Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Bailout Review - TARP, Too Big To Fail, Fannie, Freddie, Chrysler, and The General Motors Con Job

CNNMoney recently published some analysis that they had completed using the latest U.S. Treasury information. They went through the history and payback, or lack of payback, behavior of those entities that had been fortunate enough to receive taxpayer bailout money, courtesy of the Washington political class.

The results of their investigation are not pretty and include the following conclusions:

  • The government has already written off some of its losses on the Chrysler bailout. Chrysler, which is now owned and  controlled by Italian automaker Fiat, left behind an unpaid tab of $1.3 billion for U.S. taxpayers to pay off from its total infusion of $12.4 billion.
  • The former financing arm of General Motors, GMAC, which is now known as Ally Financial, received $16.3 billion of taxpayer wealth but has only paid $5.7 billion so far. The CNNMoney analysis concluded that Ally may never be able to pay the remaining $10.6 billion without a successful IPO.
  • Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Federal government's housing subsidy disasters received about $187.5 billion of bailout money but have only paid back $70.7 billion. Independent analyses have proven that the difference, $116.8 billion, is unlikely to ever be repaid and will probably continue to get worse over time.
  • While the biggest banks in the country have paid back their TARP funds, about 400 smaller banks still owe the American taxpayer $35 billion from various TARP programs.
  • General Motors received $51 billion in bailout funds from the American taxpayer and has repaid about $24 billion so far. However, the GM stock price would have to increase about 150%, from the current price of about $23 to $57, highly unlikely, for the taxpayers to just breakeven.
  • Thus, the article's analysis leads to the conclusion that each American household, on average, is still owed about $1,750 each for the unpaid balance of the bailout funds.

Disgraceful waste of taxpayer wealth. Chrysler is no longer an American company and the American taxpayer paid over a $1 billion to make it so. Poorly performing banks are still around, not due to the great leadership of their management, but the $35 billion American taxpayers gave them to cover their mistakes and mismanagement. Fannie and Freddie are still eating up taxpayer wealth with no reformation or termination plans underway.

But the greatest sham pulled on the American taxpayer is General Motors. The Obama political campaign continues to boast that "Bin Laden is dead but General Motors is alive" but considering the GM facts above and the following facts, you consider if this is really "living:"

  • As mentioned above, General Motors and its former financing arm, GMAC, are alive today and in  their present format only because of the unpaid $35 billion or so they owe the American taxpayer.
  • Delphi was once a subsidiary of GM. News reports, based on actual released government email communications, show that Obama's Treasury Department was instrumental in deciding that thousands of non-union Delphi employees would have their pensions terminated while union employees at Delphi would have their full pension rights maintained in the auto bailout plans. How sad that Ameircans' futures are determined not on fairness but on political favors and potential votes.
  • The CNNMoney website reported in February, 2011 that The U.S. Treasury forgave $14 billion in tax revenue because of unconventional deal it granted to General Motors. Although GM has had profitable periods since the bailout, it will not have to pay taxes since the Obama administration allowed GM to maintain past financial losses on its book to offset future profits for years to come. According to CNNMoney, this tax break is completely against standard bankruptcy proceedings and laws and will reduce GM's U.S. tax bill by an estimated $14 billion in the coming years, and its global taxes by close to $19 billion, according to a company filing. Another favor to Obama's political supporters at the expense of Ford and other honest carmakers and other American companies.
  • In June of this year the current GM, Dan Akerson, gave a speech where he bragged how now seven out of ten GM cars are now made by factories outside of the United States, mostly China, and that GM was also moving research and development resources overseas.
Thus, who still thinks that this bailout was a good idea to pay tens of billions of dollars of taxpayer wealth so that the recipient of that wealth could build up its business overseas? Insanity.

No matter how you cut it, none of these bailouts were good ideas. The government should never have gotten involved. It should have allowed normal bankruptcy laws/procedures and market forces shape the events  that have unfolded over the past few years. It would have resulted in fairer treatment of investors, employers, and taxpayers and not rewarded incompetent business managers and political cronies.

When government gets involved, it gathers control over the nation and its people. And government control not only wastes taxpayer wealth it also destroys freedom when petty politicians get to choose winners and losers in life.


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The following words are something I have never done before. My blog posts are always based on as unbiased mews sources as possible. These almost always include actual government reports and statistics, Associated Press reports, Bloomberg news reports, Reuters news reports,Wall Street Journal reports, USA Today reports, New York Times reports, and other main stream media reports.  

I do not include Fox News reports or conservative blog reports since I find liberal leaning friends and family will automatically reject those reports, not because they are wrong,  but solely because of their source. This sometimes makes verifying government misconduct difficult since many of the main stream news sources do not always follow up, investigate, and report on Obama administration shenanigans.

Given today's topic, government mishandling and biases in bailout decisions, I have included a report that came through my email about how badly the Chrylser bailout and process was handled from a political and cronyism perspective. I never use emails that come floating in but this one looks interesting from a sourcing perspective, it names names, and certainly has a ring of truth to it, given what we discussed above. 

I present it below and ask any readers if they can come up with reliable sources to prove or disprove that this disgraceful behavior actually happened relative to the Chrysler. If we can find some sources, I will put it into a regular blog post in the near future. If true, than we have fallen down the corruption rat hole further, deeper, and faster than even I imagined.

Chrysler's Railroad

This could be a scandal of epic proportions and one that makes Nixon's Watergate or Clinton's Monica Lewinsky affair pale by comparison. Why was there neither rhyme nor reason as to which dealerships of the Chrysler Corporation were to be closed?

Roll the clock back to the weeks just before Chrysler declared bankruptcy. Chrysler, like GM, was in dire financial straits and federal government "graciously" offered to "buy the company" and keep them out of bankruptcy and "save jobs." Chrysler was, in the words of Obama and his administration, "Too big to fail," same story with GM.

The feds organized their "Automotive Task Force" to fix Chrysler and GM. Obama, in an act that is 100% unconstitutional, appointed a guy named Steve Rattner to be the White House's official Car Czar - literally, that's what his title is. Rattner is the liaison among Obama, Chrysler, and GM.

Initially, the national media reported that Chrysler 'had made this list of dealerships. Not true! The Washington Examiner, Newsmax, Fox News and a host of other news agencies discovered that the list of dealerships was put together by the "Automotive Task Force" headed by no one other than Mr. Steve Rattner.

Now the plot thickens. Remember earlier we said that there was neither rhyme nor reason why certain dealerships were closed?

Actually there's a very interesting pattern as to who was closed down. Again, on May 27, 2009, The Washington Examiner and Newsmax exposed the connection. Amazingly, of the 789 dealerships closed by the federal government, 788 had donated money, exclusively to Republican political causes, while contributing nothing to Democratic political causes. The only "Democratic" dealership on the list was found to have donated $7,700 to Hillary's campaign, and a bit over $2,000 to John Edwards. This same dealership, reportedly, also gave $200.00 to Obama's campaign. Does that seem a little odd to you?

Steve Rattner is the guy who put the list together. Well, he happens to be married to a Maureen White.

Maureen happens to be the former national finance chairman of the Democratic National Committee. As such, she has access to campaign donation records from everyone in the nation- Republican or Democrat. But of course, this is just a wacky "coincidence," we're certain.

Then comes another really wacky "coincidence." On that list of dealerships being closed down, a weird thing happened in Arkansas, North Louisiana and Southern Missouri. It seems that Bill Clinton's former White House Chief of Staff, Mack McClarty, owns a chain of dealerships in that region, partnered with a fellow by the name of Robert Johnson. Johnson happens to be founder of Black Entertainment Television and was a huge Obama supporter and financier.

These guys own a half dozen Chrysler stores under the company title of RLJ-McClarty-Landers. Interestingly, none of their dealerships were ordered closed - not one!

While all of their competing Chrysler/Dodge and Jeep dealership were! Eight dealerships located near the dealerships owned by McClarty and Johnson were ordered shut down.

Thus by pure luck, these two major Obama supporters now have virtual monopoly on Chrysler sales in their zone. Isn't that amazing?

Go look in The Washington Examiner, the story's there, and it's in a dozen or so other web-based news organizations; this isn't being made up.

Now if you thought Chrysler was owned by Fiat, you are mistaken. Under the federal court ruling, 65% of Chrysler is now owned by the federal government and the United Auto Workers union! Fiat owns 20%. The other 15% is still privately owned and presumably will be traded on the stock market. Obama smiles and says he doesn't want to run the auto industry. 

As horrifying as this is to comprehend, and being as how this used to be the United States of America , it would appear that the president has the power to destroy private businesses and eliminate upwards of 100,000 jobs just because they don't agree with his political agenda.

This is Nazi Germany stuff, and it's happening right here, right now, in our back yard. There are voices in Washington demanding an explanation, but the "Automotive Task Force" has released no information to the public or to any of the senators demanding answers for what has been done.

Keep your ear to the ground for more on this story. If you've ever wanted to make a difference about anything in your life, get on the phone to your national senator or representative in the House and demand an investigation into this.

Benjamin Franklin had it right when he said, "All that's necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."

An amazing thing happened as this story was going to press. Obama's Car Czar, Steve Rattner, resigned on July 13 and was promptly replaced by former steel workers union boss Ron Bloom.

According to CBS News, Rattner left "to return to private life and spend time with his family."

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said, "I hope that he takes another opportunity to bring his unique skills to government service in the future."

By the way, Rattner is under investigation for a multi-million dollar pay-to-play investment bank scandal in New York ....

Uh-oh! But, we're certain that had nothing to do with his resignation. And, according to several news sources out there, there are rumors he's being investigated for what could be pay-to-play scandal involving the closing of Chrysler and GM dealerships. Really? Again, that couldn't have anything to with his resignation -- that's ridiculous! Like CBS said, this guy just wants to "spend more quality time with his family."

Obama has 32 personally appointed "czars" who answer to no one but him, all of whom are acting without any Constitutional authority.

But hey, we're sure they all have "unique skills"......as Tim Geithner likes to say!

SOOOOO. HOW'S THE HOPE/CHANGE WORKING FOR YOU?..

This goes beyond corruption in high places - to gross criminal actions on the part of our government!

I hope you will spread this far and wide, and hopefully the taxpaying public will demand some of that transparency we were promised ... followed by criminal prosecution of the perpetrators!

What a crooked government we have!!!!! Vote 'em all out ... November, 2012
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Despicable if true? Anyone find any sources that liberal friends and family could not reject outright?

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