GM Files for Bankruptcy Protection; The Latest From Schiff

It comes as no surprise to anyone who has been following the auto industry news, that GM will be filing for bankruptcy this week and their first action was filing for bankruptcy protection this morning. 

On Friday, GM’s stock was well below the $1 mark and continued to fall throughout the day. 

The bankruptcy filing, made in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, marks the climax of a lengthy debate over the auto maker’s future after it sought a bailout from the U.S. government in December to stay alive. In the end, GM couldn’t complete its restructuring out of court and filed for bankruptcy-court protection to get billions more in aid from U.S. taxpayers.

The question now facing 56,000 auto workers, 3,600 GM dealers and the Obama administration: Will it work?

The U.S. government has agreed to provide GM with another $30 billion in aid, in addition to the $20 billion the auto maker has already borrowed, to see it through its restructuring and exit from bankruptcy protection. In return, the government will get a controlling stake in the company. The Canadian and Ontario governments are putting in $9.5 billion for a 12.5% stake.

I thought that Obama didn’t want to be in the car business?  It seems like the government is becoming fascist, as Thomas Sowell recently noted: 

We’re not a socialist country, because the socialists believe in government ownership in the means of production, but the fascists believe that the government should have private ownership and the politicians should tell people how to run the businesses. So that’s the route we seem to be going.

I’m sorry, but this really is getting insane and it only proves the most recent article coming out of the Russian Pravda paper, no less, entitled, “American Capitalism Gone With a Whimper.”

It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.

True, the situation has been well prepared on and off for the past century, especially the past twenty years. The initial testing grounds was conducted upon our Holy Russia and a bloody test it was. But we Russians would not just roll over and give up our freedoms and our souls, no matter how much money Wall Street poured into the fists of the Marxists.

Those lessons were taken and used to properly prepare the American populace for the surrender of their freedoms and souls, to the whims of their elites and betters.

First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather then the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas then the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their “right” to choke down a McDonalds burger or a BurgerKing burger than for their constitutional rights. Then they turn around and lecture us about our rights and about our “democracy”. Pride blind the foolish.

Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of different “branches and denominations” were for the most part little more then Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top protestant mega preachers were more then happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the “winning” side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another. Their flocks may complain, but when explained that they would be on the “winning” side, their flocks were ever so quick to reject Christ in hopes for earthly power. Even our Holy Orthodox churches are scandalously liberalized in America.

The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America’s short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more then another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Wiemar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.

These past two weeks have been the most breath taking of all. First came the announcement of a planned redesign of the American Byzantine tax system, by the very thieves who used it to bankroll their thefts, loses and swindles of hundreds of billions of dollars. These make our Russian oligarchs look little more then ordinary street thugs, in comparison. Yes, the Americans have beat our own thieves in the shear volumes. Should we congratulate them?

The government has never been able to run any type of business well, mainly due to the fact that the majority of politicians have never worked in the business world, they are either lawyers or just came straight out of college with a BS in political science – and BS is extremely apropos.  The government tried running Amtrak and how well did that go?  The government tried running the Mustang Ranch, and couldn’t manage to make a profit from sex of all things! 

Obama wants control of the auto industry because of his voting bloc, the unions (namely the UAW), who contributed over $400M to his campaign and so he can pass his green agenda via vehicles.  We can all drive around some solar powered tin cans that need to be recharged every 40 miles and get nowhere!

Peter Schiff also had an interesting take on where our economy is headed and some final words regarding GM that he posted on youtube, Friday: 

Preferential Treatment for Democrat Chrysler Dealerships?

Gasp!  Could it be that our political system and our very own government is playing favorites depending on political ideology?  Unfortunately, it may actually appear that way…

The question of preferential treatment comes from a blog post of gateway pundit who did a little fact checking on the dealerships that were being closed – some of which had no trouble meeting their objectives and making profits during a recession.  There has been a ton of outrage and confusion regarding the reasoning behind these closings.  As people began to dig and ask the question, the pink elephant in the room, there seemed to be some interesting correlations – GOP donors and voting regions were targeted, while Democrat donors and blue states slid by.

Now here is the latest on the Chrysler closings– I was sent this earlier today:

I have obtained two pdf files from the bankruptcy court.

One is the list of dealers to close and the other is the list to stay open.

I am in the process right now of editing the data into comma delimited format for import to Excel and am about 2/3rd of the way through the closure listing.

I haven’t done any donation cross references yet and that will come.

This has to be done manually ,which is very time consuming due to formatting issues with the data.

But, so far in the shutdown list there is an extremely high correlation between dealers closing and congressional districts BHO lost.

Texas is getting killed and Blue States are sliding by. Florida is also taking major hits and nearly all are in Republican Congressional Districts.

Little West Virginia is getting hammered.

I will know much better when I start doing all the cross reference work after I finally get the data into Excel, but that is going to take time since the data has to be formatted up manually and there are over 2000 dealers involved between the two lists.

So far what I see smells big time.And, Reboot Congress is asking for some assistance:
I’ve created a list of the cut dealers that *simplifies* the process of gathering donation information from OpenSecrets. It’s a partial solution that needs lots of help from folks on the web. It’s a crowd sourced project.

Neil Cavuto even had a segment on his show yesterday with several targeted dealerships who discussed similar sentiments as well as fears.  Some dealerships, being local competitors with democrat donors, were also dismantled.

Is this the Marxism that has finally come to the United States?

One of the biggest slaps in the face comes from one of the largest liberal donor groups who was given the go ahead to keep all 6 franchises open.

The list of closings thus far can be found here.

Even Republican politicians have been targeted.

Chairman Mao is smiling upon Obama…

Captain Obvious Moment of the Day: Debt Unsustainable, We Must Stop Borrowing From China

Thank you Captain Obvious… err… I mean Obama!

Captain Obvious

Ironically enough the debt and the borrowing that Obama is concerned about will mostly come from his irresponsible spending habits within his first 100 days.  When Dick Morris mentioned that Obama’s first 100 days would come back to haunt him, he was right!

President Barack Obama, calling current deficit spending “unsustainable,” warned of skyrocketing interest rates for consumers if the U.S. continues to finance government by borrowing from other countries.

“We can’t keep on just borrowing from China,” Obama said at a town-hall meeting in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, outside Albuquerque. “We have to pay interest on that debt, and that means we are mortgaging our children’s future with more and more debt.”

Holders of U.S. debt will eventually “get tired” of buying it, causing interest rates on everything from auto loans to home mortgages to increase, Obama said. “It will have a dampening effect on our economy.”

That calls for a big “DUH!” but that is simple common sense, something that is much like an endangered species in the halls of D.C.

The amusing part of all of this is the fact that Obama is just simply unwilling to look in the mirror and realize that he has quadrupled the debt and increased our deficit more than any other president in history.  He has spent more in his first 100 days than all presidents throughout history combined – and that includes Bush to all you liberals.

Obama continuously uses the blame Bush rhetoric for having to take “drastic” measures, but as any intelligent human being should realize, when the government and politicians make things out to be a crisis, yet you don’t really feel that way (unlike a physical attack against your country), you should be incredibly wary.  Politicians lie, they lie to pass an agenda, and Obama is a genius when it comes to manipulation, deceit, and drama.

Earlier this week, the Obama administration revised its own budget estimates and raised the projected deficit for this year to a record $1.84 trillion, up 5 percent from the February estimate. The revision for the 2010 fiscal year estimated the deficit at $1.26 trillion, up 7.4 percent from the February figure. The White House Office of Management and Budget also projected next year’s budget will end up at $3.59 trillion, compared with the $3.55 trillion it estimated previously.

Two weeks ago, the president proposed $17 billion in budget cuts, with plans to eliminate or reduce 121 federal programs. Republicans ridiculed the amount, saying that it represented one-half of 1 percent of the entire budget. They noted that Obama is seeking an $81 billion increase in other spending.

We are now learning that the supplemental spending for war funding and emergency funding that is sitting in the House and Senate are both over $90 billion at this point.  There will most likely be a compromise of some sort between the House and Senate but I believe that the real amount of additional appropriations will most likely stay above the $90 billion threshold.

Let’s not forget that under the Obama administration and this radical left Congress that government is growing and the private sector is shrinking.  Entitlement programs are growing because liberals know that the more you can put your thumb over people and oppress them by getting them “hooked” on entitlements and the government, the more they will win votes… that’s just cruel.

The issue is that we are going to go bankrupt quicker by upping the ante on entitlements.  Entitlements themselves are already unsustainable.

Baby boomers — that 70-million-strong population lump — begin officially retiring this year. That means the government’s bill for retirees’ pensions and health care has no where to go but up, for decades to come.

Everyone knew this day would come. And virtually every economist and actuary who had run the numbers could tell you, within a few years’ certainty, the system was going bankrupt.

But all this seemed to happen in the distant future. Last year, both political parties virtually ignored the topic during their presidential campaigns. It became a non-issue issue.

Well, thanks to a profligate federal government, which will double the national debt to $11.5 trillion in just four years, and a recession that has weakened federal tax revenues, we can no longer ignore the problem. The day of reckoning is at hand.

The Social Security Board of Trustees reported Tuesday that costs will exceed revenues in 2016 — a full year sooner than expected just last year. And total assets — including more than 70 years of “surpluses” built up in the “trust fund” — will be completely gone by 2037 — four years earlier than in last year’s report.

The deficit over the next 50 years is expected to be about 2% of taxable payrolls — up from 1.7% last year. By the way, changes in the last year alone have added $5.3 trillion in costs to the program.

Long-term, unfunded liabilities for Social Security and Medicare top $53 trillion — about four times the size of current GDP. Taxes must either rise or benefits shrink by that amount to close that gap.

Maybe we could try to work on some issues that really matter, those that could possibly destroy people’s lives?  Instead of criticizing private social security accounts, maybe we should revisit the idea and work from there.  Many economists argue that private accounts of some sort would be more cost effective and better for everyone.

We also cannot forget that Obama and his lefty contemporaries want to reform health care and create a possible single payer system.  Many do not believe that the single payer legislation will get passed, but something that makes the private sector compete with the public sector by providing a choice.  The issue that I have/see with this “competition” is how the government can become so forceful and, as it has done in the past, force out of business anything competing with it.  Either way, any additional programs provided by the government must come out of taxpayers’ pockets, so medical care will never technically be free – it will only be free to those who don’t work or pay taxes.  This is the crux of the problem.  Health care provided by the government will just increase our debt to China even more…

Obama is concerned with China?  He’s concerned with owing the Chinese more and more?  Well, maybe if we took a look at the recent auto industry news regarding GM it would be evident that all we do is take China’s money, give China jobs, and all in all are in the pocket of China.

As thousands of General Motors workers await word on more U.S. plant closures, reports that the company plans to import Chinese-made vehicles to the U.S. have created a political problem for the automaker and the White House.

The reports, which GM will neither confirm nor deny, could mean trouble because GM is supported by $15.4 billion in U.S. government loans, largely due to the Obama administration’s desire to preserve the company’s 90,000 U.S. jobs.

The United Auto Workers charged last week that the Detroit automaker intends to almost double over the next five years the number of vehicles it imports to the U.S. from Mexico, South Korea, China and Japan.

“GM should not be taking taxpayers’ money simply to finance the outsourcing of jobs to other countries,” Alan Reuther, the union’s Washington lobbyist, wrote in a letter to U.S. lawmakers.

Maybe if the Unions were not allowed to lobby on Capitol Hill to force the hands of Democrats and completely crush the auto industry, this would not have been a problem and the outsourcing of jobs would not have been so enticing to the ailing auto giants.  But why would Democrats ever put the good of the country or an industry over that of a big donor?

I have an idea for all who read this – let’s attempt to elect someone who is for the people, by the people – not bought and paid for.  Let’s elect somebody who is honest and integrity means more to them than politics and agenda… Stop electing these corrupt, pathological liars and maybe we can get our country back on track.

Biden Thinks Unions Will Help the Middle Class…!?

Moron Alert!  Joe Biden thinks unions will help the middle class and possibly cure the ailing economy.

Vice President Joe Biden, making a renewed pitch for a major change in labor law, told union leaders Tuesday that the best way to rebuild the middle class is to help labor unions grow.

Biden said it’s time to “level the playing field” for unions by passing a bill that would make it easier for workers to organize.

“You’ve got to climb up a hill with so many roadblocks on the way to organize that it’s just out of whack,” Biden told a conference of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which has about 1.6 million members.

“If a union is what you want, then a union is what you should get,” Biden said.

The Employee Free Choice Act — also known as “card check” — is organized labor’s top priority this year, but business groups are adamantly opposed. It would allow a majority of workplace employees to sign cards to join a union instead of holding secret ballot elections.

This is just idiotic.  We are supposed to believe that unions, one of the major causes of the auto industry downfall, will actually help the economy and put more money into the hands of the middle class?  Unions have been incredibly corrupt once they came to power and held more sway up on Capitol Hill.  Even employees that are supposedly protected by unions get used and abused in order for the union leaders to gain more power and control.  Unions suck money out of companies because of strict contractual agreements, huge benefit packages, protection from getting fired, major pay rates, etc.  If private companies are forced to accept union labor, they will move to other countries to conduct business.  The United States, IIRC, is the only country that has unions.  When auto industries conduct business in other countries they are actually profitable because there are no unions in those factories.  Other companies will escape overseas, so if Biden wants to level the playing field, as he puts it, and not completely demolish the U.S. economy, then he will have to figure out a way to enforce union labor on places like India, China, Brazil, etc. FAT CHANCE – Good one Joe… But then again, we already know that you and your Democrat cronies are all in the pockets of the Unions.

The Puppet Makes Budget Cuts… To Help Unions

We all know that Obama is bought and paid for by the unions and he once again proves that he is in their pocket.  He makes these grandiose overtures to try and pass off budget cuts of historical proportions or market himself to appear to be improving the national debt.

Those who research and do our homework know that those overtures fall flat, especially when one of the largest cuts from the federal budget is the 9% budget cut of the union regulations department.  This comes from the Department of Labor via American Spectator:

…buried in the budget documents released by the White House today is a 9 percent cut in the unit of the Department of Labor that is in charge of regulating unions.

Under the leadership of Elaine Chao during the Bush administration, the Labor Department’s Office of Labor-Management Standards took its job of policing unions seriously. Its actions led to 929 convictions of corrupt union officials and to the recovery of more than $93 million on behalf of union members. Yet the Obama administration has proposed slashing its budget from $45 million in 2009 to $41 million in 2010, citing an insufficient “workload” for the office.

Instead of using the money to make sure unions play by the rules, the Obama administration proposes shifting resources to the department’s Wage and Hour Division, Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration — all areas of the agency focused on regulating businesses.

Not like union regulation matters anymore when the Department of Education is growing at a rapid clip and the UAW owns GM and Chrysler.  I guess the unions can all manage themselves – no corruption there/sarc.

Half of the budget cuts under Obama will actually come from the defense budget:

About half of the cuts are in the Defense Department’s budget, and the White House readily concedes that Defense Secretary Robert Gates already had proposed much of this as part of a new, and bigger, Defense budget that he is seeking. Defense is growing, not shrinking.

Funny how a recent Rasumussen Report just showed the majority of Americans do not believe the unions or the government will manage the auto industry well.

Another funny side note:  Bush actually cut more from the budget than Obama.

President Obama announced fewer budget cuts and for a lesser dollar amount than President George W. Bush did in his final budget – and is counting on being able to eliminate some programs that his predecessor repeatedly tried, but failed, to slash.

Obama administration officials said they’re convinced they’ll have more luck eliminating programs such as Even Start, an early childhood education program that Mr. Bush put on the chopping block year after year but which both Democrats and Republicans in Congress refused to cut.

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