Smartest Prez Evah Loses 14 Billion Dollars On GM Deal
by Big Dog on Jun 1, 2011 at 16:23 Political
After George “we have to abandon capitalism to save it” Bush started lending money to companies like GM, Barack Obama took control and doubled down. He bailed out General Motors and his pals in the unions at the expense of the investors who should have been compensated first. When Obama, with his vast experience in economics, discussed the GM bailout he assured us that it was a good investment and that we would end up making money on the deal.
“American taxpayers are now positioned to recover more than my Administration invested in GM.” — President Obama, November 18, 2010.
“I think the government’s investment is well placed and I think they’ll make a lot of money.” — then Obama appointee GM C.E.O. Ed Whitacre, January 11, 2010. Pajamas Media (which links to the source articles)
It looks like that is not quite right as the same Obama who told us we would profit is now telling us that we will lose 14 BILLION dollars. That means, ladies and gentlemen, that the 50% of us who pay taxes will lose 14 BILLION dollars because Obama invested our money unwisely.
Let us break this down. Obama (following Bush) told us that GM needed to be bailed out and then he used our money to bail them out. He then told us it was a good deal and we would see a profit on our money. Now he is telling us that we will lose 14 BILLION dollars.
So somebody tell me why Bernie Madoff is in jail and Obama is not?
Will those of us who pay taxes be allowed to write off this bad investment? Can we reduce our tax burden by 20% (the percentage of our money that the government lost)?
How can anyone claim that this program was a success when it cost us 14 BILLION dollars?
How come GM is not forced to keep paying us from its profits until the debt (plus interest) is paid? How dare the Democrats cry about oil companies getting over on us when GM is bending us over big time?
GM and Chrysler should have been allowed to fail. Ford made it and is in a stronger position.
I, along with many others, will never buy a GM or Chrysler product again (which is a shame because I love my Jeep).
Perhaps this is why Obama and his toadies want to win the individual mandate case in Obamacare. If the courts rule they can force us to buy a product will it be very long before they force us to buy GM products?
Good luck with that. You will need it.
Cave Canem!
Never surrender, never submit.
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Tags: bailout, bernie madoff, gm, lies, lost money, Obama, profit/loss
“So somebody tell me why Bernie Madoff is in jail and Obama is not?”
Because Madoff is a crook. Obama can’t control the price of the stock and his administration also sold some too early making it harder to profit later this year. Things were rosier in November when he made that statement.
“How can anyone claim that this program was a success when it cost us 14 BILLION dollars?”
It has to do with goals again. The goal was not to make a profit, that would have just been a bonus. The goal was to prevent the company from going under and hurting the economy even more. It succeeded at that.
“If the courts rule they can force us to buy a product will it be very long before they force us to buy GM products?”
They won’t need to. They’ll sell out of their share before the year is up at a loss (or a gain, however unlikely) to be determined at that date and that will be that.
say all you want, it’s still a LOSE OF 14 BILLION TAX PAYERS DOLLARS
By the same definition the stimulus and the other bailouts are massive losses that make the 14 billion here look like a joke. The reality is though that the measures saved millions of jobs and sped the economy toward recovery instead of deepening the recession.
While Obama did paint a rosy picture late last year, I’m pretty sure no one promised we would break even or make a profit when this was passed. In fact I seem to remember the right saying we’d never see a dime of it back.
Yes, the right did say that. However, as I quoted, Obama said we would see a profit.
The stimulus saved jobs? How do you measure that? We have a net loss of jobs over that time and if they counted actual unemployment and measured inflation accurately the situation would not be as rosy as you think. When you spend money at massive losses then it is not stimulative, it is waste.
The whole thing has been a big waste of money. We would be in much better shape had we not wasted so much.
“Yes, the right did say that. However, as I quoted, Obama said we would see a profit.”
Unless you know of another quote (I can’t find one but it may exist), Obama only said that late last year when it appeared true. This depended on stock prices and the timing of selling shares.
“The stimulus saved jobs? How do you measure that?”
Again with this? An economist develops a model to predict how the economy would have behaved without stimulus and compares that to how it did. Groups like CBO, IHS Global Insight, Macroeconomic Advisors, and Mark Zandi have independently studied the stimulus and concluded it created or saved between 1.5 and 3.5 million jobs.
“We have a net loss of jobs over that time…”
Again with this too? Why do you repeat things that are so obviously misleading? Yes, there is a net loss. No, the stimulus was never supposed to create a net increase. It’s that simple. It’s just like above. The bailout was never designed to create a profit, it just appeared for a while that it might and that was bonus.
“We would be in much better shape had we not wasted so much.”
Again, based on expert models and studies of this idea, it has not been found true in the least. The bailouts had decent success, the stimulus grew GDP and had a positive impact on jobs. You can keep saying otherwise but what do you base that on?
Economists make models and then are surprised when things are not what they expected. If they are always surprised they are not very good at what they do.
The stimulus was touted as the saving grace. Biden and Obama both declared the job numbers would be great and biden told us something like 200k a month. Then we had Summer of Recovery that did not pan out with what they said. They told us 8% UE with stimulus and we had 10 and have been above 8 ever since. They touted it as one thing and then changed to another. You can carry that water but they did it and you know they did it.
If we had allowed capitalism to take its course GM would have restructured or gone out of business and been taken over. Other companies would have made similar adjustments. We were failed by quasi capitalism and government interference. We were failed by fannie, freddie and the CRA as well as government intrusion, social engineering and political correctness.
And the continuation of liberal policies that got us here are what is keeping the bad economy rolling along. Keep saying it is getting better long enough and people will start to believe it (you are proof) but it is not getting better.
Yeah, it was all a huge success.
And don’t trot out the Obama economists. Every month they are suprised by the numbers. If they are continually suprised, shocked or whatever modifier of the day is used, then they are no experts, they are hacks.
Florida finally gets it.
It’s true that numbers are down recently. A lot of the numbers depend on overseas factors like Japan’s manufacturing slowdown due to the earthquake. There’s also the price of oil. We could get a good job number out tomorrow or we could get a bad one. Either way a few weeks doesn’t make up for several years of mostly good news.
Trot out the Obama economists? Like who?
“There’s also the price of oil.” Yes, Adam , there IS that… and the price of oil can be manipulated (made to recede in price) if we (Or in this case Bari) could order the EPA to cease with its mind-numbing array of new regs, and hurry the permitting process for oil exploration along- oh- it would be good if we could drill off of East and West Coasts, as well as ANWR and anyplace we could poke a straw.
Just the announcement might help(although the Europeans and OPEC both know what a liar Bari is, so maybe not)- Still, by putting more oil on the market, the price would go down somewhat. It really IS that simple.
None of the things you list will lower the price of oil in the short term and they’re certainly not the cause of high prices now. Your side has got to stop focusing on the supply side of the curve and get focused on the demand side. Americans aren’t stupid enough to fall for the lies of the oil industry lobby and their mouthpieces in the Republican Party. We know we’d risk ecological disaster while having only minimal impact on production levels or oil prices. It’s not worth it.
Liberals are, I guess, too stupid to recognize that MORE oil= lower prices. It is simple- perhaps that is why the logic escapes you . Ecological disaster? Please- scare tactics might work on the indigenous tribes of San Francisco, but for the rest of us, we know that US companies have a better safety record than any other oil companies on earth. The risk comes in the TRANSPORT of oil, a la Valdez- tankers can lose oil easier than platforms.
Katrina, Rita, Gustav, and Ike all went directly over the oilfields in the Gulf, and there was no spillage, so don’t try to piss down my back and tell me its raining.
“If they are always surprised they are not very good at what they do.”
Some are surprised, yes. It’s not an exact science but it’s what has been used for a long time and gets better over time.
“They told us 8% UE with stimulus and we had 10 and have been above 8 ever since.”
They estimated and hoped for 8%, yes. They didn’t promise 8%. No matter how many times you say it you can’t make it any less of a lie.
“They touted it as one thing and then changed to another. You can carry that water but they did it and you know they did it.”
No, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Expectations have remained the same though the results were not as successful as hoped due to the recession being deeper than originally projected.
“Keep saying it is getting better long enough and people will start to believe it (you are proof) but it is not getting better.”
Now you’re projecting. You’re the one saying it’s bad hoping people catch on to your lies. Month after month we’ve gotten decent numbers for the last year and a half. We’ve had a few setbacks but in general we’re well into recovery. Stocks are doing OK, job growth is decent this year, the chance of a double dip is still low, and risk from inflation is still low.
We’ve had trouble in the Middle East, disaster in Japan, and disasters at home. Gas prices are hurting right now. Home sales aren’t great and inventory is still high. But all things considered the economy is still OK. Keep your head in the sand all you want but things are getting better.
Yes, things are going so well and I am ignoring them with my head in the sand. Perhaps the sand is where I heard this stuff:
“Bill Clinton’s labour secretary Robert Reich summed up the grim mood in a hard-hitting op-ed in The Financial Times, which took aim at both the administration and Congress:
The US economy was supposed to be in bloom by late spring, but it is hardly growing at all. Expectations for second-quarter growth are not much better than the measly 1.8 per cent annualised rate of the first quarter. That is not nearly fast enough to reduce America’s ferociously high level of unemployment… Meanwhile, housing prices continue to fall. They are now 33 per cent below their 2006 peak. That is a bigger drop than recorded in the Great Depression. Homes are the largest single asset of the American middle class, so as housing prices drop many Americans feel poorer. All of this is contributing to a general gloominess. Not surprisingly, consumer confidence is also down. Telegraph”
Or this:
CNBC
Or this
Or this
Or this
Or this
Then again, maybe I am just not seeing things the correct way. But I refuse to drink that Kool Aid…
Don’t get me wrong. I agree that not every thing is rosy and I say that a lot. You ignore all positive signs and find any negative sign that will prop up your early theory that everything was headed over the cliff starting with the election of Obama. I’ll tell you the negative and the positive and let you know I think more things are headed in the right direction than the wrong.
The numbers do not lie, Adam- it’s 9.1 now, and we are going for that double dip recession I said we would- I had hoped we wern’t, but knew in my heart that what your guy was doing was just jacking with the system , with
no knowledge of economics- face it- he is a know-nothing incompetent in the presidency at a time when we, as a nation, cannot afford a jackoff like him.
Just thinking that he is the smartest man in the room doesn’t make it so- it just makes him a legend in his own mind, nothing more.
Apparently GM made a profit of 3 billion in the first quarter of 2011.This doesn’t change the fact that we are still owed 14 billion and taxpayers will have to pay this.
However anything that comes from the Obama administration is never to be believed.He is not commander in chief but liar in chief.
The terrific debt of this country can only occur by the Fed and goverment interventionist policies which for the most part are unconstitutional.How can any country be in this kind of debt if its economic principles are sound, truthful,honest-and there is plenty of corruption to go around.
What we are experiencing is not even the beginning.You haven’t seen anything yet.
Obama is a liberal and a Chicago thug where anything goes.He has the morals of a stone.Anything goes and he completely ignores his role as President and undermines the Constitution every chance he gets.
He is Public Enemy No1 and make no mistake about it.
We know nothing about him but can say that he has been groomed for this for a long time possibly even before he was born.He is devilish and a very dangerous and evil thing.
He knows exactly what he is doing and it is iintentionally malignant knowing in an uncanny way the predictable outcome of his actions.
In short there is nothing good to say about him.And the beat goes on and on.
Bruce Barron