Posted on 12/26/2012 8:48:45 AM PST by jazusamo
Administration puts an expensive end to a disgraceful episode
General Motors will no longer be “Government Motors.” The Treasury Department on Wednesday announced its intention to liquidate federal holdings in the automobile company over the next 15 months. The final tally will show this policy has been a disaster for taxpayers.
Under the best case scenario, the public will wind up shelling out more than $13 billion by the close of this unfortunate episode. Though President Obama has portrayed the GM bailout as saving Detroit, it was really a reward for the auto unions. It was a celebration of bad management that steamrolled the rights of creditors. It was precisely the sort of thing that ought never happen in an economy based on free exchange.
In the aftermath of the financial meltdown four years ago, Congress created the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to bail out several of the big-name Wall Street firms. Uncle Sam created a similar program to funnel almost $50 billion to “save” GM. This allowed GM to bypass much of the traditional bankruptcy process, which is designed to permit a struggling business to reorganize in an orderly fashion. Avoiding bankruptcy preserved the lavish union contracts largely responsible for sending the company over the edge in the first place. As part of the bailout deal, Uncle Sam grabbed a 60 percent ownership stake in GM...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
It will always be Government Motors because it will always be first in line for government handouts/subsidies. If it can go though a proper bankruptcy and get rid of the unions altogether, then, maybe, they can earn a place in the free market, what’s left of it, again. Even if/when the Gummint no longer owns any shares GM will still be the government’s first best hope to get a respectable number of electric cars on the road and it will have to be done with lots of government money. Other entities may come to own the official shares of GM but the government will be pulling GM’s strings for a long time to come.
But . . but . . but . . how can this be!!??? The president and his sock puppet, Ed Whitaker, went on TV to inform us that Government Motors has repaid "every dollar" of the government loan. And, that was over a year ago!!
Don't tell me that these people LIED!!!
(I'm SO disappointed!)
bump
Yep, am wondering if the turkey intends to just once tell the truth. Nah, it won’t happen.
BTT
More crony-unionism, break down of Rule of Law (contract).
Grifters don’t enforce market contracts. They peel off mob rent (make you pay a Rat tax campaign contribution) as a pre-condition for briefly leaving you alone.
Too bad GM bondholders... good luck with the cat food.
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