to purchase 75,222 Volts with a sticker price of $39,828.
Additional state and local support provided to Volt suppliers was not included in the analysis, Hohman said, and could increase the level of government aid. For instance, the Volt is being assembled at the Poletown plant in Detroit/Hamtramck, which was built on land acquired by General Motors through eminent domain.
“It just goes to show there are certain folks that will spend anything to get their vision of what people should do,” said State Representative Tom McMillin, R-Rochester Hills. “It’s a glaring example of the failure of central planning trying to force citizens to purchase something they may not want. … They should let the free market make those decisions.”
“This might be the most government-supported car since the Trabant,” said Hohman, referring to the car produced by the former Communist state of East Germany.
According to GM CEO Dan Akerson, the average Volt owner makes $170,000 per year.
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http://content.usatoday.com/communities/driveon/post/2011/09/gm-cuts-china-electric-car-deal----a-china-shakedown/1
Bump for andre. Is this what you call success?
LMFAO. Every obam voting communist thing could get run over by a semi 18 wheel truck at this point and I would cook your remains on a BBQ w delight for all I care.
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http://content.usatoday.com/communities/driveon/post/2011/09/gm-cuts-china-electric-car-deal----a-china-shakedown/1
Bump for andre. Is this what you call success?
LMFAO. Every obam voting communist thing could get run over by a semi 18 wheel truck at this point and I would cook your remains on a BBQ w delight for all I care.
Andre's been missing for a while. Must of gotten Obama's guy job over 240.
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Andre's been missing for a while. Must of gotten Obama's #### job over 240.
Andre and I are pm ing insults to each other daily.
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http://content.usatoday.com/communities/driveon/post/2011/09/gm-cuts-china-electric-car-deal----a-china-shakedown/1
Bump for andre. Is this what you call success?
LMFAO. Every obam voting communist thing could get run over by a semi 18 wheel truck at this point and I would cook your remains on a BBQ w delight for all I care.
Gm is building cars with China...whats wrong with that?.....so is everyone else in the world...china is the world's biggest market....what are ya gonna do?..its the new world we live in....but we need to address china's unfair practices...Obama has been more outspoken than any president on this matter and directly confronted the chinese leader about this in their last summit
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Andre's been missing for a while. Must of gotten Obama's #### job over 240.
Just the holidays catching up with me..been a little busy..I will be back kicking you guys asses in no time ;)
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Gm is building cars with China...whats wrong with that?.....so is everyone else in the world...china is the world's biggest market....what are ya gonna do?..its the new world we live in....but we need to address china's unfair practices...Obama has been more outspoken than any president on this matter and directly confronted the chinese leader about this in their last summit
LOL. Can we ship all you 95ers to China?
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..AP Source: GM to call back 8,000 Chevy Volts
By TOM KRISHER | AP – 15 mins ago....Email
DETROIT (AP) — A person briefed on the matter says General Motors will ask Volt owners to bring their electric cars into dealers to strengthen the structure around the batteries.
The move is similar to a recall and involves the 8,000 Volts sold in the U.S. in the past two years.
The move comes after three batteries caught fire after side-impact crash tests done by federal safety regulators. The fires occurred seven days to three weeks after the tests and have been blamed on a coolant leak that caused an electrical short. No fires have broken out in real-world crashes.
The person says GM will contact Volt owners and have them return the cars to dealers for several structural repairs.
The repairs are a step below a formal recall.
The person did not want to be identified because GM executives will announce the plan later Thursday.
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