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$15.64
By W. Jackson Bate
$35
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A look at the day’s political happenings, including a bipartisan agreement reached on immigration reform and Obama and Clinton give a joint interview on “60 Minutes.”
Posted on Jan 28, 2013
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jm3 (CC BY-SA 2.0)
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After a year of fruitless protest outside the U.S. Embassy in Bogota, some former GM employees have sewn their mouths shut in a hunger strike against the company’s treatment of workers at its Colombian plant, pledging death if their grievances are not addressed.
Posted on Aug 16, 2012
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U.S. Treasury
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Just as Mitt Romney has locked up the Republican nomination on a boast of fiscal conservatism, President Obama’s Treasury Department has said it expects to turn a tidy $2 billion profit from TARP and other extraordinary measures taken to bail out the financial industry.
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The Huffington Post
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Those who caught the Super Bowl broadcast Sunday might have heard Clint Eastwood’s gravelly growl emanating from their sets during one of the big game’s coveted ad breaks.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Have you noticed that one of the Obama administration’s most successful programs is also its most “socialist” initiative?
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AP / Paul Sancya
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The United Auto Workers and GM announced late Friday that after more than seven weeks of negotiations the two had agreed on a four-year contract that included new jobs, improved profit-sharing and better health care benefits.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Don’t expect to see a lot of newspapers and websites with this headline: “Big Government Bailout Worked.” But it would be entirely accurate.
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AP / Seth Wenig
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By Robert Scheer — Welcome to the brave new world of post-bailout capitalism. The Commerce Department announced Tuesday that corporate profits are at their highest level in U.S. history, and the Fed released minutes of an early November meeting in which officials predicted a stagnant economy and continued high unemployment.
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Flickr / Lacie Babenco (CC-BY-SA)
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The troubled, bankrupted, bailed-out, reinvented automaker had a record day on Wall Street, potentially raising $23.1 billion, and the White House is breathing a sigh of relief. But as the BBC’s Paul Adams cautions, it will be a while before the taxpayers get their money back.
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Flickr / Brian Cantoni (CC-BY)
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GM’s outgoing CEO likes to complain about the government’s 61 percent stake in the reborn company, but thanks to all that Washington meddling, GM has gone from losing $88 billion over four years to making a couple of billion in six months.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Who could have imagined that the bailout of the auto industry, one of the single most unpopular moves by the Obama administration, would become one of its best talking points?
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GM
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Back when GM was going down the tubes, we heard an awful lot about a futuristic electric car that would save the company. The Chevy Volt finally has a price tag, and it’s set at a luxurious $41,000 (before a substantial tax rebate). (continued)
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Illustration from White House photo by Pete Souza
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Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich writes, “If the government can take over giant global insurer AIG and the auto giant General Motors and replace their CEOs, in order to keep them financially solvent, it should be able to put BP’s north American operations into temporary receivership in order to stop one of the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history.”
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What Obama hasn’t learned about offshore oil drilling, why Steve Jobs and Apple want to offer “freedom from porn,” and how GM bamboozled the country into thinking it repaid its bailout money.
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Wikimedia Commons / IFCAR
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A few years ago GM’s electric car seemed like the vehicle we’d all be driving in the brave new world of hybrids, a Prius killer that could save the troubled company if GM could just hang on long enough. GM is only now starting to let civilians drive the thing and some of them are wondering whether the Volt hasn’t lost its spark. (continued)
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Satire by Andy Borowitz —
Toyota President Akio Toyoda said he was having difficulties with the brakes on his 2010 Toyota Prius, which finally came to rest after crashing into a blacksmith’s shop in Colonial Williamsburg.
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Flickr/richardefreeman
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It seems that the romantic notion of cutting back on executives’ astronomical salaries, especially execs at corporations that benefited from government funding, hasn’t exactly caught on like wildfire in the American auto business. Take General Motors, for example.
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Flickr / lucamascaro
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By Eugene Robinson — A friend of mine once had a Toyota that wouldn’t die. The odometer had only a dim recollection of passing 100,000 miles, the body was dinged and the paint was faded and the interior was worn, but the thing just kept running. He finally parked it at the airport, removed the plates and walked away.
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Background: Suburbanbloke (CC-BY-SA)
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By Amy Goodman — A landmark class action case is under way in a New York federal court, with victims of apartheid in South Africa suing corporations that they say helped the pre-1994 regime.
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GM’s new Volt may be able to drive for 40 miles without a drop of gas, but, based on the singing and dancing in this video, it’s clear that the brains that bankrupted this company are still very much in charge.
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fordnewsblog.wordpress.com
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Those dangerous socialists in our federal government have really done it this time. Why, they’ve ... engineered a way to give the American auto industry a much-needed boost with their successful “Cash for Clunkers” program.
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autoblog.com
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GM claims its new wonder car, the Volt, gets mileage that makes the Prius look as if it belongs in the cash-for-clunkers program—230 MPG in the city. Pick up your jaw, the rating is based on a new EPA methodology and hasn’t been confirmed by the agency. The car may also be delayed indefinitely in reaching the market.
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Flickr / ThreadedThoughts
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The Senate is finally getting around to approving more money for the wildly successful “cash for clunkers” program, which seems to have saved the auto industry from the forces of recession and bankruptcy. With an additional $2 billion on the way, the administration hopes to transform 500,000 more clunkers into cleaner, smaller, more efficient vehicles.
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thomhartmann.com
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The Truthdig panel talks to radio host and author Thom Hartmann about his new book, “Threshold,” the need for serious financial regulation and his trip to Darfur.
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thomhartmann.com
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The Truthdig panel talks to radio host and author Thom Hartmann about his new book, “Threshold,” the need for serious financial regulation and his trip to Darfur.
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Flickr / Franco Folini
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What exactly does an executive have to do to not get a golden parachute? Former GM CEO Rick Wagoner ran the company into the ground, and will now retire with $8.6 million for his trouble. That figure was negotiated down from the $23 million the old pre-bankrupt GM would have had to pay Wagoner. Sorry Rick, but it’s a rough economy.
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Flickr/richardefreeman
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General Motors Chief Executive Fritz Henderson tooted his company’s horn plenty when he ushered in a new, post-bankruptcy era for the Detroit automaker—but he couldn’t promise that GM 2.0 would be able to pay back the billions of dollars his company got from taxpayers.
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You know you’re in for a spirited episode of “Left, Right & Center” when Truthdig’s own Robert Scheer drops a line like “Tony, you’re getting overly excited for NPR.”
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By William Pfaff — I wonder what my father would have thought of the self-destruction of General Motors. We were a General Motors family, but not a happy one.
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By Eugene Robinson — With GM’s bankruptcy filing on Monday, we the people have become majority owners of a museum-quality piece of industrial history.
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Flickr / richardefreeman
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General Motors filed for Chapter 11 bankrupcy protection on Monday. Shortly after the announcement, President Obama tried to reassure taxpayers, who are effectively shelling out an additional $30 billion in return for a 60 percent stake in the company, according to the new restructuring plan. The “new GM” will shed 21,000 more employees and shut down 12 factories and 2,600 car dealerships.
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Flickr / gotplaid?
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GM’s restructuring plan will make the Treasury Department the majority owner of the company, according to Bloomberg. The administration reportedly intends to take as passive a role as possible and will not appoint anyone to the automaker’s board, thereby avoiding the danger that something competent might happen.
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By Marie Cocco — This is how it ends. Or at least, this is how the latest, sad chapter in a story that has been ending for three decades is written.
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Flickr / dogonthesidewalk
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GM has until June 1 to cut a deal with its workers and bondholders, but the Treasury Department is requiring the automaker to prepare for bankruptcy just in case, according to The New York Times. Newly installed GM chief Fritz Henderson is more receptive to the possibility than his predecessor, but warns, “If we need to resort to bankruptcy, we have to do it quickly.”
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So, Matt Lauer busted right out of the gates with the sex-scandal questions in his interview with Eliot Spitzer on Monday’s “Today” show, taking far too much time to extract mea culpas from the fallen former New York governor before getting to the better part of the program, during which Spitzer holds forth about the economy.
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Brian Fairrington, Cagle Cartoons —
Posted on Apr 1, 2009
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AP photo / Mary Altaffer
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By Robert Scheer — The good news on the government’s “No Banker Left Behind” program is that, according to the special inspector general’s report on Tuesday, the total handout to date is still less than 3 trillion dollars. It’s only $2.98 trillion, to be precise, an amount six times greater than will be spent by federal, state and local governments this year on educating the 50 million American children in elementary and secondary schools.
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fordnewsblog.wordpress.com
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President Obama grabbed the proverbial steering wheel on Monday, shaking up the American auto industry by stating tougher conditions for receiving federal subsidies and forcing GM’s CEO to step down. But critics are wrong to suggest that this represents an unprecedented use of executive power.
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By Eugene Robinson — The president is telling Detroit to shape up or die while at the same time politely asking Wall Street, whose recklessness and greed caused this economic crisis, if it would be so kind as to accept another heaping helping of taxpayer funds.
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Flickr / richardefreeman
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The Obama administration auto task force has sent both GM and Chrysler back to the drawing board, turning down requests for additional loans until the companies come up with more realistic restructuring plans. The government will prop up GM for two months while the automaker tries again. Chrysler has 30 days.
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Flickr / Anatoli Axelrod
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GM CEO Rick Wagoner resigned Sunday, apparently at the request of the Obama administration as part of a larger bailout agreement. The ouster of the man who gave us the Hummer wasn’t entirely unexpected. He spent the last eight years driving the world’s biggest car company into a ditch. Now if only we could apply this logic to the banking bailout. Update
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By David Sirota — In the 21st century Gilded Age, the blue-collar shower-after-work crowd is given the tough, while the white-collar shower-before-work gang gets the love, and never before this week was that doctrine made so clear.
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Flickr / Smith
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If GM strikes out in Washington, the automaker could take its troubles to Europe, the second continent where it has asked for a bailout. That’s because GM operates plants in six European countries, to the tune of 300,000 jobs. The company is hoping for good news, especially since its auditors announced it may not survive much longer.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — It makes sense to prop up ailing carmakers. Allowing GM and Chrysler to go bankrupt could be a triggering event that might make a very bad economy much worse.
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fordnewsblog.wordpress.com
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What’s to be done about the floundering American automotive industry? Appoint a “car czar,” you say? No, this is a job for a whole team of people, such as the newly formed Presidential Task Force on Autos. One small hitch: It’ll be headed up by Timothy Geithner and Lawrence Summers.
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