Tomorrow, thousands of Americans across the country will organize on Tax Day to protest the tax, borrow, spend and bailout policies of Washington. Whether large or small, these demonstrations will all have one message in common: Enough! Over the past three months, Americans have seen an already out-of-control government spend their borrowed dollars as if a trillion dollars is a drop in the bucket. After the bailouts that put the White House at the head of a number of major corporations; after a stimulus bill that the Congressional Budget Office …
Bankruptcy law is rich with colorful vernacular: cram-down, strip-down, haircut, matrix, etc. But until a few weeks ago, nobody had ever heard of a “surgical” bankruptcy, the Obama Administration’s preferred term for a very big business, like General Motors, whizzing through bankruptcy in just a few weeks flat, rather than the normal year or year-and-a-half for a speedy case. Whatever it means, most bankruptcy attorneys agreed that it couldn’t be done. After all, if a single party–creditor, unions, dealers–objected to anything at all, it could take months to reach a …
After months of pressure from the federal government to push down General Motors’s and Chrysler’s debt loads, a deal remains far out of reach. With the promise of further federal bailouts, no debt-holders wants to make concessions—accepting just 30 or 40 cents on the dollar, and much of that in possibly worthless stock—when holdouts could wind up paid in full. Bailout-free Ford announced yesterday that investors agreed to swap nearly $10 billion dollars in its debt for cash and stock, reducing its total debt burden by 28 percent. The price: …
After over a year of the Bush-Obama Bailout Parade, there were some encouraging statements coming from the Senate last week. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK): Should we be mad at the executives who are involved in this and who ran a once-great company into the ground? Yes. But that’s not where the blame game ends. That’s not where the buck stops. I know that I will upset some of my colleagues when I remind them, and the American people, that much of the blame should be directed right here, to the …
In February, groups representing the auto parts suppliers asked for a $25.5 billion bailout from the Treasury. Yesterday, the Treasury announced parts suppliers will receive about one fifth of that through Troubled Asset Relief Funds: The Treasury Department announced a $5 billion program to aid struggling auto-parts suppliers, raising the likelihood the government will extend more aid to General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC. The assistance expands the government’s intervention in the auto industry, which was kicked off by Treasury’s $17.4 billion in loans granted to GM and Chrysler in …
When you do a Google news search for “TARP” there is a common theme throughout the results: more and more banks want to repay the money. The reason for the change of heart, it fuels government power within the financial markets and tax payers have had enough and rightfully so. This trend to return TARP funds started with smaller banks, such as the Community Bank of the Bay in California, who plans on repaying the $1.7 million in TARP funds after applying for them this past fall to shore up …
Just when you thought that you had seen everything, here come the World Bank and the United Nations to claim their slice of the government bailout pie. According to the Times Online, “The UN and the World Bank are lobbying for a portion of the billions of dollars allocated to bailing out the West’s banking systems to be diverted to prevent 400 million people sinking into poverty across Asia in the wake of the global economic crisis.” All the world has to do is allocate some 1 percent of their …
Strike Two: Not only did President Obama fail to open the Ledbetter Act for public comment before he signed it, a violation of his pledge to boost transparency, but now his administration is refusing to release information on billion-dollar loan guarantees made to some of America’s largest banks. Bloomberg News, which is suing the government to obtain a variety of bailout-related information, reports: Bloomberg News asked the Treasury Department Jan. 26 to disclose what securities it backed over the past two months in a second round of actions to prop …
This year already we’ve heard calls for reintroduction of the Fairness Doctrine, and Internet censorship. Now, the first call for public funding for newspapers is here. Lining up behind GM and AIG, media outlets could join the many “distressed businesses” begging for government aid. But, government funding for media – nationalization of the press – is no small step. Right now we have just PBS and NPR. Generally seen as left-wing outlets, these media sources are not shy to support government expansion, but maintain some independence. However, this is assuredly …
