I think Obama must be furious that someone in the government forgot to buy Solyndra's solar panels, to keep them in business at least until November.
That could have been touted as another great "success."
By Seton Motley
The Jurassic Press was in full-throated ObamaChorus mode in reporting on General Motors (GM)’s allegedly strong June sales.
Very few failed to receive the sheet music.
General Motors June US Car Sales Rocket 16%
GM's June sales up 16%, show broad-based growth
Mentioned was that We the Taxpayers were conscripted to bailout GM to the tune of $50 billion.
General Motors' US sales up 16% in June
General Motors (GM) Shifts Gears on Strong US and China Sales
The Jurassic Press mentioned the bailout so as to allow President Barack Obama to continue to campaign for reelection on its titanically-failed “success."
GM (NYSE:GM) Announces Record Strong Sales
General Motors' US sales up 16 pct in June
Not mentioned was the auto bailout will lose us about $30 billion.
General Motors (NYSE:GM) Cheers to Reports US Sales Surges 16%
General Motors (NYSE:GM) Beats Analysts Sales Forecasts
GM Sees Highest Sales Since September
Almost all of this $30 billion Taxpayer loss was in fact a gi-normous payoff of the Obama-Democrat stalwart United Autoworkers Union.
GM Races Higher on Sales Report
While the Union was thoroughly bailed out, We the Taxpayers are still stuck holding 500+ million shares of GM stock. Which we need to sell at $53 per. Which debuted post-bankruptcy at $33 per. And which is currently trading at just over $20 per. Meaning we’ll lose about $15 billion. How’s that for “success?”
GM Calls June Highest Sales Month Since 2008
General Motors (GM) June Sales Highest Since September 2008
GM June 2012 Sales Climb 15.5 Percent to Highest Month Since September 2008
And in all this Hosanna-reporting, nowhere to be found is the inconvenient truth that these huge June sales were mostly fueled by...government purchases.
We now learn that government purchases of GM vehicles rose a whopping 79% in June.
Meaning Barack Obama is now campaigning on the “success” of - the government buying cars from...the government’s car company. With our money.
That’s like you setting up a lemonade stand for your kids. You buy them the lemons, sugar, cups and pitchers - and then buy most of the lemonade yourself.
Except you are President Obama. Your kids are the United Autoworkers Union. And the lemonade cost $50 billion.
At least you get to tax your neighbors for the $50 billion.
Again - in what Bizarro-world is this auto bailout the “success” the Jurassic Press incessantly reports it is?
Bet the only ones complaining about GM sales to the government are Ford, Chrysler, Honda, BMW and the rest of the auto companies. Their complaint - They didn't make the sale.
That could have been touted as another great "success."
Second, I think it's great that the government is finally taking the phrase "Buy American" more seriously. Are you trying to suggest that the government should buy BMWs instead? Do you not think that if they did NOT buy government vehicles from a US automaker that the Right Wing wouldn't be all over Obama for "selling out our sovereignty" or "seeking to create a new world order" the way they do over just about everything already? Where would YOU like to see the Federal government obtain its vehicles?
Third, I don't know if the author of this piece is ignorant or just deliberately trying to be obtuse, but the suggestion that buying cars from GM is some sort of "secret union payback" is absurd. He seems to believe that none of these purchases were necessary and that the government bough vehicles just to "funnel" money into the company. That's ridiculous. The Federal government purchases thousa...
Second, I think it's great that the government is finally taking the phrase "Buy American" more seriously. Are you trying to suggest that the government should buy BMWs instead? Do you not think that if they did NOT buy government vehicles from a US automaker that the Right Wing wouldn't be all over Obama for "selling out our sovereignty" or "seeking to create a new world order" the way they do over just about everything already? Where would YOU like to see the Federal government obtain its vehicles?
Third, I don't know if the author of this piece is ignorant or just deliberately trying to be obtuse, but the suggestion that buying cars from GM is some sort of "secret union payback" is absurd. He seems to believe that none of these purchases were necessary and that the government bough vehicles just to "funnel" money into the company. That's ridiculous. The Federal government purchases thousands of vehicles EVERY year. If they weren't buying them from GM, Ford or Chrysler they would be buying them from foreign manufacturers, but either way, they would be buying the cars anyway. To suggest otherwise is dishonest and wildly contrary to reality.
http://turner.house.gov/Legis...
We both know that answer. Obama was ONLY concerned with the Union Workers of GM. Nothing else. GM could have gone through the bankruptcy courts and come out in better shape. The ONLY reason Obama helped the Union was for their votes.
And you know I have been a UAW Member of 18 years.
And I still don't get why so many people view the GM bailout as "designed to reward" the unions. The reward they got was that their employer stayed in business and has now become profitable again. That's about all. The reward the country got is that we still have a thriving auto industry that sustains over a million American jobs (including all of the vendors and suppliers that feed into GM and the others). And yes, of course there was an overall "cost" to the Federal government, but that cost is balanced by the fact that a million Americans have jobs who wouldn't have them otherwise - and if you're a UAW member then that would include you.
You folks also always seem to overlook the fact that the Bush Administration extended smaller loans to the auto industry before the 2008 elections. Certainly George Bush would never be called a friend of unions, would he? This seems to be example #1,462,473 of criticizing President Obama for doing the same thing that other Presidents have done without criticism.
[And PS - How many tax dollars is Darrell Issa spending to produce YouTube videos anyway?]
You do remember that Delphi 'was' GM at one time. These people worked side by side the Union workers. And yet the government decided that their pensions could be stolen. That, my friend, is more than OUTRAGEOUS. There is absolutely NO excuse for that.
Issa isn't spending near what Obama has spent with his propaganda invested 'Whitehouse.gov'
http://www.whitehouse.gov/
Lovely picture of the Narcissist president isn't it.
Would have been in much better shape.
Bush gave loans. Obama took over the company.
Bottom line is, if you want your money back, buy a GM car LOL.
GM paid back part of it's loan with money from a second bailout after bankrupting the first company and sticking it to the taxpayers..
GM took 500 million of taxpayer money and is building a plant in Mexico (not here) so taxpayer money just went to provide another country with jobs.......just like much of the Obamabucks program has.
We wrote about this, too, on April 26 in a review of the Sunday political talk shows. Here’s the deal for those who missed that post:
■Yes, it’s true that GM paid back its loan from the Treasury Department, in full, ahead of schedule.
■But the debt was only part of the automaker bailout package. Through the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the Treasury gave GM $49.5 billion, most of which was converted into an ownership stake in the form of stock. Through this equity stake, the government still owns 61 percent of GM.
■Some Republicans, including Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa have pointed out that GM used TARP money to pay back its TARP debt. That’s true, but GM simply handed back TARP money it had been lent and hadn’t used. Those funds had been sitting in an escrow account, should the automaker need them. (The company didn’t borrow new money to pay back an older loan.)
Grassley has argued that this wasn’t a "meaningful" repayment of a loan, since it didn’t come from earnings. That’s an opin...
We wrote about this, too, on April 26 in a review of the Sunday political talk shows. Here’s the deal for those who missed that post:
■Yes, it’s true that GM paid back its loan from the Treasury Department, in full, ahead of schedule.
■But the debt was only part of the automaker bailout package. Through the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the Treasury gave GM $49.5 billion, most of which was converted into an ownership stake in the form of stock. Through this equity stake, the government still owns 61 percent of GM.
■Some Republicans, including Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa have pointed out that GM used TARP money to pay back its TARP debt. That’s true, but GM simply handed back TARP money it had been lent and hadn’t used. Those funds had been sitting in an escrow account, should the automaker need them. (The company didn’t borrow new money to pay back an older loan.)
Grassley has argued that this wasn’t a "meaningful" repayment of a loan, since it didn’t come from earnings. That’s an opinion, and we’ll leave it to readers to agree or disagree with the senator. The TARP special inspector general, Neil Barofsky, has said the repayment was "good news," since it meant the automaker didn’t need to use those funds held in escrow. In testimony before the Senate Finance Committee on April 20, Barofksy made it clear GM still was operating with government help:
Barofsky, April 20: G.M. has paid $1 billion, and I think they’ve announced that they’re going to be paying back the debt portion, which is about — I think there’s about $6 billion left in its entirety very shortly. But we should be a little — we need to be a little bit cautious about that because the way that that payment’s going to be made is drawing down an equity facility of other TARP money.
So it’s good news in that they’re reducing their debt, but they’re using it by taking other available TARP money to repay the TARP. It’s good news because it means that money, which was going to be available for future problems with G.M., that there’s a determination that they don’t need it, but we should caution that it’s not necessarily being generated out of earnings, but out of other TARP funds.
In an April 21 interview with Fox News’ Neil Cavuto, Barofsky repeated his assessment that the repayment was "good news" but should be taken with a grain of salt. "I mean, the good news is, that money — they already have that money that’s in that escrow account, so it does lower the total amount of money that they owe to the government, so that’s somewhat good news," Barofsky said. "But I don’t think we should exaggerate it too much, when we remember where — the source of this money is just other TARP money."
The president’s and GM’s statements may have given some the false impression that taxpayers have gotten back all the bailout money loaned to or invested in GM. Strictly speaking, Obama was accurate when he said: "GM announced that it paid back its loans to taxpayers with interest, fully five years ahead of schedule." But he alluded only vaguely to other bailout money, which taxpayers may never get back, adding: "It won’t be too long before the stock the Treasury is holding in GM can be sold, helping to reimburse the American people for their investment." Those statements might have confused anyone who wasn’t familiar with the details of GM’s stock-and-loan debt to the Treasury.
As for Treasury’s equity stake, worth $40 billion-plus, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has said the Treasury won’t fully recoup that money. The total automaker bailout, including TARP money given to Chrysler, CBO estimates, will cost taxpayers about $34 billion.
– Lori Robertson
Update, May 3: The CBO doesn’t give a breakdown of how much of its $34 billion cost estimate for the bailout would have gone to General Motors. But most of the automaker bailout funds went to GM. While the Treasury has a 61 percent equity stake in GM, its stake in Chrysler is 9.9 percent.
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IMPORTANT PART OF POST!!! REPOSTED AND CLEARLY MARKED
The president’s and GM’s statements may have given some the false impression that taxpayers have gotten back all the bailout money loaned to or invested in GM. Strictly speaking, Obama was accurate when he said: "GM announced that it paid back its loans to taxpayers with interest, fully five years ahead of schedule." But he alluded only vaguely to other bailout money, which taxpayers may never get back, adding: "It won’t be too long before the stock the Treasury is holding in GM can be sold, helping to reimburse the American people for their investment." Those statements might have confused anyone who wasn’t familiar with the details of GM’s stock-and-loan debt to the Treasury.
As for Treasury’s equity stake, worth $40 billion-plus, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has said the Treasury won’t fully recoup that money. The total automaker bailout, including TARP money given to Chrysler, CBO estimates, will cost taxpayers about $34 billion.
– Lori Robertson
http://factcheck.org/2010/05/...