Visit Tea Party Command Center
Visit Tea Party Command Center
gm (10)
Visit Tea Party Command Center
General Motors a.k.a. “Government Motors” (henceforth referred to as GM) in late 2010 agreed to sponsor a propaganda film celebrating the 90th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP): your bailout cash hard at work! The now completed film, whose title literally translated into English is “The Great Achievement of Founding the Party,” will open all over China on June 15th. The film produced by the Cadillac division of GM glorifies the CCP, which under their patron saint, Mao Tse Dong, sent some 60 million Chinese souls to heaven a bit earlier than planned. Young Mao and his lover are featured in the film paying homage to the author of The Little Red Book, he of the face so often seen on T-shirts these days.
According to an announcement posted on Shanghai GM’s official web site yesterday, the film will discuss events that led up to the formation of the CCP following the 1917 Russian Revolution. When the movie first went into production GM signed up Cadillac as the “chief business partner” with the Communist Party, stating: “Cadillac whole-heartedly supports the making of The Birth of a Party.”
In the same way that the CCP has married totalitarianism with capitalism; and fools the Chinese people and her guests with entertainment extravaganzas like the recent Olympic Games . . . so too the Obama administration has married the American Communist Party with progressive Democratic political correctness so that today only those songbirds among us echoing the Obama dogma 24-7; or the most abject imbeciles can prosper in the Brave New World of Barack’s Crony- Capitalism. That the once proud General Motors eagerly takes part in creation of such a shameless propaganda output shows you how easily one loses integrity in the shadow of the Obama White House. Of course, based on the high quality of GM products like its electric car the Volt, there’s a good chance that the great film will start with a series of snippets from the Usama Bin Laden porn cache with a voice-over of Barack’s most inspiring speeches all served with popcorn and chop suey – phooey!
Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut
It’s safe to say that Barack Obama is in bed with the unions, the media and our giant corporations . . . . “In addition to CBS Corporation and the Washington Post Company, recipients of ERRP funding include the United Auto Workers union, which secured $206,798,086 in taxpayer money, AT&T, which took in $140,022,949, and General Electric (GE), which raked in $36,607,818. GE has made headlines recently for not paying any U.S. taxes last year. IBM got $12,989,690 in taxpayer money.
“Verizon pulled $91,702,538 in taxpayer cash, too, and General Motors received $19,002,669. More than $6 million went to different Teamsters groups nationwide, and millions more went to the United Mine Workers, United Food and Commercial Workers, the AFL-CIO and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).” Rajjpuut’s opinion/Daily Caller’s FACTS
http://dailycaller.com/2011/04/06/washington-post-and-cbs-receiving-money-from-obamacare-slush-fund/
General Electric Receives $36 Million Bribe
From Obamacare Slush Fund After Its NBC Affiliate
Cheer-Led Barack Obama’s 2008 Election
Mr. Obama has just handed the world his own personal Watergate. The facts are all there in public documents including congressional hearings and reports . . . and not surprisingly NBC, CBS, and the Washington Post (all of which received bribes from the Obamacare Slush funds) are not covering the story. But similarly the New York Times and ABC and CNN are largely ignoring the issue as well.
The story got its legs when Minnesota Representative and TEA Party favorite Michelle Bachmann revealed in mid-March that Obamacare had been illegally funded to the tune of $105 Billion. Ms. Bachmann revealed a huge complex of virtual “slush-funds” mostly run through Kathleen Sibelius’ Health and Human Resource Dept. The Daily Caller website soon put skin and fancy clothing on the rest of this enormous skeleton in Barack Obama’s closet when it revealed that besides several Obama-supporting unions, that the Washington Post and the CBS Television Network had between them both received the equivalent of a combined bribe of $1.3 million. CBS and the Post have been enthusiastic Obama supporters who seemingly refuse to run any negative stories at all on the Obama administration.
The 800# gorilla now has been given headgear. The suspected news that General Electric, Corp. was the recipient of a similar bribe this time to the tune of $36 million is, coming straight on the heels of a recent story that GE paid NO TAXES on $14 Billion in profits was a potential bombshell that has NOW BEEN CONFIRMED. Still the media mentioned above have refused to cover the story. The feather in the cap of the 800# gorilla is the most shocking of all. General Electric, you see, up to recently owned NBC and MSNBC the two most ardent of all those cheerleading for the 2008 Obama-Biden campaign. GE CEO Jeffrey Immeldt, you’ll recall was recently appointed to head up Mr. Obama’s job-creation czar; and last summer had been involved in controversy for seeking to quash anti-Obama reporting by GE’s affiliate news stations. It’s safe to say that Barack Obama is in bed with the unions, the media and our giant corporations . . . .
According to Daily Caller which broke the story, “In addition to CBS Corporation and the Washington Post Company, recipients of ERRP funding include the United Auto Workers union, which secured $206,798,086 in taxpayer money, AT&T, which took in $140,022,949, and General Electric (GE), which raked in $36,607,818. GE has made headlines recently for not paying any U.S. taxes last year. IBM got $12,989,690 in taxpayer money. With all that money in all these corrupt hands, it’s safe to say that Barack Obama could count on hundreds of millions in campaign donations from the unions and big business; and mountains of favorable press reports from CBS, NBC, MSNBC, the Washington Post, etc.
“Verizon pulled $91,702,538 in taxpayer cash, too, and General Motors received $19,002,669. More than $6 million went to different Teamsters groups nationwide, and millions more went to the United Mine Workers, United Food and Commercial Workers, the AFL-CIO and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).”
Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut
". . . in this "Obama-Motors Scandal" it appears that Mr. Obama -- who willfully wielded a frayed toothpick when it came to cutting out parts of the bloated federal budget he created -- chose a bulldozer when dealing with the GM and Chrysler dealerships."
“Obama-Motors” Slashes GM and Chrysler
Republican Ownerships as Potential Scandal Emerges
Yes, Virginia, Santa Obama does know who’s “naughty and nice” and does pick the winners and losers! Naughty Republicans get coal in their stockings and Nice Progressive Democrats (forget those “Blue Dog moderate Dems, young lady) get to hold onto their part of the American Dream, ho, ho, ho!
As most Americans are aware, “GM” now might as well stand for “Government Motors.” Both General Motors and Chrysler as official corporate “wards of the state” are government-controlled entities run by the Obama administration . . . run, it seems with quite a bit of partisanship and crony-capitalism in mind.
Let’s put this apparent partisan scandal in personal terms, imagine yourself a businessman or businesswomen whose family has owned a car dealerships for the last 80-90 years. Imagine yourself being told that your well-respected and highly profitable GM dealership is ordered closed while nearby dealerships less profitable or even ones actually losing money are allowed to stay open. Would you be shocked? Would you be outraged? Imagine further that GM comes to you and orders you to turn over your list of car customers and service-department customers (presumably to help your less-profitable competitors) . . . would you like the idea that your $15 million business was made worthless overnight so that an Obama campaign contributor competing with you might now find the playing field “more level?”
Well you don’t have to imagine any of this after all: after the auto bailouts were first announced, a second announcement was almost immediately made stating the intention of Chrysler and General Motors to close roughly 2,100 dealerships across the nation. Later it became known that some of the proposed closures involved highly profitable dealerships in the same vicinity as less profitable or even UNprofitable ones which were to remain open . . . why the citizen-voter asked himself would you close any profitable dealerships, much less the MOST profitable ones? If you’re closing dealerships why would you leave any UNprofitable opens at all? Apparently politics may have played a big part since the numbers of McCain campaign contributors dramatically outnumbered the numbers of Obama donors among those to be closed down. No wonder surveys show 42% of Americans say they won’t buy Chrysler or GM cars because of the bailouts . . . .
To top matters off, an additional 2,800 dealerships have recently been notified that they’ll be closed down this year. Yes, including some profitable and highly-profitable ones located near other UNprofitable or barely profitable ones allowed to stay open once again. These issues are now being contested bitterly by about 22% of the notified dealerships, but rest easy there’s hope; it seems after all, if Barney Frank or other Democratic representatives or senators like your politics, dealers protesting the closures are far more likely to win the right to stay open after all.
Given the scenario shown above, how much confidence would you place in a “Car Czar” named by President Obama whose integrity, qualifications and past history had never been investigated by Congress or the FBI (as customarily occurs with real presidential appointees)? Would you be surprised to find that said Czar (one of 40+ Czar appointments made by Obama to run the country like a personal empire without Congressional oversight), a fellow named Steve Rattner, was a very close personal friend of Barack Obama and one of the most successful Democratic political-fund raisers in history. Besides Czar Steve Rattner being himself a powerful Democratic fund-raiser; his wife Maureen White was formerly the finance chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Rattner was himself also formerly a reporter for the New York Times, among the most progressive newspapers in the country. One might expect the tendency toward favoring Democratic contributors over conservative businessmen must have been difficult for Rattner to overcome . . . .
But, but, but, would you be surprised to then find Mr. Rattner only a few months later quietly giving up his Car Czar position and, to avoid criminal punishment, paying out $10 million in settlement fees to the State of New York for his part in a kickback and influence-peddling scandal pulled off four years earlier. Would it surprise you that such a crucial player in the Obama administration was now hawking a book on his extensive experience in the auto industry despite having virtually none? The extensive Imperial Obama czardoms are full of such stories and it’s not likely we’ll find fairness and free-market values well-protected by their ilk.
Since Rattner’s departure the Car Czarship has been run by committee. Here’s what one elected representative had to say about the “gangster government” that committee (The Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry) represents:
http://teapartyorg.ning.com/video/is-anyone-minding-the-store-at
Supposedly the American Arbitration Association is now handling the 600+ claims from among the 2,800 revoked dealerships, but in actual fact numerous documented instances show that dealers who visited Democratic representatives and senators found themselves immediately granted face-to-face interviews and eventual successful retention of dealerships while dealers who’ve relied on merely filling out the required arbitration paperwork get no such preferential treatment . . . one can only imagine the huge amount of Democratic-butts that are kissed and the eventual campaign donations involved in this fair and unbiased process. Of course Republican congressman Buchanan who found his Chrysler dealership slated for closure (while a competing dealership chain in Missouri and Arkansas partly owned by former Clinton White House chief of staff Mack McLarty and partly owned by a huge Democratic fund-raiser who have magically seen numerous nasty conservative competitors eliminated) has not had much luck appealing his case to the powers that be . . . it’s probably just a coincidence that while hundreds of G.O.P. contributors are being closed down, so far just one Obama 2008 contributor among all the hundreds of closures so far has surfaced.
The Republican representative in question, (who has a Nissan dealership as well in Venice, Florida), called the proposed closures an outrage, “It’s no problem for me, it’s not about me, I’m going to be fine; but we’re talking about 100,000 jobs around the country . . . we’re supposed to be creating jobs.” Were these Chrysler and GM ownerships closed down for voting or donating to Republican candidates?
http://www.businessinsider.com/internet-trying-to-figure-out-if-chrysler-dealerships-were-politically-motivated-2009-5
A lawyer representing a group of Chrysler dealers who are on the “hit list” deposed senior Chrysler executives and later told Reuters News Agency that the closings have been forced on the company by the White House. "It became clear to us that Chrysler does not see the wisdom of terminating 25 percent of its dealers. It really wasn't Chrysler's decision. They are under enormous pressure from the President's automotive task force," according to attorney Leonard Bellavia.
Government making economic decisions is bad, bad news . . . but government intervening in the free market (car dealerships are just small businesses after all) can be ultra-political at worst and just plain stupid at best. Since a significant amount of the closures were of profitable dealerships and since the Obama administration’s auto task force is doing the deciding on whose business lives or dies, on the face of it this looks very ugly. The “criteria” for these decisions MUST BE RELEASED to the public.
In fairness, we must say that since car dealerships are small businesses and often family-owned small businesses . . . any educated guess would have to put the political propensities of dealership owners at anywhere from 75% to 90% conservative. Since conservatives overwhelming favor low taxes, low government spending and operating government in a businesslike fashion without deficits and debt . . . one would expect donations from dealership owners to be overwhelmingly Republican. However, contrast the treatment of teachers (union members 90%; Democrats 86% and well-documented Obama supporters) with that of their handling of small businessmen in general, not to mention this potentially scandalous treatment of GM and Chrysler dealership owners . . . would we expect to see Mr. Obama’s people closing down school teacher positions in the rather brusque and unintelligent, indeed counter-intelligent fashion they’ve used on car dealers? Even IF no actual scandal emerges . . . surely all of this points out the evil inherent in letting government pick and choose winners and losers in the free market?
Let us be even more pointed in criticizing the egregious corruption we see here . . . Even the New York Times as well as hundreds of other liberal newspapers recently criticized Mr. Obama’s lackluster budget attempt. Your blogger Rajjpuut would say that in this "Obama-Motors Scandal" Mr. Obama willfully used a frayed toothpick when it came to cutting out parts of the bloated federal budget but chose a bulldozer when dealing with the GM and Chrysler dealerships.
Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut
‘Tis getting more and more difficult to hold down one’s dinner these days . . . after a bogus bailout; phony Obama-orchestrated bankruptcy aimed dually at preventing the real creditors from getting paid and also at transferring huge amounts of wealth from real GM stockholders to the United Auto Workers Union; Rigged IPO (initial public offering of stock); and phony claims last spring that General Motors had already paid off its tax-payer bailout 100% . . . Rosemary’s Baby is born! It’s the VOLT, a $41,000 electric car/hybrid commanded to be constructed by the Obama White House’s personally appointed GM CEO . . . . My friends, it’s truly a REvoltING car, because:
1. It cost about 90% more than its chief competitor, the Nissan “Leaf”
2. It cost over $40,000 to make each VOLT roughly 2.5 times as much to build as the Leaf
3. Under best conditions, the mileage from the VOLT is roughly 40% less than the Leaf's mileage.
4. It’s ugly as sin
5. Only taxpayer subsidies of $14,500 per car during VOLT’s formative years allowed this pathetic car to be made at all.
6. Carrying around a 72-mile long extension cord is just not cool . . . : ) Seriously, folks, if you ever lived under the misperception that government could outdo private industry . . . the lesser standards and grand profit of $1000 per car ought to set you straight . . . .
Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut
“Almost a year to the day that the Climate Gate story broke in Europe and doomed carbon trading in the rest of the world, a story that the American media have refused to cover . . . another crucial story broke in the heartland of this country and again the American media refused to cover it. Americans, the salvation of your nation has advanced from Square #1 to Square #2 . . . .” Rajjpuut
Is CCX Too Big and Well-Connected to Fail?
Obama Insiders Rape Taxpayers in GM IPO
In the wake of the multi-billion dollar taxpayer rape; insider Obama benefit party; and UAW union theft, better known as the General Motors initial public offering (GM IPO) there was unfortunately for the left some really, really bad news from nearby Chicago. The Chicago Climate eXchange (CCX) has given up the carbon trading business which is like the Three Stooges swearing to never, never again throw a pie in someone’s face.
ITEM: Ballot Blues for Barack: it’s been a rough three weeks for Barack Obama. First there was this little matter of stupid American voters not getting with the program and backing the Grate-One’s policies intended as they are to destroy America the Beautiful as we know it; 6,000 fewer progressive Democrats will be uglying up the scene come January including 64 fewer Congressional Reps in Washington; six fewer senators and 8 fewer governors and roughly 700 fewer state legislators. Getting specific: of the 98 bi-cameral state chambers (Nebraska has a unicameral setup) Republicans now hold 55; Democrats hold 38; two are evenly split; and three are still undecided. The excuses had started three weeks before election eve and continue: basically, Barack is sorry that he couldn’t “dumb- down” his message of glorious intellectual achievement so that the ignorant masses could realize what a savior on earth he is.
ITEM: Obama came out of his recent trips to South Korea and Japan with only handshakes to show for it. No important new agreements or trade deals were accomplished. The folks in New Delhi, India are meanwhile checking to see if they still have hands at the end of their wrists after making a trade agreement with Obama which will create more Indian jobs but tie them more strongly to the failing American dollar than any wise country would ever hope to be . . . call that one a tie. But the big loss was Obama’s hope to use the G-20 forum to get consensus that China must stop manipulating their currency . . . only to be called a hypocrite since the American Federal Reserve Bank under Fed Chief Ben Bernanke has twice use Quantitative Easing (Monetizing the U.S. debt) in the last three months which means that the World’s Reserve Currency (the dollar) can be predicted to drop substantially in value, a curse for Americans and for countries like China, Japan, Russia, India, Germany, Brazil and South Korea which hold huge amounts of American dollars.
ITEM: Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder tried to put a happy-face upon the recent terrorism trial in a civilian court in which a man who twice in the last 11 years (his attack was BEFORE 9/11) confessed, was acquitted of 284 of the 285 charges against him. The populace, far from being fooled was outraged.
ITEM: The Obama administration tried to make the GM IPO look like the greatest positive advance since sexual intercourse was invented . . . but the jury was still out because rumors claim that Obama insiders got first crack at the GM stock rather than an impartial auction taking place; it appears that the nominal $50 Billion loaned to GM was nowhere near covered; the UAW union that supported Obama cleared $4 Billion from the IPO and the stock saw only a modest gain on the day roughly $1.40. Meanwhile angry Republicans are investigating the improprieties and the rape of the taxpayers which took place.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6936289.ece
http://www.prisonplanet.com/medieval-warm-period-rediscovered.html
ITEM: Almost a year to the day that the “Climate Gate” story** broke in Europe (see links above) and doomed carbon trading in the rest of the world, a story that the American media have refused to cover . . . another crucial story broke in the heartland and again the American media refused to cover it. Fellow Americans, the salvation of your nation has advanced from Square #1 to Square #2 . . . . the Chicago Climate eXchange, that once appeared to have it in its power to bring progressive politicians $10 TRillion per year in largesse while reducing the American nation to the status of Banana Republic 3rd Class, that CCX, has pulled up its tent and retreated from the scene. The legions of pr0gressive Democrats aligned to shake down the capitalistic dream by co-opting 40% of the American economy while literally trading blue sky must have seen the writing on the wall when the election results poured in like a massacre against their twisted philosophy.
Here are some of the saddened hearts in Mudville associated with CCX, one wonders how many millions they each lost: George Soros, Maurice Strong, Barack Obama, Al Gore, Richard Sandor, Joel Rogers, Valerie Jarrett, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, The Shorebank, John Ayers, Michelle Obama, David Blood, Generation Investment Management, Goldman Sachs and much of its top management, Franklin Raines, The Joyce Foundation, The Tides Foundation, Open Society Initiatives, Paula DiPerna, the Apollo Alliance, SEIU, Gerald Hudson, Emerald Cities Collaborative, and roughly 100 other progressive-Marxist crooks and 40 other Soros-inspired progressive foundations (all operating virtually like a money-laundering scam), ad nauseum.
Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut
I Tell You It Just Don’t
Make Sense, Dude/Dudette
ITEM: Violent demonstrations racked some state universities today as Californians are seeing college students riot after facing potential 80% tuition hikes just days after their courts OK’d massive tuition breaks for illegal aliens letting them attend California universities at the same rate as citizens much below the rate offered out of state students. Rajjpuut recommends all California grade school students be required to take Remedial Vocabulary courses teaching them concepts like “citizen;” “illegal”; “alien”; “free lunch;" "welfare state;" “Constitution;” “common sense;” and the like. Perhaps California might consider charging elementary and illegal alien secondary students say $5,000 per student as a way to make up the shortfall? And denying illegal aliens access to benefits targeted for U.S. and California citizens? Arizona Senator Kyl who is truly a statesman has expressed severe doubts about the adequacy of the Obama START Treaty. 2/3 majorities are required to pass any treatment.
ITEM: Obama and Holder incompetence was on parade as a terrorist defendant was acquitted of 284 charges and found guilty of one by a civilian court. By the way, Rajjpuut WOULD HOPE that civilian courts would acquit him of charges produced from evidence obtained by brutality (enhanced interrogation) . . . this is totally predictable, stateless fanatics willing to kill innocents and even to blow themselves up in WAR cannot be successfully handled like ordinary shoplifters. Terrorist Ahmed Ghailani was chosen for trial because his crime took place BEFORE 9/11; involved NO waterboarding and included such a huge amount of evidence that it was described as a "slamdunk" dry-run of the Obama-Holder insistence that terrorists should be tried in civillian courts. Consider this: Ghailani confessed twice and one cheap conviction out of 285 counts is the best Holder-Obama could get us? Holder and Obama are twin incompetents who greatly endanger this country.
Terrorist Ahmed Ghailani was chosen for trial because his crime took place BEFORE 9/11; involved NO water-boarding and included such a huge amount of evidence that it was described as a "slam-dunk" dry-run of the Obama-Holder insistence that terrorists should be tried in civilian courts. Consider this: Ghailani confessed twice and one cheap conviction out of 285 counts is the best Holder-Obama could get us? Holder and Obama are twin incompetents who greatly endanger this country.
ITEM: Texas, like California is facing the ridiculous issue of whether or not ILLEGAL aliens deserve the benefits of Americans or of the state’s own citizens. In all their vaunted political correctness the Obama administration and Democratic progressives at the federal level and individual states like California and New York have shown a shocking INability to understand the meaning of the simple word “illegal.” In Texas, meanwhile, they’re facing a curious variation of the when the Texas A&M student congress voted to disallow illegal aliens receiving in-state tuition. The fly in the ointment, their student body president vetoed the action and insufficient votes to overturn the veto allowed his decision to stand. Oh, by the way, the student body president is an illegal alien. Since this was discovered after his election many Aggie students are calling for his removal.
ITEM: Seeing the President fail to obtain meaningful results on his last three forays into foreign affairs, how confident can Americans feel about his START Treaty with Russia to reduce nuclear arms in both countries?
ITEM: Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Mr. Obama and the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) are willing to inconvenience and ENDANGER America’s air travelers with expensive and useless scanning devices and questionable pat downs. It has been admitted that the underwear bomber on Christmas, 2009, WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN DETECTED by the scanning devices. In fact PROFILING and sniffer dogs (they can each work about one hour a day only) are estimated to be about 20 times more effective . . . another Obama boondoggle brought to you courtesy of POLITICAL CORRECTNESS. The most successful and one of the least expensive security programs in the world by the Israelis is the model we should be following and that means common-sense profiling of potential Islamic terrorists is required. Israel's El Al airline has NEVER lost a plane to terrorism. They profile, they give every passenger a brief interview and some of them extensive interviewing.
ITEM: How soon they forget . . . . Americans now seem willing to pay $33.00 and upward for each share of General Motors (GM) stock available from an IPO (initial public offering). Hey, dumbsheeets, they’ve been profitable lately because the damn company has been subsidized to the tune of $14,500.00 per car. Rajjpuut’s prediction: look for GM to be selling at less than $20 a share by Jan. 15 and less than $10 a share in March $5 or less per share in 2012 and still be a poor bargain. Look for GM to be back begging for a future bailout not later than 2020. The stock market continues to fool most of the people most of the time (and most of that fooling is done by self-delusion). By the way, IPOs taken as a whole over the years prove (twelve months later) to be very poor investments. The GM IPO is expected to set a record as the largest initial public offering in history. Suicide by stock investment seems to be unusually popular any time the stock markets near recent highs. Some people can’t be trusted with any amount of money larger than a $20 bill.
ITEM: Supposedly the break-even point for American taxpayers would be reached if/when every single share of GM sold for $53 minimum. Actually, the Union’s hold over GM means that until shares sell for about $65 each there’s no hope that Americans can ever hope to see their money back. Then there’s Chrysler . . . which benefitted from bailouts twice in thirty years, Chrysler will be asking for another bailout by 2017 at the latest.
Ya'all live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut
Taxpayers paid GM and Chrysler $14,000 per car$$, but during “Cash for Clunkers” GM, Ford and Chrysler received an additional $24,000 per sale from the taxpayers.
GM and Chrysler Still
More Than $50 Billion in the Hole
The numbers are terrible but many Americans seem to have forgotten the simplest facts about the takeover of the auto industry and are instead buying into the administration’s line that “He’s saved the U.S. auto industry.” Imagine being able to sell a car while knowing that the first $14,000 of underlying costs were POOF! Magically gone . . . How in hell, can these two auto companies continue to sputter and cough in recovery?
To date the facts are these: Chrysler received $15 Billion in loans; GM received $50 Billion in loans of that $65 Billion total in auto industry goals to-date $15 Billion has been repaid by GM and Chrysler . . . neither company looks particularly healthy and, indeed, Chrysler seems to be on the verge of collapse.
By the way, Chrysler received an auto bailout in 1979 in addition to the 2008 bailout both companies were given. Is there a simple lesson here? You think? Meanwhile, the only viable American auto company, Ford Motors, finds itself between the sword and the wall. On the one hand Ford like all of America is mired in a recessionary environment in which major purchases like cars and houses are not popular decisions. On the other hand that $14,000 safety net below each GM and Chrysler car is a tough nut for a company that received no bailouts to overcome. In short, the American auto industry is facing a crucial year as the 2011 models emerge onto the lots. The likelihood is that Chrysler goes under despite all the government interference and Ford, competing against the two bailed-out entities is also threatened.
One thing, Barack Obama doesn’t want you to think about is this: his “Cash for Clunkers” program achieved the brief pinnacle in sales for the three American auto makers. But what was the cost? Without going into the economics of unnecessarily removing many viable automobiles from the nation’s roads, the cost of Cash for Clunkers (CFC) came to at least $24,000** per car. So between the bailouts and Cash for Clunkers, GM and Chrysler during that two-month period had $38,000 paid them by the government for each car sold. Obama and his people, naturally enough, called “CFC, a wildly successful program.” Much akin to saying the President “saved us^^ from Depression,” it sounds like someone is seriously stretching the truth. Rajjpuut remains highly UNimpressed by the auto bailout and so should any thinking American, like you!
Ya’ll live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut
$$ Actually, by orchestrating and manipulating the two bankruptcies, Barack Obama personally diverted huge amounts of taxpayer money into the United Auto Workers Union (UAW) by giving them a large chunk of ownership of the two ailing auto makers.
** http://money.cnn.com/2009/10/28/autos/clunkers_analysis/index.htm
^^ History will show that Obama’s policies like those of FDR (which extended the dying July, 1933, recession about 8.5 unnecessary years) have done just the opposite: guaranteed a depression
Note: The following items, not representing utter worship of Barack Obama, have been largely omitted from the evening news. Shame on the mainstream media . . . .
Item #1: "No administration should be the the chief investigator, judge and jury of its own actions . . ." says Senator Joseph (Joe), supposedly Independent, Lieberman has for the first time in about twenty months bucked the Democrats he caucuses with. And the Obama administration, in its turn has thumbed its nose at Independent Joe, saying they don’t want to “jeopardize an ongoing investigation” and won't share the info he's requesting. The Departments of Homeland Security and Defense have both refused to honor their subpoenas from Democratic Senator Lieberman, Acting as chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Liebermann is charging the Obama administration and these agencies with deliberate obstruction of the congressional hearings into the Ft. Hood shootings and running a cover-up. Rajjpuut senses that it must be very difficult to prove the case against a fellow with only sixty eye witnesses. Of course, proving that case without once allowing either Army documents or testimony containing the nasty words “Muslim,” “extremist,” “jihad,” “Al Qaeda” and “Awlaki” may be more interesting. Political correctness must be served. Rajjpuut expects prompt settlement of the matter after the 2012 election.
Item #2: You remember H1Ni Flu? It seems that 70% of the vaccine created to fight the virus is about to expire UNused. Which means that a lot of money was wasted. Which also means that 80% of the people the “crucial” vaccine was supposedly of “life or death importance” for never elected to get their shots. Rajjpuut who has never received a flu shot, and never will, remembers calling this a boondoggle way back when. Well if they didn’t get their absolutely vital flu shots, and we still haven’t heard of a rash of deaths and injuries and hospital stays related to the H1N1 Flu . . . sounds like a boondoggle to anyone with ears and a brain. Now what about those complaints of disastrous H1N1 vaccine side effects; or those spray vaccines?
Item #3: If there exists a more frequently abused word in the political vernacular than “reform” Rajjpuut would like to hear it. Just as the media headlines during the Obamacare debates shouted out continually, “Republicans block health care reform”; now as we approach the merry month of May with congress debating the godawful Barack Banking and Wall Street Bill, they ring out “Republicans block Wall Street reform.” While the Republican under Bush screwed us royally with Bailout #1 and before that with Medicare Part D two incredibly massive Government Spending Boondoggles (GSBs) . . . they’ve proven, at long last they’ve earned their “fiscal-conservatives” label. Just because some Obama-worshipping cretins like Pelosi and Reid label some bill “reform” doesn’t mean it’s anything like reform. Reform takes bad situations and corrects them. Reform takes ineffective acts or, in this case laws, and makes them work. Not one item proposed and or passed by the Obama administration thus far other than the ¾- surge in Afghanistan has been an improvement of anything. To paraphrase Forest Gump, when it comes to “reform,” stupid is as Pelosi does.
Item #4: The senate denied passage today to the so-called “Financial Reform Bill” advocated by the Obama administration. The house of representatives voted to pass the more accurately described “Barack Banking Bill” by 223-202. The Democrats believe that the people are easily fooled and want this bill in the headlines till November with “Republicans Oppose Wall Street Reform” and the like. It always sounds bad to be against REFORM, never sounds good, even if it's the only thing a legislator with conscience can do. As S.I Hayakawa said in his semantics masterpiece ("Language in Thought and Action") “the word is NOT the thing.” Obama calling something “reform” is like a child molestor calling his avocation “lollipop distribution.”
Item #5: True bi-partisanship has gone completely unnoticed by both the Democrats and the riotious cacophony of the media clamoring for Cap and Trade and Obamacare and the latest Barak Banking initiatives. There was TRUE bi-partisanship with both Republicans and Democrats voting against Obamacare in the house. Both again voted together against Cap and Trade in the house and both are keeping the matter from coming to a vote in the senate. Today two Democrats voted against Barak Banking in the Senate, including Harry Reid who joined Nebraska’s Ben Nelson in opposition to Reid’s bill. However, that ever- tricky Reid just wanted to be able to re-introduce the bill as soon as possible according to parliamentary concerns. Nelson said he hadn’t had time to study the 3,137 page bill. Of course we know, almost no one else had time to “read” the bill much less study it – but that didn’t stop them from voting on it, get with the program, Nelson! And by the way, yes the House did pass Barack Banking 223 to 203. That means that 27 Democrats had the patriotism and intelligence to oppose Obama’s corrupt transformation to communism. Again it was a bi-partisan vote against Obama’s nonsense.
Item #6: A Rassmussen Reports poll today found that 60% of Americans see capitalism as better than socialism (18% disagree while 21% say they’re not sure; included in that 60%, are 43% of Democrats who agree that capitalism is better while 24% of Dems favor socialism). When the question is altered to replace the term “free market economy” for the term “capitalism,” 77% of Americans prefer a free market economy. A separate poll showed that 58% of Americans oppose Obamacare and want it repealed; while 60% say the bill will increase deficits. Some Democrats in Congress may be fooled about the Obama administration, but increasingly the voters are definitely not.
Item #7: It’s OFFICIAL: GM lied to us . . . . Since GM had not shown much of a profit recently and failed to show a profit at least five of the last seven quarters, it wasn’t hard to be skeptical. The bogus General Motors claim that they’d paid off their bailout “five years ahead of time, including interest” is certainly NOT convincing taxpayers at all and the loyal opposition is all over it. You may have seen the commericials with GM CEO/Chairman Whiteacre asking us to “give GM another chance.” GM officially announced Wednesday last week 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. Of course, unmentioned is that the GM bailout actually costs nearly $84 Billion including a huge amount of money for the Obama-contributing United Auto Workers Union so that they could own the company in large part. Of course the bailout didn’t payoff the people GM actually owed money too; nor did it pay off others who held GM debt instruments such as several retirement funds. All of the rest of the blog following this and concerning GM is from Fox News”:
Republican Senator Grassley of Iowa said in a 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." You remember "Clueless Joe?" He's the one who said that winning the Iraq War will prove to be "the greatest accomplishment of this administration so far" as Obama's (let's get out, quick as we can)policies in Iraq seem to be snatching defeat from the jaws of victory . . . He's definitely not in the loop on this one, "major accomplishment?"
TARP overseer Barofsky told Fox News"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 the GM 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. Rajjpuut believes GM should go into the magic supplies business – nice sleight of hand*, Whiteacre, NICE!
Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut
*By the way, the owner of 61% of GM is still the federal government . . . and the greatest conflict of interest with this story lies with the Obama administration which stands to gain public esteem if people fall for Chairman Whiteacre’s bogus claim and start buying GM stock and GM cars
In Elaborate TARP Funds Shuffle
GM Ads Claim Bailout "Paid Off"
A top Senate Republican is angry with the Obama administration for not refuting General Motor’s recent claim to having paid off its bailout five years ahead of schedule. Vice President Joe Biden immediately chimed in that GM’s effort was “a great accomplishment” as soon as the ads began running. And so far no one from the adminstration has admitted that GM is putting a hoax over on the taxpayeers. Once proud General Motors now finds itself in boiling hot water over a blatantly false advertisment featuring GM Chairman and CEO Ed Whiteacre claiming the troubled car company has “repaid” its bailout from the taxpayers “in full.” The Federal Trade Commission quickly moved to investigate the claim all the while Republicans on Capital Hill were going bonkers over the clearly murky statements. The Obama administration has not responded to charges that GM was falsifying advertising in order to gain unwaranted trust from consumers while government watchdogs say that the automaker may have “technically paid off the bailout money by dipping into a separate pot of bailout funds the equivalent of a slush fund which also came from the U.S. Taxpayers. “Truth in advertising” laws prohibit commercials which are “likely to mislead consumers.”
Supposedly “too big to fail,” GM’s TV spot irritated viewers with common sense. The former auto-giant since the bailout has shown very little profit, how was this possible? "We have repaid our government loans in full — with interest — five years ahead of the original schedule," said Whitacre in the ad, while asking Americans to give the bankrupt company “another look.” Top senate Republican Chuck Grassley of Iowa said GM was misleading taxpayers by using a special escrow account to repay the loan. His charge was backed up by TARP inspector general Neil Barofsky who told Fox News as well as the senate finance committee that Grassley was correct, GM used bailout money to pay back the federal government. Grassley described the whole thing as “nothing more than an elaborate TARP money shuffling.”
Not only is all the TARP money NOT paid off by GM, but the company is not Whitacre’s company anyway. 61% is owned by the U.S. Government and 12% is owned by the Canadian Government and GM is definitely NOT yet solvent, still racked by debt and so far unable to turn a profit (and hasn’t done so since 2004) GM received a $52 infusion of money from the federal government in 2009. Grassley, meanwhile has written a letter with his findings to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and asked for more information about why the company was allowed to use bailout money to repay bailout money and how much of the remaining escrow funds GM would be allowed to keep. Since GM received the equivalent of over $14,000 per automobile in bailout funds, how it can keep from turning a profit is beyond Rajjpuut’s simple power to add or detract. Rest assured, however, no actual profit was made and no actual GM money was used in “paying off the bailout.” In fact, Rajjpuut, is betting that Chrysler, who received a bailout simultaneously with GM is no where nearer to solvency than it was a year ago and GM's solvency is still very much up in the air. Stupidity like Whitacre's little charlatan ad stunt is surely not going to be earning any consumer confidence for GM in the near future and Rajjpuut expects him to be handed his hat within a month.
Ya’ll live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut
