Holy shit that was an expensive road to bankruptcy for the US taxpayer.

"Holy shit that was an expensive road to bankruptcy for the US taxpayer."

I fear that it has only just begun.

Where did all the money go? This is not fuc*ing right!!!!! How many billions did they get and still go bankrupt anyway!!!!

I am NEVER buying another GM ever!

Holy shit that was an expensive road to bankruptcy for the US taxpayer.

#1 | Posted by Hagbard_Celine

Since they didn't take my advise and let the company fold when they should have, we are in it for the long haul now.

The US gov't has invested too much to stop now. In the game of knowing when to hold them and knowing when to fold them, they missed the opportunity to fold them, so we are all in. It's not entirely a bad thing. We've got a pair of jacks in the hole and everyone else just has high card (if you are not a poker player, this means there is a better than 50% chance of success).

I honestly believe that had I been sitting in the prez's chair, I would have done the same thing. The trademark of GM is worth something plus many many people have a personal vested interest in making the new companies work.

As soon as the new stock is availbable, I'm gonna buy some.

The only ones laughing on their way to prosperity are the union goons with their same wage, same free health care (including the $35 million viagra bill) and same retirement. Thank you Obama for repaying all of those union goon votes that got you elected and, now, we vill safe de Californicators voters wif taxpayer money and give all of them dems a free GM hybrid or a free vibrating anal butt plug in the shape of a Nancy Pelosi doll for the San Francisco crowd....

It's all part of their "planned obsolescence" program.

I fear

#2 | Posted by jestgettinalong

'Nuff Said.

Incredible, GM has some $172 billion in liabilities, with the bond holders holding some $20 billion in debt, and the UAW some $22 billion in debt.

The administration has threatened the bondholders with audits that would immobilize their operations if they did not forfeit their priority under the law in the bankruptcy proceedings.

The government is to receive what is probably a 72.5% stake in the revamped company. Now just why did the government printing presses invest this amount to secure an ownership interest instead of enabling an earlier bankruptcy to occur, and having the assets purchased by lean mean entrepreneurs investing and risking their own money?

Now Obama Motors will be "managed" by a 31 year old White House intern, who has no experience except as a student and an Obama intern. He knows nothing regarding the automobile industry, or any business for that matter. Incredible. But that's ho0w i9t is in politics, you literally pound in stakes for candidates campaign signs a nd are put "in-charge" of operations for which you have no background or expertise.

Grand Theft Auto: How Stevie the Rat bankrupted GM
by Greg PalastMonday, June 1, 2009

Screw the autoworkers.They may be crying about General Motors' bankruptcy today. But dumping 40,000 of the last 60,000 union jobs into a mass grave won't spoil Jamie Dimon's day.Dimon is the CEO of JP Morgan Chase bank. While GM workers are losing their retirement health benefits, their jobs, their life savings; while shareholders are getting zilch and many creditors getting hosed, a few privileged GM lenders - led by Morgan and Citibank - expect to get back 100% of their loans to GM, a stunning $6 billion.The way these banks are getting their $6 billion bonanza is stone cold illegal.

I smell a rat.Stevie the Rat, to be precise. Steven Rattner, Barack Obama's 'Car Czar' - the man who essentially ordered GM into bankruptcy this morning.When a company goes bankrupt, everyone takes a hit: fair or not, workers lose some contract wages, stockholders get wiped out and creditors get fragments of what's left. That's the law. What workers don't lose are their pensions (including old-age health funds) already taken from their wages and held in their name.

But not this time. Stevie the Rat has a different plan for GM: grab the pension funds to pay off Morgan and Citi.Here's the scheme: Rattner is demanding the bankruptcy court simply wipe away the money GM owes workers for their retirement health insurance. Cash in the insurance fund would be replace by GM stock. The percentage may be 17% of GM's stock - or 25%. Whatever, 17% or 25% is worth, well ... just try paying for your dialysis with 50 shares of bankrupt auto stock.

Yet Citibank and Morgan, says Rattner, should get their whole enchilada - $6 billion right now and in cash - from a company that can't pay for auto parts or worker eye exams.Preventive Detention for PensionsSo what's wrong with seizing workers' pension fund money in a bankruptcy? The answer, Mr. Obama, Mr. Law Professor, is that it's illegal.

In 1974, after a series of scandalous take-downs of pension and retirement funds during the Nixon era, Congress passed the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. ERISA says you can't seize workers' pension funds (whether monthly payments or health insurance) any more than you can seize their private bank accounts. And that's because they are the same thing: workers give up wages in return for retirement benefits.

The law is darn explicit that grabbing pension money is a no-no. Company executives must hold these retirement funds as "fiduciaries." Here's the law, Professor Obama, as described on the government's own web site under the heading, "Health Plans and Benefits.""The primary responsibility of fiduciaries is to run the plan solely in the interest of participants and beneficiaries and for the exclusive purpose of providing benefits."Every business in America that runs short of cash would love to dip into retirement kitties, but it's not their money any more than a banker can seize your account when the bank's a little short. A plan's assets are for the plan's members only, not for Mr. Dimon nor Mr. Rubin.Yet, in effect, the Obama Administration is demanding that money for an elderly auto worker's spleen should be siphoned off to feed the TARP babies. Workers go without lung transplants so Dimon and Rubin can pimp out their ride.

This is another "Guantanamo" moment for the Obama Administration - channeling Nixon to endorse the preventive detention of retiree health insurance.Filching GM's pension assets doesn't become legal because the cash due the fund is replaced with GM stock. Congress saw through that switch-a-roo by requiring that companies, as fiduciaries, must"...act prudently and must diversify the plan's investments in order to minimize the risk of large losses."By "diversify" for safety, the law does not mean put 100% of worker funds into a single busted company's stock.

This is dangerous business: The Rattner plan opens the floodgate to every politically-connected or down-on-their-luck company seeking to drain health care retirement funds.House of RubinPensions are wiped away and two connected banks don't even get a haircut? How come Citi and Morgan aren't asked, like workers and other creditors, to take stock in GM?As Butch said to Sundance, who ARE these guys?

You remember Morgan and Citi. These are the corporate Welfare Queens who've already sucked up over a third of a trillion dollars in aid from the US Treasury and Federal Reserve. Not coincidentally, Citi, the big winner, has paid over $100 million to Robert Rubin, the former US Treasury Secretary. Rubin was Obama's point-man in winning banks' endorsement and campaign donations (by far, his largest source of his corporate funding).With GM's last dying dimes about to fall into one pocket, and the Obama Treasury in his other pocket, Morgan's Jamie Dimon is correct in saying that the last twelve months will prove to be the bank's "finest year ever."Which leaves us to ask the question: is the forced bankruptcy of GM, the elimination of tens of thousands of jobs, just a collection action for favored financiers?And it's been a good year for Seor Rattner. While the Obama Administration made a big deal out of Rattner's youth spent working for the Steelworkers Union, they tried to sweep under the chassis that Rattner was one of the privileged, select group of investors in Cerberus Capital, the owners of Chrysler. "Owning" is a loose term.

Cerberus "owned" Chrysler the way a cannibal "hosts" you for dinner. Cerberus paid nothing for Chrysler - indeed, they were paid billions by Germany's Daimler Corporation to haul it away. Cerberus kept the cash, then dumped Chrysler's bankrupt corpse on the US taxpayer.("Cerberus," by the way, named itself after the Roman's mythical three-headed dog guarding the gates Hell. Subtle these guys are not.)

While Stevie the Rat sold his interest in the Dog from Hell when he became Car Czar, he never relinquished his post at the shop of vultures called Quadrangle Hedge Fund. Rattner's personal net worth stands at roughly half a billion dollars.

This is Obama's working class hero.If you ran a business and played fast and loose with your workers' funds, you could land in prison. Stevie the Rat's plan is nothing less than Grand Theft Auto Pension.It doesn't make it any less of a crime if the President drives the getaway car.

Since they didn't take my advise and let the company fold when they should have, we are in it for the long haul now.

I would like everybody who supported the bailout to defend it now. Everybody knew this was a forgone conclusion regardless of the bailout funding.

"GM Files for Bankruptcy"

'Bout damned time; Shitty cars.

#4 | Posted by Lipzoidial

i thought we already owned some...?

CAPITALISM = LETTING BAD COMPANIES FAIL!! WHAT ABOUT THIS DON'T THE PEOPLE IN WASHINGTON UNDERSTAND?!? Although the fact that our current president is a fucking Fascist/Communist doesn't help...

Weird, I guess the Orlando/Cleveland NBA series is more important to people here on the DR than the United States government taking a controlling interest in a private auto company. 13 posts?

If anyone believed Obama when he said "I don't want to run an auto company," they are fools. The "loans" appear to have been given to GM give the Obama administration a better bargaining position ("you owe us money") at bankruptcy at which point they can (and did) push for an ownership interest. If Obama doesn't want to run an auto company, how long will the lefties give him to spin off and sell the company before they call him on his bullshit?

What's going to happen to the capital markets, the corporate and other bond market with the Obama administration strongarming the bondholders?

Well, the increased "risk" will in a short time transmute into higher interest rates in the corporate bond market, which will make it more difficult to service that debt, and detract from the bottom line.

Ah, the webs we weave when first we practice to deceive. There are consequences for all of these "initiatives."

Well, there will be massive closings of supplier plants, many in towns where these plants were the engines of the local economy, and with some 1/7 of home mortgages in default before the ramifications of the bankruptcy, just what sector will produce the car buyers.

What has happened in that while the obvious is occurring, it apparently is beneath the radar of most people. through sleight of hand, and with money created by fiat, rather than allow market forces to operate, we are embarking on a trip to a communist society with the means of production owned by the state, and the hidden hand of the government compelling decisions and setting priorities that are consistent with Obama's indoctrination by his communist apparatchek surrogate father Frank Davis, and America-hating, whitey-hating, Jew-hating racist bigot,Obama's friend and mentor Rev. Wright, who favors redistribution of wealth despite its reduction of general propserity.

I wonder just what the fascination with Obsama is that permits these machinations to continue to an end that will be detrimental to all of us.

#12

My work rented one of the new Malibu's for me recently. It was actually quite nice to drive. Wonder how the thing holds together after a couple of years, though.

Where did all the money go? This is not fuc*ing right!!!!! How many billions did they get and still go bankrupt anyway!!!!

I am NEVER buying another GM ever!

Can you smell the irony?

It was actually quite nice to drive. Wonder how the thing holds together after a couple of years, though.

The last time I rented one, I hopped it over a few curbs.... seemed to be a solidly built car.

The last time I rented one, I hopped it over a few curbs.... seemed to be a solidly built car.

-- 726

Your car was airborne? Hotrodder

#15 | Posted by JOE at 2009-06-01 10:41 AM

If anyone believed Obama when he said ...

You can omit the modifiers, Joe.

Unfortunately our political system has produced a political class whose members are largely narcissists and sociopaths. They are self-absorbed, and public service and civic duty are merely instruments for securing self-benefit and are used unscrupulously.

The ideas of duty, devotion, and patriotism have been trivialized and those who operate on those principles made to look foolish as their "sacrifices" are devalued.

With Obama we have someone who is burdened by being additionally dysfunctional beyond narcissism and sociopathy with neurological and psychological problems manifested in his being a self-medicating ambulatory schizophrenic detached from reality by paranoiac overlay. But of course, that's not the problem. The problem is the deference given him and mindless acquiescence with his program initiatives.

Obama has been indoctrinated in class and race struggle as the prism through which he views life. This ideology obfuscates the reality that an economy can produce limited wealth. As prosperity increases, there is a growing talented middle class that shares in the wealth and creates more. It generates increasing prosperity. The capitalist system has harnessed these forces and produced the most prosperous societies in history. It is not unlimited wealth, but the means of its distribution facilitates the incentive and ability to produce greater wealth. The overall and individual standards of living are continually increased by wealth production.

But the Obama race and class warfare perspective with its basis in Obama's racial bigotry and embrace of Marxist thought and values, removes the mechanism which creates the wealth attributing so-called inequities to meanness rather than a system which is subject to natural limitations, which it seeks to transcend by growth, developing methods for increasing wherewithal.

Such matters as "entitlement to universal health care" postulate that there is sufficient wealth to sustain distribution of health care to everyone, when this is not true, and the limitations of such systems are repeatedly demonstrated in countries that implement the system but then are unable to sustain the predicted level of care delivery.

What I marvel at is the suspension of critical reasoning, and the resultant adulation that Obama receives so that he is able to destroy the existing system by transferring ownership of the financial and manufacturing sectors to government. I suppose this demonstrates the power of propaganda to create an image that is totally unrelated to reality. Even without the media, we seem to project and create the people we want regardless of the fictional nature of the leaders regarding whom we fantasize. We create demigods and it is difficult to dissuade ourselves of their omniscience and omnipotence, and of the belief that their undertakings will result in "good" for us.

"With Obama we have someone who is burdened by being additionally dysfunctional beyond narcissism and sociopathy with neurological and psychological problems manifested in his being a self-medicating ambulatory schizophrenic detached from reality by paranoiac overlay."

Hold on a second.

Give us a little time to adjust our waders....

Do I get to keep my payraise and executive bonus?

signed,

THE GM ELITE

I would like everybody who supported the bailout to defend it now. Everybody knew this was a forgone conclusion regardless of the bailout funding.

#11 | Posted by eberly at 2009-06-01 10:15 AM

--- O'tards

"But the Obama race and class warfare perspective with its basis in Obama's racial bigotry and embrace of Marxist thought and values"

Johnson, I am going to disagree, these aren't Marxist's they are fascist, not in the Hitler sense, but more along the line of Mussolini.

Reading, Hagabard, and Joe's post its clear the Gov had leverage on the banks. According to HG's poets, "at any cost" the government told the banks you get your money back, and we get the company. This way the banks aren't in the mix of ownership.

If a company is so bold as to purchase GM, the government will have a "stress" test for it. Much like the banking industry. This will be used to coerce the company to do the governments will, not by congressional will but executive. Look for signs of patronage when closing down dealerships, and plants.

GM should be broken off into its little car companies by brand(Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, GM Daewoo, Holden, Hummer, Opel, Pontiac, Saab, Saturn, Vauxhall and Wuling)

These companies are initially funded by VC, stimulus, and eventually an IPO. Stimulus money should be go towards funding this, and not "shovel ready" road projects.

No answer to my question 2 hours later. How long does Obama get to sell the United States' controlling interest in GM before he is a liar for saying he "doesn't want to run a car company?"

Where did all the money go? This is not fuc*ing right!!!!! How many billions did they get and still go bankrupt anyway!!!!

I am NEVER buying another GM ever!

#3 | Posted by Unclesam

Don't look now ace but the US government did it, not GM. BHO had to take care of all thoes union votes he got to win the election. That's where the money went.

#27
Flag: obviously didn't read posts 9 and 10.

My three Honda's are very nice cars! No Unions to screw them up!

"My three Honda's are very nice cars! No Unions to screw them up!"

Give Honda's wage scale to GM, and they're still losing money.

Hag,

Seems you have a fine understanding of the process, but I'm unclear on something. If the fed had just let GM fail, are you suggesting that the pensions would have been protected? As I see it, they were underfunded, in capable of meeting their obligations, and would have collapsed - sure there could be fiduciary liability insurance to cover for the mismanagement, but likely not much higher than a few dozen million. As I see it, the pensions were screwed anyway. If the agreement is that the fund was topped up to what it should be to meet obligations by stock in new GM, I think that is a decent halfway solution.

Maybe they paid Citi and Morgan so much because it will flow right back to the fed, as money they in turn owed the gov't. again, I am not too against that.

But I might be missing part or most of the picture here...

Your car was airborne? Hotrodder

#20 | Posted by CalifChris

You're dating yourself with a moniker like that.

But growing up I always wished I was in California. I loved going to the races. Nothing like watching a fuel dragster fire up under the lights.

I went through Fisher Body and Oldsmobile Mechanic schools at General Motors Training Center, then in Sunset Hills. I went through Fisher Body before I had my license to drive. My Mom dropped me off and picked me up. I learned to weld and lead fill. I can't do restoration work any more but I have a solid appreciation for those who do.

I drove my Mom's 98 four door hardtop to Oldsmobile. I was Forest Green Mist with a white top and it had a reverb in the back.

They started playing that on KSHE 95 Sunday nights in January 1967. We were doing inventory when the show came on. Their only format had been classical and Americana. Bang, it was rock on Sunday nights in the Olds.

Gasoline was 19.9 cents a gallon in St Louis County and you could make it to the city and back for 2 or 3. Hall Street was fresh poured for heavy trucks and guys would drag on the street for money.

I was good on carbs and distributors. My MGB could redline in high gear. Dual side draft Webers. 112 mph, Fenton MO.

After the Navy I worked a year and a half for Chrysler in their Emissions Test Facility. The Honcho went to Detroit and found out they didn't use a brake on the dyno to slow down the rolls so they decided to disconnect it on ours despite the fact that deacceleration slopes at which the engine is coming to idle could not be maintained with the drum brakes on the vehicle.

Wheel hop on an aluminum roll induces wear.

Idiots.

They were also abusive. You wouldn't want to be a line foreman if the Plant Manager saw a problem. The guys with the fattest paycheck were the janitors. 12 hour days, and since they could loaf they worked six days a week.

What's worse, the old management or the Obama Mobilizers. They all play golf together. No doubt there'll be consulting fees, and a feasibility study to determine how much they can rake off the coffers.

Sad and Mad.

"If the fed had just let GM fail, are you suggesting that the pensions would have been protected?"

In principle, yes. The fact that they were mismanaged is an ancillary point that has nothing to do with the fact that pensions (when the program is sound) are protected by law.

The fact that they were mismanaged is an ancillary point that has nothing to do with the fact that pensions (when the program is sound) are protected by law.

#33 | Posted by Hagbard_Celine at 2009-06-01 03:10 PM

Ask the retired United pilots just how well they were protected by the PBGC.

A United pilot was expecting $150,000 annually but was told by PBGC, which had assumed the United pension, that he's only guaranteed $34,000; he may get more, but that's all PBGC can guarantee him.

protected by law from having assets taken from them during bankruptcy, yes.. but not protected from past mismanagement that has left them woefully inadequate. that is my point. They'd be incapable of meeting their needs without gov't support, i.e. in event bankruptcy ran its natural course, sans interference/financial support.

I'm not convinced there was any way for workers' pensions to get out of this unscathed...

If they want to "succeed", whatever that really means, in the auto industry, they're going to have to attract some heavy talent from outside the US Auto Industry to run things. But of course they won't do that. The same incompetent boneheads with the same attitudes that have ruled Detroit for 30 years will be making the same wrong decisions for the wrong reasons and the whole thing is going become an even bigger shame than it already is.

They're focussing on one thing so far - fuel economy. Whoop-dee-fucking-doo. Guess what, every fucking car company in the world that isn't a US company already makes better cars, that get better mileage that people actually feel safe about buying. in fact, they do buy them, in the USA. I'd buy a Dacia Logan ahead of anything offered by the Big 3 today.

So, good luck with starting a brand new, make or break Car Company in the middle of the biggest financial disaster (one of the things the US actually DOES seem good at creating) since longer than anyone alive can rememeber.

Can the 75%ers opt out?

Who wants better fuel ecomony? There are plenty of options out there if you want better economy. I just got rid of my mini van. I hava a wife and three daughters. I bought a GMC Yukon XL Denali...not for the the fuel economy, but I like to be comfortable and If my wife and daughters are ever in an accident, well we do what we can...I would have bought a Hummer, but my wife would not drive it...maybe I will get one for myself. I know that I am rambling but Who in the name of Sam Pete is going to tell me What type of Auto I am going to drive. If they want to drive matchboxes then let them. I am not knocking people who cannot afford a large vehicle...I drive a 1994 Honda Civic for work and I also just got rid of a 1995 Toyota. Thank God I make enough money that I can choose what I want to drive. I probably will always drive a gas saver for work. I drive an ungodly amount of miles every week, but sometimes I take the Yukon, just because... If every I cannot afford to drive it then I will downsize but that will be my choice...imagine living in Louisiana and not having a large enough vehicle to be able to deal with alligators and hurricanes.

Hope and change

SUCKERS

And bond holders get royally screwed. Go fuck yourselves you mortgage and 1st lien holders. How dare you think you have any senior claim in Obama's utopia!!!

I for one was 110% behind tarp money for banks. Closing them and paying off debts would have been horrific.Liquidation would have caused the collapse of all money markets, and many, many businesses. Now most of those banks want to pay the money back plus interest.

But restructuring GM and C giving unions senior claims? NOT a good idea. Sure they deserve a piece, the same piece as the common share holders got. Which was NOTHING. Maybe they should have given all of them something, not much, but something.

I predict their new shares will eventually soar, like Kmart's did...and then they will crash under their own weight of stupidity.

OOPS>....

fired the ceo
told them EXACTLY HOW to rework
telling them what kind of cars to make
gave more money to union over other investors who BY law should get more in return
and NOW HE is appointing all but two of the new board

OH NO>>.thats not running the place is it???

FUCKING RACIST LIAR

I am NEVER buying another GM ever!

#3 | Posted by Unclesam at

Im way ahead of you.
my uncles and family would kick my ass but I will never buy another one either...mainly because obama is telling them they HAVE to build cars I have no interest in.
I saw enough people driving boxes in europe...

GOD meant for man to drive cars like a firebird or a camaro and using a 'stick'.........

FUCKING RACIST LIAR

#40 | Posted by afkabl2

Shrill hysteria becomes you. And it REALLY makes you look thoughtful and intelligent. Maybe even more so than your syntax and spelling.

HOWEVER...I was doing some work with the tv on so I didnt catch it all but they were talking about how FORD is going to be really in the 'catbird seat' now ......

AND THEY DIDNT NEED THE BAILOUT money....so whats the difference...

lets start by looking at UAW contracts..

he is a liar and he is a racist now that he proved it by having the charges dropped against men who were guilty as hell but he dropped the charges anyway........and dont even try and tell me it was holder and not obama....

and the fucking is just a little adjetive that he proves more and more every day...

and lets not forget how popular he is though

OOPS>...wasnt carter's ratings even higher at this point.............

hhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

DRAT

not the best time to mispell adjective was it????

not the best time to mispell adjective was it????

#45 | Posted by afkabl2

Or to mispell misspell.

It's the southside payback, learned in Chicago and you suckers have put into power the most inept clown the country has ever seen. He's packing every department with his goons, including the supreme court, he has Acorn registering dead voters already, again, he will destroy big oil and big coal to appease the greenies and global warmists who are actually Marxists/Socialist in disguise. You, the American people, have been duped and will lose your prosperity for a generation in order to give your hard-earned money to the welfare queens, drug addicts, union thugs, fat cats in his administration, and every illegal alien in the country who will soon vote, and vote for him forever. Your ONLY hope is to vote the Dems out in 2010 and MAYBE save your health care and your doctor from being taken over and told what they can make and who they can treat. Oh, and your loved ones will be in line for life-saving treatments behind the illegals having anchor babies, druggies in rehab, and welfare queens wanting sex change operations.

Being a dumbass voter has consequences, like wrecking your life and this country in only 4-5 months. Be afraid

Johnson, You and Alka-Seltzer really surprize me. I don't mind your biting criticism. In fact, I personally believe that if something can't stand criticism, then it is weak anyway, but what I don't understand is your vile personal hatred of Obama.

Is Obama just a symbolic focal point for you or are you being serious? Maybe he's just a symbol of all that pisses you off these days. I know neither of you guys are as void of understanding as you appear on this topic.

GM's problems were already starting to fester before Obama even got his driving license. You should be happy that someone comes along willing to take on all the corruption, bad deals and special interests to try to revive an American Icon. No prez before has ever been forced into it and Obama wouldn't have touched it had he not been forced into it. Now that he is forced, he is doing what has to be done. A managed break-up with a possibility of re-payment, which is more than we got from Bush's bail-outs.

Of course my personal belief, as I stated from the beginning is that GM and the UAW and the UAW pensions should have been allowed to fail, with no bailout. That also applies to every single recipient of bail-out money.

Johnson hates Obama because he is black. I suspect he is a university professor at Bob Jones U. He needs to learn condense his thoughts otherwise people will skip over him. Nobody wants to read a bunch of rambling.