Catching you up on clips, commentary and news of the day. Sign up for the daily email update from Scribe. Senator Casey Breaks With President Over Jobs Bill – CBSPittsburgh.com GE Responds to Charges of Crony Capitalism – Tim Carney, The Washington Examiner EPA Delays Global Warming Rules Again – Conn Carroll, The Washington Examiner GOP Lawmaker Wants Probe of White House Support of LightSquared – Brendan Sasso, Hillicon Valley FORD TV Ad Slams Obama Auto Bailouts – Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers, US News & World Report Solyndra Not Sole …
A glut of unsold trucks sits on General Motors dealers’ lots. Two auto plants in Indiana and Michigan stand idle, and it appears that the taxpayers aren’t out of the woods yet. GM still faces serious problems, being made worse by impending regulations. The Detroit Free Press reports: “Supply of Silverados has ballooned to 6 1/2 months’ worth at the dealership, a figure [GM dealership manager Mark] Frost calls “a little scary.” The automaker, 33% owned by the U.S. after its 2009 bankruptcy, has 280,000 Silverado and GMC Sierra pickups on …
General Motors is making moves to sell some of its government-owned stock back to the private sector in what would be one of the largest initial public offerings (IPOs) in U.S. history. While this is certainly a positive sign, it should not be used as an example and an excuse for more government-sponsored bailouts. The truth is that restructuring an inefficient business model is turning around a company. While the economic downturn and the credit crunch exacerbated GM’s problems, the automaker has been hampered by long-term problems such as high …
You probably have seen that new General Motors ad were CEO Ed Whitacre claims his company has repaid their taxpayer bailout “in full, with interest, five years ahead of the original schedule.” Don’t believe it for a second. Nick Gillespie explains why in the video to the right. The New York Times is also calling out the Obama administration for signing off on GM’s Enron-style accounting: But what neither G.M. nor the Treasury disclosed was that the company simply used other funds held by the Treasury to pay off its …
General Motors CEO Ed Whitacre should have thought twice about the title of his Wall Street Journal op-ed, “The GM Bailout: Paid Back in Full.” GM did announce that it would repay the $5.8 billion ($4.7 billion to U.S, $1.1 billion to Canada) remaining balance on the loans the automaker received from the U.S. and Canadian governments. GM is making good on the repayment early – the company had until 2015 to repay the full $8.4 billion loan. But the reality is that this accounts for only 10 percent of …
The taxpayer-funded auto bailout was largely the result of a number of poor decisions made by General Motors and Chrysler. Along with the excessively high labor and legacy costs, Detroit’s dependence on big, non-fuel-efficient vehicles was its own doing and at one time, was a very profitable strategy. Detroit struggled to make competitive fuel-efficient vehicles that rivaled its Japanese counterparts. The government stepped in and took a controlling stake in General Motors and, more recently, attempted to provide more regulatory stability by mandating stricter fuel efficiency standards. The Environmental Protection …
After suffering major electoral and legislative defeats last month, President Barack Obama took to the campaign trail in Nashua, New Hampshire, pitching his administration’s latest new plan to lower our nation’s double digit unemployment rate. This time, the President hopes to do for small businesses what Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac did for home mortgages. Specifically, he wants to create a new $30 billion “Small Business Lending Fund” which will loan money to banks with assets under $10 billion at favorable new rates, as long as they comply with a slew …
Facing rising populist anger over his administration’s billion-dollar bailouts, President Barack Obama proposed a $117 billion tax over the next 12 years on financial companies with assets of more than $50 billion. “We want our money back, and we’re going to get it,” the President said. The President is half right. Taxpayers are going to get their money back from the banks that received bailout money … but don’t expect to see any of the money the Obama administration poured into General Motors and Chrysler at the behest of their …
When the government bailed out General Motors and Chrysler, part of the necessary, painful road to recovery was to cut unnecessary dealerships. Before the cuts GM and Chrysler had over 9,000 independent dealerships in the United States. To save costs, GM and Chrysler cut 1,300 and 800 dealerships, respectively – still leaving them with many more dealerships than the likes of Toyota which only has 1,240. Both closed dealerships and some lawmakers have complained that the decision to close certain dealerships was politically motivated. But the reality is the choices …
There’s new evidence that General Motors and Chrysler, both owned partly by taxpayers, are still facing interference in the way they are run. The latest example comes not from the Obama Administration, but from Congress. At issue are the closures of over 2,000 dealerships announced by the two firms last summer. Despite much grumbling, the decisions appeared to be a non-political one, potentially saving as much as $2.5 billion annually according to the Washington Post. But politics did come in, in the form of congressional pressure to keep the dealerships …
