When hundreds of protesters showed up at the South Carolina statehouse to protest Gov. Mark Sanford’s refusal to accept $700 million in federal stimulus, it was worth noting how Sanford doesn’t represent economic disaster – but perhaps the only chance we’ve got.
The Article referenced in this Video is found here
Full Disclosure: My Father is a Retired General Motors Worker and U.A.W. Member.
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It sure as heck looks that way to me here.
The reason I ask this question is because a new report from CNBC that the new C.E.O. of GM is essentially saying that bankruptcy is the only option:
General Motors’s new chief executive told CNBC that filing for Bankruptcy may be the best option for the struggling automaker.
In a taped interview to be aired tonight on NBC Nightly News, Fritz Henderson said that because of greater demands from the Obama administration to restructure, GM is considering the bankruptcy option. The auto giant previously had ruled out such a move, saying it would discourage people from buying GM cars.
Henderson’s comments came after President Obama bluntly rejected turnaround plans by GM and Chrysler and demanded that both companies make fresh concessions in order to get more federal aid.
Henderson, who was GM’s president and chief operating officer, was named the new CEO after the government forced the resignation of CEO Rick Wagoner on Sunday. GM’s board is also being restructured.
Henderson told reporters that the company would still prefer to restructure outside of court, but the level of support Washington is offering would help the company quickly restructure through bankruptcy.
Henderson says GM needs to work faster and go deeper to get more concessions from bondholders and the United Auto Workers union. President Obama has demanded that GM come up with a better restructuring plan in 60 days in order to qualify for more government aid.
I find it very interesting that President Obama, instead of doing the dirty deed himself, ousted the CEO of G.M. and basically has let the new G.M. head honcho be his fall guy for basically screwing the bond holders and also the unions. This way, Barry comes off clean. It is a strategy that is quite slick, quite risky; but none the less slick.
The Wall Street Journal has more:
Inside a windowless, ornate room Thursday just across from the Oval Office, President Barack Obama and a group of senior economic advisers began the job of remaking the American automobile industry.
The first order of business: Oust General Motors Corp. Chief Executive Rick Wagoner.
It “wasn’t the hardest decision,” said one government official.
Steven Rattner, a former investment banker who is heading the administration’s auto restructuring; chief economic adviser Lawrence Summers; and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner were among those gathered around the polished wood table of the Roosevelt Room in the White House’s West Wing. They were there to decide under what conditions the government would continue to prop up once-powerful Detroit car companies GM and Chrysler LLC.
In the post-World War II boom, they were at the pinnacle of a quintessentially American industry. At Thursday’s meeting, once the Obama administration concluded the pair were running out of money, their effective dismantling began.
Beyond seeking Mr. Wagoner’s resignation, the officials also gave failing grades to GM and Chrysler for the restructuring plans they submitted to the government Feb. 17. They also set a deadline — one month for Chrysler, two months for GM — after which the government might force a bankruptcy restructuring of both companies and break up two of America’s business icons.
Many of GM’s problems didn’t start during Mr. Wagoner’s term, and most predate the economic downturn that sent car sales slumping, such as union contracts and the costs of paying for retiree health care. GM made a bad situation worse with huge bets on trucks and SUVs that piled up on dealer lots amid soaring gas prices last year.
While I will be the first to tell you, that General Motors has had its own share of issues. What Barack Obama did to G.M. and by proxy to the Union members and Employees of the company; was just flat out cowardly. Instead of forcing General Motors into bankruptcy himself. Obama is allowing the new head honcho of the company and his Auto Czar; do it for him. This way Obama does not burn through his political capital as quickly and more or less comes out looking like the hero. Of course, President TelePrompter will say that he inherited this mess, and by rights he did. But to pass off the basic executing of a company and it’s people to someone else, is quite the cowardly move in my book.
Hey Barry, If you ever happen to read this; Grow some freaking Gonads,will ya? I mean, come on. If you going to screw the American worker; why not do it yourself? Instead of letting your damned patsies do it for you. Just a thought.
Wow, I must admit, I did not see this one coming, at all. 😮
I have been watching an interesting phenomenon on the Right, which is beginning to cause me concern. I am referring to the over-the-top hysteria in response to the first months in office of our new president, which distinctly reminds me of the “Bush Is Hitler” crowd on the Left.
Speaking of this crowd, have you seen any “I am so sorry” postings from that quarter as Obama continues and even escalates the former president’s war policy in Afghanistan and attempts to consolidate his military occupation of Iraq?
Conservatives, please. Let’s not duplicate the manias of the Left as we figure out how to deal with Mr. Obama. He is not exactly the anti-Christ, although a disturbing number of people on the Right are convinced he is.
I have recently received commentaries that claim that “Obama’s speeches are unlike any political speech we have heard in American history” and “never has a politician in this land had such a quasi-religious impact on so many people” and “Obama is a narcissist,” which leads the author to then compare Obama to David Koresh, Charles Manson, Stalin and Saddam Hussein. Excuse me while I blow my nose.
via FrontPage Magazine.
Well, I won’t sit here and lie, I see his point. It’s a valid one too. If the far right would do their legit jobs and point the fallacies in Obama polices, instead of trying to prove that he’s anything from an alien to the Anti-Christ, they’d would be doing something.
Others: Pajamas Media, pw and Little Green Footballs
On the sixth anniversary of the war in Iraq, why are the loudest champions of the War on Terror no longer talking about it?
In all honesty…. it is more like a marathon run towards Communism actually.
Thanks to the stupidity of the Carter and Clinton Administrations and the inaction on the Republican controlled 2003 Congress. We are now becoming a Communist Nation. We have no one to blame, but ourselves.
The Communist owned Washington Post reports:
The Obama administration is considering asking Congress to give the Treasury secretary unprecedented powers to initiate the seizure of non-bank financial companies, such as large insurers, investment firms and hedge funds, whose collapse would damage the broader economy, according to an administration document.
The government at present has the authority to seize only banks.
Giving the Treasury secretary authority over a broader range of companies would mark a significant shift from the existing model of financial regulation, which relies on independent agencies that are shielded from the political process. The Treasury secretary, a member of the president’s Cabinet, would exercise the new powers in consultation with the White House, the Federal Reserve and other regulators, according to the document.
The administration plans to send legislation to Capitol Hill this week. Sources cautioned that the details, including the Treasury’s role, are still in flux.
Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner is set to argue for the new powers at a hearing today on Capitol Hill about the furor over bonuses paid to executives at American International Group, which the government has propped up with about $180 billion in federal aid. Administration officials have said that the proposed authority would have allowed them to seize AIG last fall and wind down its operations at less cost to taxpayers.
The administration’s proposal contains two pieces. First, it would empower a government agency to take on the new role of systemic risk regulator with broad oversight of any and all financial firms whose failure could disrupt the broader economy. The Federal Reserve is widely considered to be the leading candidate for this assignment. But some critics warn that this could conflict with the Fed’s other responsibilities, particularly its control over monetary policy.
The government also would assume the authority to seize such firms if they totter toward failure.
Besides seizing a company outright, the document states, the Treasury Secretary could use a range of tools to prevent its collapse, such as guaranteeing losses, buying assets or taking a partial ownership stake. Such authority also would allow the government to break contracts, such as the agreements to pay $165 million in bonuses to employees of AIG’s most troubled unit.
The Treasury secretary could act only after consulting with the president and getting a recommendation from two-thirds of the Federal Reserve Board, according to the plan.
Geithner plans to lay out the administration’s broader strategy for overhauling financial regulation at another hearing on Thursday.
You see folks, this is where it starts. They start seizing businesses, and taking the assets for themselves. Then the Government decides to take YOUR assets; because they happen to think that you are making too much money. What amazes me, is the resounding silence from the Republicans, especially the Neo-Conservatives like Michelle Malkin and over at HotAir.com. Could it be that the Neo-Conservatives secretly approve of such actions? Possibly the Republican Party as well? Could it be that the Republican Party is now infiltrated with Communists to the point of having lost it’s true identity?
You decide.
Others: The Moderate Voice, Reuters, pw, , The Strata-Sphere,Bloomberg, Washington Monthly, Pajamas Media, Right Wing News, Sweetness & Light, Neptunus Lex, Stop The ACLU, Sister Toldjah, and Fausta’s Blog
(Via Memeorandum)
I post this because I believe that it is interesting. Alex Jones has always struck me as a kook. Someone amongst the “Tin Foil Hat” crowd. However, it is something interesting to watch.
Enjoy…
What do you think? Do you think that there is any truth to this?
Via D=S:
That B. Hussien Obama is a big fat liar. (As are most Democrats.)
This is very interesting…:
President Barack Obama is poised to offer an olive branch to Cuba in an effort to repair the US’s tattered reputation in Latin America.
The White House has moved to ease some travel and trade restrictions as a cautious first step towards better ties with Havana, raising hopes of an eventual lifting of the four-decade-old economic embargo. Several Bush-era controls are expected to be relaxed in the run-up to next month’s Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago to gild the president’s regional debut and signal a new era of “Yankee” cooperation.
The administration has moved to ease draconian travel controls and lift limits on cash remittances that Cuban-Americans can send to the island, a lifeline for hundreds of thousands of families.
“The effect on ordinary Cubans will be fairly significant. It will improve things and be very welcome,” said a western diplomat in Havana. The changes would reverse hardline Bush policies but not fundamentally alter relations between the superpower and the island, he added. “It just takes us back to the 1990s.”
via Obama will use spring summit to bring Cuba in from the cold | World news | The Observer.
Meanwhile:
Caracas – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Friday called upon US President Barack Obama to follow the path to socialism, which he termed as the “only” way out of the global recession. “Come with us, align yourself, come with us on the road to socialism. This is the only path. Imagine a socialist revolution in the United States,” Chavez told a group of workers in the southern Venezuelan state of Bolivar.
The controversial Venezuelan leader, who taunted the United States as a source of capitalistic evil under former president George W Bush, added that the United States needs a leader who can take it to a “higher” destiny and bring it out of “the sad role that it has been given, as a murderous, attacking power that is hated all around the world.”
Chavez said that people are calling Obama a “socialist” for the measures of state intervention he is taking to counter the crisis, so it would not be too far-fetched to suggest that he might join the project of “21st century socialism” that the Venezuelan leader is heading.
“Nothing is impossible. Who would have thought in the 1980s that the Soviet Union would disappear? No one,” he said.
“That murderous, genocidal empire has to end, and some day there has to come a leader … who interprets the best of a people who also include human beings who suffer, endure, weep and laugh,” the outspoken Chavez said.
Coincidence? or just really bad timing? You Decide.
(H/T Drudge)
