U.S. Threatens Bankruptcy For GM, Chrysler

Wall Street Journal:

The Obama administration, wading deeply into the U.S. auto industry, is weighing an aggressive fix for General Motors Corp. and Chrysler that would divide their "good" and "bad" assets and send them into bankruptcy to purge their biggest problems.

The potential move would transform two companies that have helped define U.S. industrial power over the last century. Following the ouster of GM Chief Executive Rick Wagoner, it would represent one of the biggest-ever government incursions into private enterprise.

Read the whole story: Wall Street Journal

Comments

[SinisterK9]

I am so glad we gave them billions in order to prevent Bankruptcy. Now they get the money, and they might still file Bankruptcy. Either way, they are still laying off about 1/3 of the American workforce they employ. Money well spent. Lets keep the bailouts coming. Print more monopoly money immediately.

[MacQ]

What are they going to name our version of the Volkswagen?

[katekid]

Mo Ped

[LorettaSingbiel]

A key ingredient in acting on this plan is getting the UAW to agree to an entirely new contract, including major reductions in health-care benefits, said several people involved in the matter. "That's the No.1 wild card here,"

FIRST the BANK BONUS BANDITS must agree to an entirely new contract!!!

[PlayTOE]

Here is the problem.
The banks are looking at the "legacy costs" (retirement packages) of autoworkers. They don't want to pay these out from the banked funds stored for this purpose.

Solution, Kill GM.

Union workers and negotiators need to insist that the first retirement package on the table is that of Rick Wagoner.

[Xavieer]

- + Rumplestiltskin See Profile I'm a Fan of Rumplestiltskin I'm a fan of this user permalink
Years and years of government spending without end and no oversight, same with business. Chickens and roosts
>>>>>>>>>>­>>>>>>>>>>­>>>>>>>>>>­>>>>>>>>>>­>>>>>>>>>>­>>>>>>>>PP­PPPLLLLLLL­LUUUUUUUUU­USSSSSSEEE­EEEEEZZZZZ­ZZZZZZEEEE­!!!!!!!!! C'mon man tell me you are joking....­.........D­oes rhetoric and hypocracy ring a bell????

[shaggyct]

When we throw a trillion dollars into a pointless w.ar without any oversight of companies like Haliburton, these righties just shrug their shoulders and say, "Well, sh.it happens". But god help us if we invest in our own economy.

Can you imagine what would happen if a pallet containing $19 billion in cash was misplaced in a foreign country on President Obama's watch? The righties would be calling for impeachment. Yet when it happened under Bush, they thought it was funny.

[Xavieer]

Yeah just like they charge water rights for the sweat off every injured and deceased soldier...­..........­.....I H8 NEO-CONS!!­!!!!!!!!!!­!!!!!!!!!!­!!!!!!!!

[PerfectSense]

Can you imagine what would happen if AIG paid $36 billion to foreign banks while Obama ate wagyu beef and hundreds or thousands of Americans lost their jobs? Oops that already happened and nothing happened.

[HighlySelective]

Poor ZaZa. Still upset over his unceremonious banning.

[trollslayer]

Which sock was banned? PR or Tol1?

[Zulu4ever]

So what? We can still read the blogs and conversati­ons... :D

[sharonh]

So he twists a female poster's moniker for his own. Why???

[Zulu4ever]

Have you heard of the Zulu language?

[sharonh]

Whenever an innovative approach to autos, independent of gasoline, was developed, they were bought by the oil companies who promptly hide or destroyed these innovations. Another reason to despise big oil.

[DontJustFollow]

and yet last week Shell Oil completely turned it's back on solar and wind power because after 20 years of effort - there was nothing to show for it and no future business model to make it pencil. With the exception of huge government payments (think ethonal)

[sarabono]

Several of those Ethanol Plants are now shut or in bankruptcy.

[Rumplestiltskin]

Yessssssss­sssssssss. My ALCOA stock just went up a point. More please.

[PerfectSense]

Urban legend. The plain and simple fact is oil is a far more economical (cheaper) energy source than any alternative fuel. Even when gas was $10 per gallon in Europe. Europeans were still producing and buying gasoline powered cars.

[MacQ]

sharon you poor dear. put down the kool aid.

[Ohsherri]

"Failure CEO's" need to step up! And take responsibility for Failing America!!!

A two month President is not the kicking-boy for years and years of
corporate scams and greed.
WTF is going on here!!!!
They've ruining it for everyone..­.and now they hide behind Obama. WTF!!!!!!!

What's with all the fackin "sudden failure"?

[Rumplestiltskin]

Years and years of government spending without end and no oversight, same with business. Chickens and roosts.

[truthynesslover]

This was NO ACCIDENT!This was a well constructed plan.

$550 Billion Electronic Run On U.S. Banks Nearly Triggered Financial Collapse.

Read on....At 2 minutes, 20 seconds into this C-Span video clip, Rep. Paul Kanjorski of Pennsylvania explains how the Federal Reserve told Congress members about a "tremendous draw-down of money market accounts in the United States, to the tune of $550 billion dollars." According to Kanjorski, this electronic transfer occurred over the period of an hour and threatened a further $5 trillion to be drawn out triggering a total collapse of the Financial System, which prompted Hank Paulson's emergency $700 billion TARP bailout action.

[sarabono]

The run started in early Sept. 08 after Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor that several of the large firms that financed home mortgages were in trouble and then named one of those firms IndyMac Bank. Within a few hours, people were lined up outside IndyMac Bank California Branches to remove their cash funds. Within a few hours, IndyMac had lost 40% of their revolving cash assets. The next day, in order to stop the run on IndyMac and other banks, the FDIC took over IndyMac.

[truthynesslover]

Did you see this?
Boston Globe;

WASHINGTON - Just months before the start of last year's stock market collapse, the federal agency that insures the retirement funds of 44 million Americans departed from its conservative investment strategy and decided to put much of its $64 billion insurance fund into stocks.

Just in the nic of time huh?
Nope nuthin to see here.

[Xavieer]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buWZ1kuNuAs>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Hey Rage......­.....!!!!!­! ya just got tripped!!!!!

[sarabono]

A lot of this middle class job crisis our Congress gave to us by a greedy corporate tax policy. Let me give an example because it applies to to all American firms that make profits overseas.

Currently if a US company, like GM, makes a profit in a foreign division, they pay a corporate income tax on the profit from that division to the host country. Now under current tax law, if they want to bring that after tax income back to the US, they have to pay income taxes on that profit a second time. This is nuts.

When a Japanese company makes a profit from one of there plants in the US, they pay US corporate income taxes but when they want to send some of the after tax profits back to Japan, no Japanese income tax. This is true for South Korea, Taiwan, Brazil and others.

There has only been four years in the past 50 years when this was not true. Regan managed to get a
temporary two thirds reduction in the tax rate. During that time, American firms brought back to the US an estimated $6-$8 Trillion in funds which ended up invested back into America. The policy was scraped by the Congress the last two years of Regan's Presidency.

Obama should eliminate this tax to spur investment here at home to help create middle income jobs. The amount that could come back for domestic investment could be between $10 and $16 Trillion.

[HighlySelective]

Gotta love it when a Reagan groupie can't spell his name correctly.

[DontJustFollow]

I think what the govenment needs to do is to focus on encouraging manufacturing jobs IN the US.

This is the main thing we have lost over the past 40 years and what we need back the most.

Bail outs and benefits are not going to solve the problem - - -

[ekoorb]

And I thought the home-schooled were good spellers. I guess we should just cut taxes so we can get that $16 trillion.

[sarabono]

Sorry. I'm not a Reagan groupie, maybe that is why I misspelled his name..

I worked for a Boston based electronics co for 25 years. We built a plant in Japan and wanted to bring the profits back to invest in Boston but our dumb ass tax policy stopped us so we invested the profit from Japan into a new South Korean facility rather than Boston..

These were high tech electronics engineering and manufacturing jobs. 120 jobs with an average wage of $50,000 in 1995 that could have been in Boston but instead are in South Korea.

[shaggyct]

We've already proved that trickle down economics don't work. What I need as a business owner is customers who can afford to buy my products. You could give me another tax cut, sure, and it would be nice, but it certainly wouldn't enable me to hire any more staff, even if you cut the marginal rate from 35% to 15%. There are so many loopholes that very few businesses, if any, pay the top rate of corporate tax in any case (consider Goldman Sachs, which boasted in its last annual report that it would pay exactly ZERO percent----that's right, ZERO percent---­-corporate tax for the 2008 tax year. How would a tax cut benefit them?)

What U.S. businesses need more than anything right now is healthcare reform; healthcare being the biggest disincentive to hiring American workers. Reducing healthcare costs also lessens the enormous burden we're putting on American consumers, which would then give them more spending power. So both businesses and consumers benefit. Which is why President Obama is absolutely right to position healthcare as a critical component of economic recovery.

Our next priority needs to be education, for reasons which I doubt I have the space to explain here.

[ekoorb]

We are at a competitive disadvantage internationally because of the way we fund health care. One good thing Reagan did with the '86 tax increase was to eliminate the vast majority of tax dodges, loopholes, partnerships, and so on. Congress just couldn't keep their hands out of the lobbyists' cookie jar; it's probably worse now.

[sarabono]

I am talking about foreign profits being kept overseas BECAUSE it is to expensive to bring the funds back to support domestic investment. Firms like GM, 3M, P&G, Ford, GE, Intel and the like. Manufacturing firms. Goldman is a trading firm. They dont manufacture any product that you and I would buy. I agree that if Congress has designed the 10,000 page tax code with loop holes that allow firms like Goldman not to pay tax that is wrong. But to penalize firms from bringing funds back into this country to support domestic operations is nuts.

I agree with health care reform. I propose that everyone should be covered by and contribute to Medicare. It is single payer. It works. We have 40 years experience running it.
Anhd the Medicare Part D drug benefit that Bush started works very well. I have been on Medicare A&B and purchased Part D, for the past two years. It works well. Same Dr's and hospitals as under my previous Group Plan with less paperwork.

[Ohsherri]

If Repubs were in charge , they would.....­..........­........th­e Banks, and

..........­..........­..........­..........­...the auto industry.

(fill in the blanks)

[truthynesslover]

Giethners plan IS the Paulson plan.What about this dont people get?

[ekoorb]

Probably like Bush, they would have to be dragged kicking and screaming into their new "socialist" ways.

[Rumplestiltskin]

I like puzzles, but I don't like Repubs. Lets do libertarians.
"ignore", "ignore"
that was fun. Lets do taxes next.

[Xavieer]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/30/us-threatens-bankruptcy-f_n_181017.html>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Hey Rage ya eyes red yet!!!!!!!­!.........­...booooin­gggg!!!!

[Zulu4ever]

Wassup Mr. Xavieer? How is your health, this fine day Sir? Hope all is well.. :)

[trollslayer]

Za, you forgot to make your usual entrance. Go back and post a blank comment!

[Zulu4ever]

That is more like a silent entry among a room full of strangers.­...i see a familiar face in Mr. Xavieer over here , who i have enormous respect for... :D

[Xavieer]

786......I am fine still living and contributing to my country...­........th­anks for asking....­....Now do I have to pull gloves now???

[slithers]

Supreme leader Obama tells business owners what to do with their business.

[SaviourMachine]

Go find a rock, it's feeling lonely.

[truthynesslover]

Somebody has too!

[shaggyct]

As opposed to Grand Emperor Bush telling individuals what to do with their personal lives, and then wiretapping us all to make sure we weren't Enem.ies of the State.

When GM asked the government for a bailout, it effectively stopped becoming a private business and became a government institution. Which gives the President the authority to ask Wagoner to step down just like the head of any other government agency. Or does accountability offend you so much? Oh wait, yeah, Republicans don't believe in accountability, do they? My mistake.

[slithers]

I'm not defending Bush. I agree, he was a log.

No bailouts. NONE. for anyone.

[DontJustFollow]

I always thought republicans were the party of personal responsibility and democrats were the party of "it's not your fault, it's the republican's fault" - - -

[Rumplestiltskin]

Sure, he knows best. He has been a community organizer. Get with the plan. I heard he was taking over software and operating systems next, before he started on thread theory physics.

[shaggyct]

I love it when you guys keep dredging up "community organizer" (and then think it's a derogatory term) and all the other classics from last year's election campaign. Didn't work for you then, and it's even less effective now.

God bless President Barack Hussein Obama. I love how he drives you righties absolutely batshitcrazy at every turn now that you have no power, no credibility and are reduced to just making snarky comments on websites.

BTW, how did the last "experienced" guy work out for you? You know, the one who called himself the----what was it now? Oh yeah, the "CEO President". That was, of course, before he rebranded himself "The Decider". Yeah, how DID that work out?

[truthynesslover]

John Stewart;
"So these guys s r e w up the banks yet we turn the the whole thing over to them."

WHY?

[Rumplestiltskin]

Your watch.

[AdLib]

Your callous.

[Xavieer]

Your stoopiddit­yyyyyyyy..­..........­..

[DontJustFollow]

follow the campaign contributions - - -

[steamboat]

and Obama's Chicago advisors. Including Penny Pritzger, a part owner of AIG

[steamboat]

PS: also see below.

http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/recips.php?id=D000000123