Posted on 02/16/2009 6:18:24 PM PST by An Old Man
Well well well. In an update to my "GM Goes Boom" Ticker, it appears that we may now have to ask: Did Obama grow a pair?
"WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama plans to appoint senior administration officials — rather than a single "car czar," as had been discussed — to oversee a restructuring of the auto industry.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers will oversee the across-the-government panel, a senior administration official said Sunday on the condition of anonymity because no announcement had been made.
It has also been rumored that President Obama himself will make any final decision on whether any further assistance will be rendered to the automakers.
Gettlefool has overplayed his hand. He was caught admitting that he scuttled the bill originally planned to help the automakers and forced it through Treasury because "he had Bush in his back pocket", a move that infuriated Senators and guaranteed that there was no chance whatsoever the bill could pass there.
The UAW was reported to have broken off talks on Friday, although there are rumors that talks restarted today.
Someone needs to whack this idiot upside the head and explain to him that a union that is smaller but still exists is better than one that dies entirely or undergoes forced Chapter 11 renegotiation of its contracts. If the UAW thinks that it will do better in bankruptcy court than it will in negotiations I have a bridge to sell UAW members, and they should have a look at what happened to union airline pilots when United went under - including their pensions.
Hint: How's a 50-75% reduction in your promised pension benefits sound, complete elimination of SUB pay (which is NOT covered by pension guarantees) and complete elimination of ALL post-retirement or post-layoff private health insurance, leaving you with nothing until you can qualify for Medicare?
That's what you're going to get if you're a UAW member and let this clownface continue to play his game of "hardball".
This is truly "the final countdown" for the UAW membership.
I truly hope the UAW completely self-destructs
Gee, what is that song they sang to Bush on Inaguration Day?
Sheudenfraude?
Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey hey, goodbye......
After GM fails, will Detroit even notice?
Geithner has no clue what he is doing with the financial meltdown. So, Soetoro is going to give him the auto industry to solve, too? I can’t wait for his press conference to announce his plan, “We need $100 billion for the auto companies, but we haven’t worked out any specifics for this plan yet...we want to make sure we get it right.”
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8:17 CT
I do not know what is going on here, and I don't think I want to.
Someone, apparently someone in Asia, wants dollars. A LOT of dollars. There is a forced-liquidation event underway that is massive, it is against all asset classes and it is spreading.
It originated at approximately 7:15 CT this evening and originated out of Asia somewhere. All of the primary currency crosses got hit at once - Euro, Pound, Yen - all weakened dramatically against the dollar and it is still going on. The Asian stock markets got walloped at the same time in coordinated waves of forced selling.
At the same time the US futures markets got nailed as well, down some six handles on the /ES in a near-vertical drop. While this sounds "not that big" to move these markets in a coordinated fashion like this is a trillion-dollar enterprise - this is not some small company that went bankrupt, or even a large company.
There is no news coverage at the present time identifying the source of this but it is not small and contrary to some reports it is not "automatic selling"; this is forced liquidation.
Folks, if this translates into Eastern Europe where there are severe instabilities already brewing literally everything in the financial world could come apart "all at once."
The worse news is that if this happens Bernanke will have killed us (in the US) by extending those swap lines all over the planet during the last six months. These will become utterly uncollectable and they are massive, in the many hundreds of billions of dollars.
To those who are reading this, I hope if you're in the markets you are prepared for extreme levels of violence. You must expect that the authorities will try to arrest the destruction if they are able, but you must also be prepared for the possibility that we have reached a "critical mass" point beyond which "duck and cover" is the only winning strategy.
Unfortunately.
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I find it rather ironic that osamaobama ridiculed and attacked McCain for wanting to set up a committe to draft and administer TARP-now he’s proposing the same thing for the auto industry.
poo in a ziplock
What exactly does that mean?
Who would be dumb enough to buy the product? I tell you this, if a government committee ran the toilet paper business, I would never shake hands with anyone again!
I don’t know! Lets find out.
Currency market. Forex.
Henry Ford is thanking God that Ford backed out of the govmt bailout.
Ford may come out as the only American car manufacturer in about 3 years.
What do you suppose we should expect?
Well, he says he doesn’t know, but it sounds like Somebody that owns a lot of debt is calling in the markers and forcing fire sales to other entities to raise money. He also says there’s no coverage of it, just a lot of forced liquidation, which means whoever’s letting the assets go is doing it at a fire sale price. Freepaholic, is that how you read it?
I have no idea. I just lurk on Denningers' forums. I'm not a finance guy.
Here's the current forum thread on his latest update:
http://www.tickerforum.org/cgi-ticker/akcs-www?post=81089
Hysteria or Cassandra, it’s a fascinating read.
The same gov't that will be unable to compete will make sure you have no other options but to buy their product at their price. The hand writing is on the wall
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