"I," said the president, who is inordinately fond of the first-person singular pronoun, "want to disabuse people of this notion that somehow we enjoy meddling in the private sector." He said that in March, when the government already owned 80 percent of AIG, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. "When a difficult decision has to be made on matters like where to open a new plant or what type of new car to make, the new GM, not the United States government, will make that decision." But the government is GM's largest shareholder, customer, tax collector, regulator, partner in determining employees' compensation, protector of dealers and pension guarantor. GM's other large owner, the United Auto Workers, is increasingly a government dependant.
Yet Steve Rattner and Ron Bloom, two of the president's fixers of Detroit, recently wrote in USA Today that government "will play no role" in running GM. They were not under oath.
"What we are not doing -- what I have no interest in doing -- is running GM," says the president who, when not firing GM's CEO, purging its board of directors and picking new members, is designing new products (imposing fuel economy requirements that will control size, weight, passenger capacity and safety). The president, overcoming his professed reluctance to run GM, resembles the journalist Don Marquis when, after a month on the wagon, he ordered a double martini and exclaimed: "I've conquered my goddam willpower."
In the mid-'70s, I attended law school in Michigan. Even back then, foreign automakers -- especially the Japanese -- steadily shaved off market share from the once-mighty Big Three: GM, Chrysler and Ford.
This foreign encroachment into the auto industry scared the socks off executives of domestic appliance-makers. Manufacturers of dishwashers, refrigerators and stoves scrambled into all-hands-on-deck mode. They vowed to make better stuff, with continually improved features and zero tolerance for defects. Westinghouse -- a major manufacturer in serious trouble during the early '70s -- set up a "productivity and quality center" to study Japanese manufacturing methods. A 1983 Business Week article quoted one Westinghouse top exec: "We have sent more study teams to Japan than any other American company. We are doing to the Japanese what they have done to us for 20 or 30 years." Today domestic manufacturers of large appliances still dominate the American market.
The fate of Detroit isn’t a matter of economics. It’s a tragic romance, whose magic was killed by bureaucrats, bad taste and busybodies. P.J. O’Rourke on why Americans fell out of love with the automobile.
Get ready folks: America is about to own a car company. As of Monday, we the taxpayers will own more than 70 percent of GM. Whether the company will be formally renamed Government Motors remains to be seen. But that’s what it will be.
Instead of putting the failed car enterprise into bankruptcy six months ago -- where Carl Icahn or Wilbur Ross could have bought it -- the Bush administration chose Bailout Nation. Under Team Obama, that bailout has morphed into full-scale government ownership. Twenty-billion dollars of TARP money is already invested in GM, with another $50 billion on the way.
There appears to be a side to the Chrysler bankruptcy that has the look of an ugly partisanship not seen in this town since Tricky Dick was in the White House composing his enemies list and checking it twice every night while watching the evening TV newscast.
Bloggers on the Right side of the Blogosphere are up in arms over data suggesting that President Barack Obama’s White House auto industry potentates are targeting for closure Chrysler dealers with records of contributing either to Republicans like Sen. John McCain or to other Democrats in the 2008 presidential primary.
Posts at RedState, Reliapundit, American Thinker, Gateway Pundit, Joey Smith and Doug Ross pointed initially at the remarkable number of closed Chrysler dealerships whose owners happen to have been contributors to Obama opponents, mainly Republicans.
The government's stake in the company originally was to be 50 percent, according to GM's regulatory filings. But it now could be as high as 69 percent. The Canadian government also could get equity for up to $8 billion in aid for the automaker.
The UAW disclosed Tuesday it agreed to take a much smaller 17.5 percent stake in GM, plus a warrant for 2.5 percent more to partially fund the $20 billion that GM must put into a trust that will start paying retiree health care costs next year.
Doug Ross has done a little digging and discovered a disturbing pattern in the choices Chrysler (and the Obama administration) made in closing dealerships.
It appears there is a real possibility that if you contributed to Republican candidates or the RNC, your number came up and your dealership was yanked.
Oil and gasoline prices are rising fast as Memorial Day weekend approaches, but not because supplies are tight or demand is high.
U.S. crude-oil inventories are at their highest levels in almost two decades, and demand has fallen to a 10-year low, but crude oil prices have climbed more than 70 percent since mid-January to a six-month high of $62.04 on Wednesday.
(Speculators' fault? NO! Nonstop printing of cash and mainlining it in to the economy is devaluing the dollar. Simple. - Roland)
As of early Tuesday evening, according to a report by Liz Moyer at Forbes, the latest news on the Chrysler bankruptcy filing is that: The recalcitrant non-TARP lenders who would not agree to the deal the government attempted to force on them are now attempting to challenge the deal the government and Chrysler have proposed in bankruptcy court. These lenders want to keep their identities hidden
..... These allegations add to the picture of an administration willing to use intimidation to win over support for its Chrysler plans--and then categorically deny it.
Clifford S. Asness, who in a public letter at the Business Insider, rips the administration's tactics, and expresses an understanding that "one by one the managers and banks are said to be caving to the President's wishes out of justifiable fear."
So .... the national press is all over this outrage of executive overreach, right?
The debate on global warming and energy policy accelerated on Tuesday as two senior House Democrats unveiled a far-reaching bill to cap heat-trapping gases and quicken the country’s move away from dependence on coal and oil.
But the bill leaves critical questions unanswered and has no Republican support. It is thus the beginning, not the end, of the debate in Congress on how to deal with two of President Obama’s priorities, climate change and energy.
General Motors issued a vague statement Sunday night that did not officially confirm Wagoner's departure.
"We are anticipating an announcement soon from the Administration regarding the restructuring of the U.S. auto industry. We continue to work closely with members of the Task Force and it would not be appropriate for us to speculate on the content of any announcement," the company said.
The surprise announcement about the classically iconic American corporation is perhaps the most vivid sign yet of the tectonic change in the relationship between business and government in this era of subsidies and bailouts.
The Terrafugia Transition is a two-seater plane that at the touch of a button converts into a road-legal car. It takes its maiden flight next month and is scheduled to hit the showrooms by next year. You can’t help but wonder whether, if Bob Nardelli and Rick Wagoner, of Chrysler and General Motors respectively, had been forward-thinking enough to fly into Washington DC in swept-wing Dodge Vipers and Cadillac Escalades instead of corporate jets when they were seeking bailout cash, they would have been showered with government money, downturn or no downturn.
Obama's Energy Honcho Wants to Saddle Americans (You and Me) With Higher Gasoline Prices Through Greater Taxation...Because High Fuel Prices Were So Much Fun Earlier This Year...
Despite growing scientific dissent to the anthropogenic global warming meme and, indeed, greater evidence to the contrary that AGW exists, Obama's Energy honcho wants to ramp those gasoline prices right back up to, ya know, force us American saps to buy more-efficient cars and to live in neighborhoods closer to work. Uh huh. So, those of us who farm and/or who live in rural areas are supposed to sell our homes and move into the cities or else...?
Echoes of Obama's pre-election threat to "bankrupt" companies who build new coal power plants...
FTA: To fix its crumbling roads and bridges and rescue the state’s financially challenged public transit system, a draft report made public yesterday says the state should consider charging tolls at the state line on every interstate highway and creating a new tax for each mile a vehicle is driven.
IF General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye. It won’t go overnight, but its demise will be virtually guaranteed.
Without that bailout, Detroit will need to drastically restructure itself. With it, the automakers will stay the course — the suicidal course of declining market shares, insurmountable labor and retiree burdens, technology atrophy, product inferiority and never-ending job losses. Detroit needs a turnaround, not a check.
Gleaming new Mercedes cars roll one by one out of a huge container ship here and onto a pier. Ordinarily the cars would be loaded on trucks within hours, destined for dealerships around the country. But these are not ordinary times.
For now, the port itself is the destination. Unwelcome by dealers and buyers, thousands of cars worth tens of millions of dollars are being warehoused on increasingly crowded port property.
"Right now, I don't think there are the votes," Dodd of Connecticut told reporters about prospects in the Senate. "I want to be careful of bringing up a proposition that might fail," he said.
Although Dodd said "we ought to do something" and personally backed using money from the ongoing $700 billion financial services rescue program to help Detroit, he was skeptical that enough Republicans would support a bailout.
Last week we noted unconfirmed sightings of an “Obama for President” billboard in the Xbox 360 racing game Burnout Paradise. Today we’re able to report that it is, in fact, an official advertisement placed by the senator’s campaign team.
“I can confirm that the Obama campaign has paid for in-game advertising in Burnout,” Holly Rockwood, director of corporate communications at Electronic Arts, the game’s publisher, told me via email, noting that EA regularly allows ad placements in their online games. “Like most television, radio and print outlets, we accept advertising from credible political candidates,” she continued. “Like political spots on the television networks, these ads do not reflect the political policies of EA or the opinions of its development teams.”
You need only look at the strict regulations and checkups heading down the home stretch of this year's Sprint Cup season to see that even an organization as fundamentally conservative as NASCAR has been forced to modify its safety standards. Racing tends to change only when it has to, but as much as major crashes may raise the drama (and, concurrently, the popularity) of NASCAR, they are, tragically, the main impetus for new safety systems and engineering practices. Here are 10 worst-case scenarios (including some closely related pairs of crashes) from NASCAR's history that made it the less-deadly institution it is today.
Auto industry allies hope to secure up to $50 billion in federal t loans this month to modernize plants and help struggling car makers build more fuel-efficient vehicles.
Congress returns this coming week from its summer break, and the auto industry plans an aggressive lobbying campaign for the low-interest loans.
The situation is growing dire after months of tumbling sales, high gasoline prices and consumers' abandoning profitable trucks and sport utility vehicles.
Lawmakers authorized $25 billion in loans in last year's energy bill, and automakers now want lawmakers to expand the pool of money available to $50 billion over three years.
Entrepreneur Paul Garlick brought a touch of Gotham City to an East Yorkshire village this week when his £150,000 custom-built Batmobile made its first public appearance.
The 130mph car is one of just three working models and it stunned passers-by when it was road-tested in Holderness.
Jake Loniak is a college junior, he's also the inventor of one of the most innovative concept vehicles we've seen in ages. Inside: the electric exoskeleton motorcycle and an exclusive video of the beast in action
This is a classic video from years ago that I came across again today. This dude flies through an intersection and somehow avoids cross traffic by inches.
You might want to try because that's the kind of password you'll need if you really want your wireless network to be secure. That's the word from Keith Maynard...Seric is one of the original wardrivers, hobbyists who deck out their cars with computers and sensitive antennas and go cruising the streets looking for wireless networks.
The content on Thesaloon.net, except all Submissions (defined below) is owned by or licensed to Thesaloon.net, subject to copyright and other intellectual property rights under the United States and international intellectual property laws and conventions. Content on Thesaloon.net is provided for personal use only and may not be used, copied, reproduced, distributed, transmitted, broadcast, displayed, sold, licensed, or otherwise exploited for any purpose without the prior written consent of the respective owners. You agree to not engage in the use, copying, or distribution of any of the content other than expressly permitted herein, including any use, copying, or distribution of Submissions of third parties obtained through the Thesaloon.net website for any commercial purposes.
Thesaloon.net permits the submission of text, photographs, opinions, comments and/or other forms of communication submitted by you and other users ("Submissions") and the hosting, sharing and publication of such Submissions. You agree that you are solely responsible for your own Submissions and affirm, represent, and/or warrant that you own or have the necessary licenses, rights, consents, and permissions to use and authorize Thesaloon.net to use all patent trademark, trade secret, copyright or other proprietary rights in and to any and all Submissions to enable inclusion and use of the Submissions in the manner contemplated by Thesaloon.net. You retain all ownership rights in your Submissions. However, by submitting the Submissions to Thesaloon.net, you hereby grant Thesaloon.net a non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the Submissions in connection with Thesaloon.net and Thesaloon.net’s business, including without limitation for promoting and redistributing part or all of Thesaloon.net (and derivative works thereof) in any media formats and through any media channels/outlets.
Thesaloon.net does not permit or allow copyright infringing activities and/or infringement of intellectual property rights on Thesaloon.net's website, and Thesaloon.net will remove any and all content and Submissions if properly notified that such content and/or Submission infringes on another's intellectual property rights.
