The Foundry

Posts Tagged ‘auto bailout’

• Morning Bell: The President’s Permanent Political Slush Fund

  Posted February 3rd, 2010 at 9:32am in Enterprise and Free Markets with 46 comments

  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, [...] More

• Morning Bell: Bank Tax Misses the Real Bailout Deadbeats in Detroit and DC

  Posted January 15th, 2010 at 9:51am in Enterprise and Free Markets with 48 comments

  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 [...] More

• Government Plans for Political Interference in GM, Chrysler

  Posted December 9th, 2009 at 4:27pm in Enterprise and Free Markets with 1 comments

  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

• Government in the Way Again at GM and Chrysler

  Posted December 7th, 2009 at 4:18pm in Enterprise and Free Markets with 13 comments

  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 [...] More

• GM Paints Silver Lining on Cloudy Earnings Report

  Posted November 16th, 2009 at 4:42pm in Enterprise and Free Markets with 4 comments

  Not very often is losing $1.2 billion good news but that’s the way General Motors is spinning its third quarter earnings report. GM claims its finances are stable enough to begin repaying the $6.7 billion in government loans as soon as December and could be paid off ahead of schedule, potentially by June of 2010. But that’s [...] More

• Automaker Bailout Sold on Empty Promises

  Posted November 12th, 2009 at 11:37am in Energy and Environment, Enterprise and Free Markets with 9 comments

  Have an idea but strapped for cash? Not sure if the idea is going to pan out? That’s all right, just ask the government for a few billion dollars. That’s what the automakers did. USA Today reports: If you believed all the talk from Chrysler about how our tax dollars would help finance its fast-track electric-vehicle [...] More

• Obama’s TARP Bailouts Fueling Ponzi Economy

  Posted October 28th, 2009 at 12:20pm in Enterprise and Free Markets with 0 comments

  The Wall Street Journal reports: GMAC Financial Services Inc. and the Treasury Department are in advanced talks to prop up the lender with its third helping of taxpayer money, people familiar with the matter said. The U.S. government is likely to inject $2.8 billion to $5.6 billion of capital into the Detroit company, on top of the [...] More

• President Obama Doesn’t Want to Run the Auto Industry – But He Continues To Do It

  Posted September 15th, 2009 at 5:12pm in Energy and Environment, Enterprise and Free Markets with 10 comments

  At a speech at a General Motors Assembly plant in Lordstown, Ohio, President Obama restated his regret for government interference in the auto industry claiming the decision was out of necessity rather than choice. In what many called a campaign-like speech, the President asserted: As I’ve said before, I didn’t run for president to manage auto [...] More

• Government Motors and Foreign Political Entanglements

  Posted August 26th, 2009 at 1:41pm in Enterprise and Free Markets with 7 comments

  The Obama Administration’s claims that General Motors — the federally-owned auto manufacturer — is independent from political entanglements is once again being tested, this time with an international twist. The issue is what to do with Opel, GM’s German-based European subsidiary (as well as the smaller, British-based Vauxhal). Last week, GM CEO [...] More

• More Auto Bailout Cash Tucked Inside Obamacare

  Posted August 25th, 2009 at 11:26am in Enterprise and Free Markets, Health Care with 15 comments

  The Obama administration’s bailout of General Motors and Chrysler has already reached a staggering $110 billion. But even that is not enough money to undue the damage big labor has done to the industry. Tucked inside H.R. 3200 is yet another $10 billion in bailout cash. The Detroit Free Press reports: Antilabor forces say it’s welfare [...] More