Oh what a difference a year makes. It was April last year when a fresh faced POTUS, still riding high and flush on soaring rhetoric and ratings, decided to seize control of Chrysler and GM via Nicorette-filled, back room deals. At that time, Obama fired GM’s CEO, installed a bunch of know-nothing auto czars, and then recently carried thru with his promise he would alter fuel requirements to force restructuring of the production line in order to change a nation’s addiction to combustion engines.
Bold moves for a guy who’s only viable credentials are playing the leading man in elaborate fund raising events, and being a community organizer. But take those “bold
moves this president did, telling the nation it was yet another necessity. And he did so on the taxpayers’ nickel. American’s are on the hook for 61% of GM, and 10% of Chrysler.
And how are they doing? After cash for clunkers conked out, the unsustainable sales fell away as predicted. Again Ford – the only privately owned American auto company left of the big three – remains the only domestic performer. Meanwhile a floundering GM – who posted a $4.3 bil loss for 2009 – and Chrysler (who projected a $4.7 bil loss for 2009), are planning on importing foreign built cars as part of their financial “restructuring”…
Boy, ain’t that good news. Is this what Obama had in mind as “saving or creating jobs”?
But it gets worse for us – the taxpayers. As the banker for Obama’s great auto experiment, we’re also on the hook for the $17 bil in underfunded pension plans for both GM and Chrysler. You’ve got to see the insane aspect to this. The nation’s elderly are in a pickle because Social Security is bust, since Congress has been busy spending it for decades. Meanwhile, the Congress and POTUS who have “saved” us with health care are deliberately delaying that Social Security annual report so they can fudge the numbers with income from “health care”. You know, that ol’ sleight of hand trick: rob Peter to pay Paul, and convince Mary that everything’s cool.
The demented irony is that taxpayers, who’ve paid into the Dem ponzi scheme all their lives, won’t be getting their Social Security.. but they’ll be paying higher taxes in order to provide those GM and Chrysler pensioners their retirement benefits.
WTF? This is sheer madness. How can this be invisible to the nation?
The pension plans at General Motors and Chrysler are underfunded by a total of $17 billion and could fail if the automakers do not return to profitability, according to a government report released Tuesday.
Both companies need to make large payments into the plans within the next five years — $12.3 billion by G.M. and $2.6 billion by Chrysler — to reach minimum funding levels, according to the report, prepared by the Government Accountability Office. Whether the companies will be able to make the payments is uncertain, the report concluded, though Treasury officials expect the automakers will become profitable enough to do so.
If either company’s plan must be terminated, the government would become liable for paying benefits to hundreds of thousands of retirees. The effect on the government’s pension insurer, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, would be “unprecedented,” the report said. The agency manages plans with assets totaling $68.7 billion, less than the $84.5 billion in G.M.’s plan alone.
~~~The report issued Tuesday said Treasury officials were confident that G.M. and Chrysler would earn enough to allow the government to gradually sell its stakes. But the report warned that the government could push the companies out of business, consequently terminating their pension plans, if their recovery efforts failed.
“In the event that the companies do not return to profitability in a reasonable time frame, Treasury officials said that they will consider all commercial options for disposing of Treasury’s equity, including forcing the companies into liquidation,” the report said.
For those who haven’t caught on yet, is the political expedience to destroy Toyota becoming more clear to you yet?
This POTUS is making history all right. He provides vivid lessons in how to begin to dismantle large US corporations in less than a year, and then, stick the US taxpayers with the bill for the wasted bailout loss.
And he’s just getting started….
Vietnam era Navy wife, indy/conservative, and an official California escapee now residing as a red speck in the sea of Oregon blue.