Free Republic

Notice: Free Republic has been in full rebellion mode since 2008 and will remain in full rebellion mode for the duration! No more Doles!! No more McCains!! No more RINOS!! NO ROMNEY!! Those who cannot stomach rebellion might as well start looking for a new home on the net!! Those who have ignored my hundreds of posts on this crucial issue or who have doubted me these last three or four years might as well get used to it. FR will never support the abortionist, homosexualist, socialist, mandate loving, constitution trampling liar Mitt Romney. In case you haven't noticed, a...

Governor Romney’s campaign is catching some flak because a top aide implied that many of the candidate’s positions have been insincere and that Romney will erase those views (like an Etch-a-Sketch) and return to his statist roots as the general election begins. I’m surprised that anyone’s surprised. Hasn’t anybody been paying attention to his comments and track record on issues such as the value-added tax, healthcare, Social Security reform, budget savings, ethanol subsidies, Keynesian economics, and the minimum wage? In any event, people should be more agitated by his recent defense of the corrupt TARP bailouts. [...] This is going...

Mitt Romney decided to give a great big hug to… George W. Bush and the bank bailouts: “I keep hearing the president say he’s responsible for keeping the country out of a Great Depression,” Romney said at a town hall in Arbutus, Maryland. “No, no, no, that was President George W. Bush and [then-Treasury Secretary] Hank Paulson.”

<p>The Government Accountability Office says in a new report that banks that have repaid the Treasury Department's TARP bailout program did so with funds they received from other federal rescue programs.</p> <p>The GAO’s finding undercuts the Treasury’s prior statements that effectively assert the Troubled Asset Relief Program has earned a profit for taxpayers. Specifically, the GAO says that, according to its new review, “as of January 31, 2012, 341 institutions had exited,” TARP, almost half by repaying...with funds from other federal programs.”</p>

General Motors reached another Obama milestone when they announced late on a Friday afternoon that they were suspending production of the Obama-inspired Chevy Volt for five weeks due to lack of demand. Presumably the Volt was an attempt by GM to help Obama with his pledge to put 1 million electric cars on the road in return for the tens of billions of dollars in forgivable “loans” that the company got from the Obama administration from the TARP bailout. The hybrid gas-electric vehicle gets 25 miles on a full, overnight charge and costs around $40,000. To date, GM has sold...

Does the Tea Party now support politicians who favored bailouts and the ObamaCare individual mandate? Such a statement sounds like an oxymoronic joke, about as likely as a pacifist who backs war or an atheist for Jesus. But the answer, according to exit polls from New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Florida primaries, is an emphatic “yes.” According to each of these exit polls, the vast majority of self-identified Tea Party supporters have backed either former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney (left) or former House Speaker Newt Gingrich over anti-bailout candidates such as Texas Congressman Ron Paul, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum,...

Instead of appealing to voters to vote for him based upon x,y and z, he panders for votes by trying to increase his opponents negatives (as in FL) above his own by massively outspending them on negative ads. This approach has led to his negatives skyrocketing and his positives declining among independents and moderates. Fivethirtyeight and others have been monitoring this, and it isn't pretty. With each battle won (temporarily in Iowa and now Florida), he is headed to surpassing Obama's negatives or having lower positives (some show he already has) and he will ultimately lose against Obama if he...

WASHINGTON (AP) - A government watchdog says U.S. taxpayers are still owed $132.9 billion that companies haven't repaid from the financial bailout, and some of that will never be recovered. The bailout launched at the height of the financial crisis in September 2008 will continue to exist for years, says a report issued Thursday by Christy Romero, the acting special inspector general for the $700 billion bailout. Some bailout programs, such as the effort to help homeowners avoid foreclosure by reducing mortgage payments, will last as late as 2017, costing the government an additional $51 billion or so. The gyrating...

Mitt Romney has been quick to justify his record of laying-off workers and closing plants as CEO of Bain Capital by wrapping himself in the “creative destruction” of free market capitalism But Romney’s idea of capitalism is that you can fire workers and strip companies on the way up, and then if you are big and influential enough, demand taxpaying workers bail you out on the way down. While Romney’s supporters are putting up a heavy smoke screen, Tea partiers should understand that, as a supporter of the TARP Wall Street bailout, Romney’s “creative destruction” only applies to Main Street,...

The Treasury Department has been disclosing financial information about bailout programs in press releases only if the initiatives are expected to bring money in to the government, a new federal audit has found. The Government Accountability Office found that financial information for Troubled Asset Relief Program initiatives that are projected to cost the government money long-term – like the injection of capital into the American International Group – were not included in Treasury releases. “Although press releases for programs expected to result in a cost to Treasury provide useful transaction information, they exclude lifetime, program-specific cost estimates,” G.A.O., Congress’ investigative...

General Motors Co. (GM) has hired management consultant Hackett Group (HCKT) to help identify areas to cut an undetermined number of white-collar jobs, said two people familiar with the matter. Hackett Group, based in Miami, will help identify opportunities for cuts and efficiency improvements at headquarters and elsewhere in North America, said the people, who asked not to be identified revealing private plans. GM has been trimming engineers and other white-collar staff, said Jay Cooney, a spokesman, who declined to comment on whether the Detroit-based automaker had hired Hackett Group.

Gingrich’s recent explanations of his last minute support of TARP reek of crony capitalism.“Gingrich informed a crowd in Davenport, Iowa that, ‘I was very biased against [T.A.R.P.] and had opposed it all the previous week. I had a number of very, very successful businessmen who called me and said that you need to understand, this system is on the edge of total meltdown...' "

Gingrich also admitted that as a student of history, the fact that the Chairman of the Federal Reserve and the Secretary of the Treasury both agreed that the global financial system was on the edge of total failure also caused him to go from opposing T.A.R.P. to favoring its passage.

60 Minutes, as usual, had a very nearly excellent program last week on the economic collapse, and they were all upset because no one has been arrested; no particular person appears to be under investigation.  They have a good reason to be upset, but they seemed, at least in this report (and in several previous programs), to be clueless as to why. What happened at the end of 2008 changed history and the direction of the United States.  Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson goes to President George Bush and tells him, “The banks in the United States are about to collapse. ...

Link only, per FR posting rules

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Another trading day and another low for Bank of America's stock. Shares of Bank of America dropped more than 3% Tuesday, hitting a new 52-week low of $5.03 -- its lowest level since March 12, 2009. After the close of trading Tuesday, Bank of America was one of 37 financial institutions downgraded by S&P. Beyond the S&P downgrade, trading could become even more complicated in Bank of America's stock, if it falls below $5. Under that threshold, many broker-dealers will not allow investors to buy or short a stock on margin, according to a spokesperson for...

In the wake of the $700 billion TARP bailout, Warren Buffett apparently shaped a plan to clean up toxic assets that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner later adopted–resulting in massive profits for Buffett.That’s the latest bombshell revelation from investigative journalist and Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer’s sensational new book, Throw Them All Out. According to Schweizer, after the bailout bill’s passage, Warren Buffett sat down and wrote then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson a four-page private letter laying out a plan to clean up the toxic assets plaguing numerous financial institutions. Buffett proposed something he called a “public-private partnership fund.” For every $10 billion...

Texas Rep. Ron Paul, long dismissed by the GOP establishment as a fringe candidate, has broadened his electoral appeal and emerged as a major player in the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses, according to several recent polls and conversations with a handful of longtime Hawkeye political operatives... In a Bloomberg News survey — conducted by renowned Iowa-based pollster Ann Selzer — Paul was in a four-way statistical tie for first along with businessman Herman Cain, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich... And, in a new Iowa State/Gazette/KCRG survey, Paul took 20 percent — behind only Cain...

12/31/2010 9,390,476,088,043.35 4,634,739,130,665.17 14,025,215,218,708.52

A plan by beleaguered Bank of America to foist trillions of dollars of funky Merrill Lynch derivatives onto its depositors is raising eyebrows on Wall Street. The rarely used move will likely save the bank millions of dollars in collateral but could put depositors’ cash behind the eight ball. The move also brought to light fissures between the nation’s top banking regulators, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Federal Reserve, in the wake of new regulations meant to curb the free-wheeling habits that fostered the worst crisis in a generation back in 2008. At issue is BofA’s decision to...