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POPSJust say No to Government Motors and Obamacars
History tells us that ventures between government and private enterprise are highly unlikely to succeed. Rolls Royce and British Leyland Motor Corporation were nationalized by the British government. Neither intervention succeeded in making either company profitable. The DNA of America is coded with private enterprise and individual risk-taking and reward. The idea of the government owning businesses of any sort is not merely bad economics, it is terrible government. Any American who values their traditions of free enterprise and political freedom will urge the federal government to disinvest itself from these companies immediately. The federal government can quickly put its controlling stake in the companies on the market and do so at whatever price makes the market. There are plenty of great cars out there. You don't have to buy one that costs not just your cash, but also your commitment to free enterprise and all the benefits that flow from it.
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POPSAuto Czar Quits Post Six Months Into the Job Mr. Rattner, a former investment banker and His Former Firm Are Involved in a Long-Running Investigation by the New York Attorney General's Office. It seems to me that this would have immediately disqualified him from being appointed to this post to begin with.
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POPSObama Comes To Michigan, Tea Party Breaks Out! Michigan has been hit particularly hard not only by the recession (we were already in one for the last 6 1/2 years), but by the bankruptcy of GM and Chrysler (didn't they get bailed out specifically to avoid bankruptcy? Couldn't they just have done that last fall without government intervention?). Funny thing is, most stimulus $$$ aren't slated to be spent until 2010 - an election year. In any case, the freep could have written a far more meaningful editorial slamming Granholm for the unfriendly business environment she has created in this state, and calling on her to lower taxes to spur more business investment. As for Obama's promise for creating jobs, here's how that has been going so far: January US jobs lost: 598,000 jobs February US jobs lost: 706,000 jobs March US jobs lost: 742,000 jobs April US jobs lost: 545,000 jobs May US jobs lost: 345,000 jobs June US jobs lost: 467,000 jobs Total US jobs lost under Obama: 3,403,000 jobs
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POPSNot Surprised At All... And where Michigan goes, the nation will follow. If you doubt that statement, wait 2 years... that's the approximate lag time. The only way to stop this is to stop the idiots in Washington as well as the idiots at the state level.... both parties. In this country we can all vote. Shamefully, only a small portion of the population gets off their asses and votes. I firmly believe that if you don't vote, you can't bitch. I vote.
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POPSSome Chrysler Models in Shortage JUNE 30, 2009 When both auto makers bring the plants that survived the latest round of closings back online later this summer or in the fall, they will be running fewer shifts and turning out fewer vehicles in an effort to manage inventory and keep transaction prices up. Michael Stravato for The Wall Street Journal Some of the supply shortages may ease slightly in coming weeks. Chrysler restarted seven plants Monday to finish building 2009 models that it had been working on when it filed for bankruptcy reorganization. All its plants will close again for the company's two week summer shutdown in the second half of July. Chrysler hasn't finalized its production for the rest of the summer, but expects to start production of 2010 models the week of July 27, it said. If it can avoid flooding the market, the inventory decline could help Chrysler and its dealers earn more on every sale, even if it sells fewer cars.
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POPS36 Congressmen Ask Obama to Return Authority Over Auto Bailout to Congress “For a bunch of folks who say they don’t want to be in the day-to-day operation and don’t want to manage the old Chrysler and the new Chrysler into bankruptcy, they sure seem to be doing that – telling them how much they can spend on advertising, rejecting opportunities to avoid bankruptcy for both Chrysler and GM,” he said.
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POPSObama Administration to Supremes: We are Above the Law ~ Supremes to Obama: Go Pound Sand 
Fortunately, the high court ruled this afternoon that the administration is full of s*** and that indeed it does have the authority to delay the Chrsyler sale. Ahead of the decision, Chrysler LLC and the federal government warned such an intervention might lead to the liquidation of the automaker. But Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in a brief order, said the court will extend a temporary stay put in place by an appeals court "pending further order of the undersigned or of the court." The administration -- who always seems to be in a hurry, whether it's spending trillions of dollars on useless government pork, destroying the health care system, or simply nationalizing automakers -- argued that the delay would scuttle the deal. But dissenters were equally clear-cut on reasons to oppose the deal. The bankruptcy laws were written so that companies could dramatically overhaul themselves, becoming leaner and more efficient enterprises.
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POPSGinsburg Temporarily Blocks Chrysler Deal Among the likely explanations for her action: * Ginsburg may have decided to share the decision on what to do with her eight colleagues, and they needed more time to think or talk about it. * Members of the Court may have decided that they wanted to give some explanation, or perhaps some may have decided to dissent and wanted a chance to prepare a statement saying so. In the meantime, it was her task, as the Circuit Justice, to impose a limited stay. * Ginsburg or the Court may be waiting to see how the Second Circuit explains its decision to uphold the terms of the sale. The Circuit Court issued no opinion on Friday, indicating that such an explanation would come “in due course,” although the expectation was that one or more opinions would emerge from those judges on Monday.
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POPS Chrysler Creditors Ask U.S. Justice to Stop Fiat Sale The votes of at least four of the nine justices are required for the Supreme Court to consider the appeal. The Indiana funds, holding $42.5 million of $6.9 billion in Chrysler secured loans, contend the Fiat deal is a misuse of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which they say was intended for financial institutions, not carmakers.
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POPSGM Cannot Justify Corporate Jets Now Well, the article explains it....I feel sorry for all of the lessors that will lose money on this bankruptcy....People see GM and Chrysler shedding 100's of billions of dollars in debt. But someone and not just banks, will lose alot of money to keep these two giants of failure afloat long enough to suck the U.S. citizen of tax dollars.
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POPS Government Motors "Long Live GM" “We don’t think that after this next $30 billion, they will need more money,” one administration official said. “But the fact is there are things you don’t know — like when the car market will come back, and how much Toyota and Honda and Volkswagen will benefit from the chaos.” ] In other words, if Toyota and Honda and Ford and all the other non-nationalized car manufacturers keep doing a better job than GM of making cars Americans actually want to buy then the government will continue to use your tax dollars to bail out GM. Why? Because Obama and the Democrats have decided that they need to keep General Motors alive as a host for the union parasites at the UAW. Meaning that the rest of you working schlubs out there are going to have to pay more taxes to subsidize the union wages of the Chrysler and General Motors employees. If you’re thinking that sounds like a crappy deal, it is.
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POPSAre Republican car dealers getting picked on? Well, no, despite what you may have read in the right-wing blogs. The % of shuttered dealers who are Republicans is the same as the % of still-open dealers who are Republicans. Fact is, a lot of car dealers are Republicans.
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POPSDid Anti-Obama Campaign Contributions . . . . . . . Dictate Which Chrysler Dealers Were Shuttered? As an employee of one of the affected dealerships... First, this isn't just Chrysler's decision. They were forced into bankruptcy by President Obama. When Chrysler emerges from bankruptcy the Federal Government will be a junior partner in the new Chrysler. This is SOCIALISM! Wake up people! This isn't about business it's about politics and control. My dealership is in the top 125 out of the 3500 plus dealerships nationwide...yet we are on the list. We are not small nor are we rural. We are in a large major metropolitan area. Our new vehicle inventory alone is well over $4.0 million. Is that small? Secondly, Chrysler is already "shopping" for dealers to take over the open "points" (another name for franchise) left by the closed dealerships. Again, you think this is just business.
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POPS Funds Move To Halt Chrysler Restructuring The funds also allege that Tarp funds were meant to be funnelled only to financial institutions. Three of Chrysler’s secured creditors are mounting a fresh attempt to thwart the carmaker’s Chapter 11 reorganisation on the grounds that it violates their legal rights and the US government’s authority under the Troubled asset relief programme. “Whatever powers the Treasury department may have under Tarp,” the funds said, “it does not have the power to control the entire restructuring of a company to the detriment of the company’s secured creditors and for the benefit of other interest groups so that certain broader policy and political objectives may be achieved.” A US bankruptcy judge on Wednesday denied their attempt to halt proceedings in bankruptcy court, but a district court needs to rule on the funds’ request for the case to be heard in district court instead. The group also can oppose the final sale agreement, which under the current timeline must be approved by May 27
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POPSCronyism in My Hometown A must read letter by the president of a local Dodge dealer. In the past year, we have embarked on several creative initiatives in order to remain profitable and out of bankruptcy court. Though Dodge district sales are down by about 50%, our new vehicle sales actually increased comparing April 2008 and April 2009. Though I am a Washington, DC-educated attorney and former employee of the US Department of Labor and the US Senate and an active advocate of the American way of life, it is difficult for me to view this abrogation of our franchise rights as anything more than a manipulation of US bankruptcy court and law so that Chrysler LLC can transfer wealth between dealers they like and those they dislike, those that have agreed to under-table favors and those that haven't, and to settle old vendettas. This is not the purpose of US bankruptcy protection and, surely, it isn't why the US Treasury has given billions to Chrysler to keep them in business.
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POPSChrysler Dealers Battling Closure According to this report it would appear that Chrysler is interested in cutting the costs of doing business by cutting off those who actually BUY THEIR Cars, but not those who sit home collecting benefits and not producing cars. Something is definitely out of whack in our society. What has happened to the United States? Why are we constantly punishing achievers and rewarding non-achievers?
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POPSObama Offers Security at the Expense of Liberty of paying federal income tax and eligible for occasional rebates. As CNN reporter Susan Roesgen said, "Don't you realize that you're eligible for a $400 tax cut?" In other words, take the money and shut up. Which brings to mind Tocqueville's warning: "Every measure which establishes legal charity on a permanent basis and gives to it an administrative form creates thereby a class unproductive and idle, living at the expense of the class which is industrious and given to work." The Obama administration is assiduous in the protection of this administrative class. It offers $6,800,000,000 to the state of California on one hand, and then threatens to take it back because the state cut the pay of public employee union members by $74,000,000. The government gives JPMorgan Chase $25,000,000,000, and then insists that it give up in the Chrysler deal what it would ordinarily receive in bankruptcy proceedings and turn it over to fund the health care benefits of United Auto Worker retirees.
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POPS Chrysler Bond Holders Surrender "We're still opposing this and not signing the consents, but the active fight has been more challenging," Geoffrey Gwin, principal of the Group G Capital Partners LLC, told the AP . "Everybody's going along with it."
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POPSObama’s Auto Policy: All In The Democratic Family through the end of 2006 to lobby Congress, the White House, and the Department of Labor on a handful of bills regarding asbestos litigation and compensation. What was Quadrangle’s stake in asbestos legislation? Many hedge funds invested in ompanies damaged by asbestos lawsuits. These funds then lobbied for legislation that would alleviate some of the liability the companies faced, thus boosting companies’ stock value. Alternatively, a hedge fund could make the opposite play: Watch a vulnerable company’s stock rise as prospects improve for asbestos legislation, then short the company and lobby to kill the bill. So Rattner understands how public policy can create private profits. It should come as no surprise, then, that his auto plan involves upending bankruptcy law and precedent in favor of a system in which the winners and losers are chosen by politicians or their appointed “czars.”
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POPSWH Threats to Chrysler Creditors Confirmed What keeps going through my mind at this point, though, is what will the bankruptcy judge do? Judge Arthur Gonzalez has 200 years of bankruptcy law precedent that he applies with every bankruptcy that comes before him. Will he follow the law this time, which says these secured creditors get paid first and in full or as much as they can be, or will he bow to the pressure from the White House? Can you imagine the firestorm if he actually upholds the law and tells Obambi to take a hike? He will get every leftist anal analyst in the country after him.
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POPS“NewsBusted” 5/05/09 — Fake News from the Right by NewsBusters In this episode, “NewsBusted” covers: Swine Flu, Mexico, Supreme Court Justice David Souter. Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Arlen Specter, President Obama’s press conference, Chrysler, George Stephanopoulos, Sean Penn, and Daily Show Host Jon Stewart. via Big Hollywood blog http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/newsbusters/2009/05/05/%E2%80%9Cnewsbusted%E2%80%9D-50509-%E2%80%94-fake-news-from-the-right/
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POPSThe "Madman Theory of the Presidency" Now Lauria is vowing to fight. Thomas Lauria head of the restructuring practice at White & Case, the lead lawyer for the group of holdout lenders that the Obama administration is blaming for pushing Chrysler into Chapter 11. The group, as you know by now, refused to take 33 cents on the dollar for the approximately $1 billion in Chrysler debt they hold. The four biggest bank lenders to Chrysler--all recipients of federal bailout money--took that deal, drawing praise from Obama for their decision. . Specifically, he says the holdout lenders will challenge the planned sale of Chrysler's prime assets to a new company controlled by the auto workers union and Fiat, according to Reuters. The lenders say the sale is an "end run" around established bankruptcy law that gives secured lenders priority over junior lenders (including the union) when it comes to getting repaid. http://amlawdaily.typepad.com/amlawdaily/2009/05/white-cases-thomas-lauria-lawyer-for-the-holdout-lender
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POPSJack Booted Thugs: You Will Submit Voluntarily, Or We Will Make You But many of the independent investors balked. ‘Financial Sacrifices’ The reasoning of the hold-outs was captured in a statement by OppenheimerFunds Inc., which said the government “unfairly asked our fund shareholders to make financial sacrifices greater than those being made by unsecured creditors.” Stories circulated that the Treasury Department exerted extreme pressure behind the scenes when investors refused to take the deal. Public pressure was exerted as well. President Barack Obama went to the podium to criticize the recalcitrant investors, and Democratic Representative John Dingell of Michigan pressed the threats even harder: “The rogue hedge funds that refused to agree to a fair offer to exchange debt for cash from the U.S. Treasury — firms I label as the ‘vultures’ — will now be dealt with accordingly in court,” Dingell said.
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POPS Firms Face New Tax Curbs many members of his own party have expressed reluctance about raising taxes, so prospects for the proposals are uncertain, even though none would take effect until 2011. A senior Republican aide termed the proposals a "revenue grab," predicting they could end up driving more corporate operations overseas. Some or all of the changes could become fodder for broader tax reform next year. "If rules are changed on tax deferral and we are taxed in the U.S. on non-U.S. profit, this significant additional U.S. tax cost would adversely impact our ability to invest and grow our business in the U.S....and to compete against our foreign competitors who are not subject to this U.S. tax," said John Earnhardt The president's tax announcement, to be made with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, is part of an administration plan to raise as much as $210 billion in extra tax revenue over the next decade, in an effort to trim budget deficits and pay for job-creation incentives & other programs.
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POPSChrysler Bankruptcy Hardball: The Shape Of Things To Come That's a political payoff pure and simple. The senior secured creditors (many of which represent retirement funds and savings plans) said no. The Obama administration then deployed the brass knuckles. As one blogger notes, Car Czar Rattner got downright Nixonian about the resistance to The One: Confronting the head of a non-TARP fund holding Chrysler debt and unwilling to release it for any sum less than that to which it was legally entitled without compelling cause, this country's "Car Czar" berated the manager of said fund with an outburst of prose substantially resembling this: Who the f*ck do you think you're dealing with? We'll have the IRS audit your fund. Every one of your employees. Your investors. Then we will have the Securities and Exchange Commission rip through your books looking for anything and everything and nothing we find to destroy you with.
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