The Democrats’ False Narrative on the Auto Industry
In early December, unhappy with the automakers’ restructuring plans, the Senate voted down a taxpayer bailout, but lame-duck president George W. Bush, by executive order, overrode Section 102 of the TARP funding, meant to provide bridge loans to prop up failing financial institutions while they came up with restructuring plans, and issued them to GM and Chrysler. This turned out to be not only (probably) illegal, but a terrible policy, because it gave the Obama administration an excuse, as a “watchdog on the taxpayers’ money,” to interfere with what should have been a properly structured bankruptcy for both companies when it came into power in January, to aid its political allies.
What Jennifer Granholm and others need to understand is that in fact both GM and Chrysler did file for bankruptcy, and did restructure. But rather than doing it before an impartial bankruptcy judge with a negotiation between the companies and their creditors, as a major (new) creditor, the federal government (Obama’s federal government) became the arbiter instead, screwing the existing bondholders. Rather than the UAW being forced to renegotiate the terms of its contracts with those companies that had been a partial cause of their financial failure, the administration simply handed part of them over to the union, with an arbitrary amount of stock in return for their pension obligations, and converting its own debt to stock.
What would have happened had the government not stepped in? Well, we know what wouldn’t have happened. It wouldn’t have been the end of the auto industry in America. Honda, Nissan, Toyota, Mercedes and the other companies would have continued to manufacture cars in the U.S. without missing a beat. It wouldn’t even have been the end of the American auto industry, because Ford never received any government funds, and they have actually been pulling thousands of jobs back from Mexico and Asia to the U.S. Chrysler and GM would have probably continued in some form, and undergone a proper restructuring, including renegotiation of the union contracts to make them competitive once more. In the worst case, liquidation, Ford (or someone else, perhaps even a startup) could have acquired their assets and expanded its own production to satisfy the demand created by the disappearance of the two companies.
That is, contra the latest false narrative of the campaign, Obama didn’t “save the car companies from bankruptcy,” let alone “save the auto industry” — he simply saved the UAW, the administration’s political ally, from a bankruptcy judge. Judge Gerber’s ruling in July of 2009 was simply a rubber stamp of a corrupt government restructuring by fiat.
Thank you for clarifying Romney’s actual statement in his original article. I never knew about this.
In picking winners and losers, Obama definitely hurt the auto industry based in the South, by funneling so much money to GM and Chrysler. He also sought to punish Toyota for moving its Fremont, CA work to Texas, by investigating and harassing them. Even if some of the GM/Chrysler nameplates had perished without a bailout, the southern based auto companies would have easily replaced the missing supply of autos, by adding more lines, producing more cars, and hiring more workers. There is also Mitsubishi, which is expanding its plants in the north to build Outlanders.
It’s just absurd to say that Obama saved the auto industry, when there were and are so many solvent and healthy auto companies in the USA.
How about the all out assault on Toyota regarding unintended acceleration in many different models, across different model years? IIRC, more than 900 lawsuits. Coordinated?
All those cases were dismissed as “driver error.”
It is impossible, even if one wanted to, to build-in a failure modality across multiple different mechanical linkages, in conjunction with multiple different s/w versions, and make it undiscoverable.
So who was behind that legal attack?
Trial lawyers looking for Deep Pockets, most likely.
Audi was similarly blamed for “unintended acceleration” back in the 1980s.
Yes, and “60 Minutes” tried to inflame the story with a rigged accelerator in a car. “Fake but Accurate” as an operating motto of CBS News dates to well before the 2004 faked national guard memos.
“It is impossible, even if one wanted to, to build-in a failure modality across multiple different mechanical linkages, in conjunction with multiple different s/w versions, and make it undiscoverable”
Unfortunately, in many of today’s cars that’s no longer true (no personal knowledge of Toyota to know if it was applicable in their cases). There are a growing number of cars where the throttle is purely electronic with no physical connection to the throttle petal – AND – that same computer controls the anti-lock brakes. So the wrong line of code could conceivably floor the accelerator and disable the brakes. As to undiscoverable – with a single car containing tens (and sometimes hundreds) of thousands of lines of code, not only is keeping errors out of the code near impossible, finding a rogue line of code is similarly difficult.
I deal with flight critical software in commercial aircraft – what we refer to as “level A” – where a mistake can kill hundreds of people. And I am sometimes shocked at the errors that sometimes make it through all the layers of checks.
Again, not to dismiss the conflict of interest of a government that is partial owner of a car company investigating (and smearing) a rival car company. Just pointing out that as cars become increasingly complex and integrated, the risk of true unintended acceleration beyond driver control is increasing.
td
What actually happened was that GM did go through a bankruptcy proceeding, one that was politically corrupted by the Democrats in support of the UAW and vice versa.
So this idea that bankruptcy would have killed GM or the American automobile industry is a bald faced lie….because that is exactly what happened.
@ A ball faced lie……That is all we can expect when we are dealing with TRASH like this gangster mob from S.S. Chicago…What have we done as a nation to deserve this kind of Gvt…..
I agree completely with the description of events and the conclusions of the article. But I suspect that most PJMedia readers already knew all of this. To me, the most troubling aspect of the auto bailouts wasn’t that the government threw about 50 billion dollars at the UAW (which is a mere few hundred thousand votes), as bad as that was. The truly galling thing is that the Republicans under GWBush (and McCain) had already gone along with the Democrats (and their guy Henry Paulsen) in throwing almost a trillion dollars at the banking industry without batting an eyelash. That is, it was Republican cowardice toward the possibility of the banking industry being forced to restructure that left people with the idea that what was good for the white collar banksters was good for the blue collar schmucks on the assembly line. This is just another example of how Republican failure laid the groundwork for the monster Hussein’s ascendancy.
I wholeheartedly agree. There has been bipartisan looting of the Treasury during the past few years, probably for decades actually, but really seriously beginning under Bush43. I just hope that Romney has the strength and the integrity to save the country from bankruptcy, if he can just get elected.
But you have to go at least one step further in determining cause and affect, i.e. why did the banking industry need to be bailed out? What else could politicians do once having enabled financial institutions to become too big to fail and then providing them with a political backdrop that encouraged – actually demanded – such recklessness?
It is so aggravating that politicians can cause so many problems and then escape consequences by blaming the free market and the private sector. They really have three primary jobs wrt the private sector: 1) Protect individual liberties and property rights, 2) maintain our common property and provide a safe and lawful environment in which to live and work and 3) prevent collusion and monopolization of certain resources and markets.
We are all poorer since government has grossly expanded beyond those areas.
An excellent and accurate comment my friend. Speak out often and loudly. We need many more clear voices as the election nears.
The root cause of the banking crisis was an act by the Clinton Administration to make the “American Dream” possible for inner city residents. They forced banks to award mortgages to unqualified applicants, that had no hope of paying back even the interest of those loans. The banks knew this and packaged them, and sold them as mortgage backed investments. When the inevitable defaults came, that is what caused the banks to nearly collapse.
These facts is what resulted in the formation of the Tea Party for less govt. spending.
These facts is what resulted in the formation of the Tea Party for less govt. spending and term limits.
I used to think this way, but recently I read somewhere that the reason the GM bailout was necessary, in lieu of a proper bankruptcy, was because no lending institution could have lent as much money to GM as it would have needed as a debtor-in-possession. Frankly I don’t know what the counter-argument is.
The alternative would have been that GM would have been either broken up into several separate entities, or completely and totally restructured through a leveraged investment takeover. It might mean no more GM as we know it, but it would not mean no more auto industry. This could have been done by other automakers As we’ve seen dozens of times in the past with various US and European automakers combining, and separating. Latest free market example being Tata of India and the Britsh Jaguar. Chrysler was in a much better position, as talks were already underway with Fiat. Had that deal been able to go through on its own without government interference or funding, Chrysler and Fiat would be better off.
It arguably may have been “necessary” (i.e., better for the U.S. economy), that rather than the Judiciary doing a normal (and Constitutional) bankruptcy, the Executive had to dictate something more quickly, and throw in some federal money. However, when the Executive arbitrarily decides that hourly workers making much higher wages than anywhere else in the industry, shouldn’t have to give back anything on wages, he has not improved the firms’ long-term viability, he has reduced it. And when the Executive arbitrarily gives the UAW, the union that backed him, hundreds of millions more than their share, while screwing the 20,000 nonunion employees of Delphi, that is corruption. And when the Executive further decides to screw the senior bond holders, contrary to the contractual terms under which they lent the money, that is both contrary to law and highly damaging to all corporations needing debt financing, as no one is eager to lend money to firms knowing that debt contracts are now less important than which union donates time and money to the President. Expanding this lawless and corrupt form of bankruptcy and crony capitalism, which President Obama apparently wants to do, will inevitably lead to a long-term decline of what is left of our economy.
Not to mention closing down dealerships across the country on a purely partisan basis. Businessmen who donated to the gop found their dealerships gone and in some cases given to their competitors based soley upon who contributed what to which party.
At the time of the bankruptcy, GM was running a bit shy of 30% market share for new sales; some 13-million vehicles. Even if bankruptcy had resulted in the end of GM, that demand would have been picked up by the other manufacturers. Jobs were NOT going to be lost – relocated maybe, but not lost. It was the UAW that was at risk, not the auto industry.
That whole meme of ‘saving millions of jobs’ is pure bull. Our financial geniuses scorn supply-side economics; by this GM crapola they have demonstrated that they do not understand demand-side economics either.
Why do we even listen to them, much less pay them?
Both parties share responsibility for this debacle. It appears taxpayers will be out roughly $25 billion when all is said and done. Restructuring could have been accomplished through traditional bankruptcy, but this would not have allowed the UAW to keep its sweetheart deals, past and present, while bondholders got nil. Romney was right then and is right now. Obama was and is the most corrupt political manipulator of our time.
While not a fan of bailouts, GWB’s was far different than BHO’s. First much, much smaller. Secondly, it said and did nothing about controlling or manipulating. It was simply a bridge loan.
This was a U.S. government’s management of G.M. and Chrysler bankruptcy to bailout the unions at the expense of the bondholders and the nonunionized salaried employees. O’Dismal always makes sure he takes care of his donor base.
“Bin Laden is dead, and so is the U.S. Ambassador to Libya.”
I think Biden’s claim should be reworked as “Yeah, Bin Laden is dead, but Al Qaida is very much alive. And GM? It’s on life support.”
Thanks for the insight that Dubya also made a dubious legal move in that
whole sorry episode. While what Obama did was absolutely scandalous, this is the first I heard that Bush (whom, but for his profligate spending, I admire) did anything remotely shady with regards to TARP.
Remember when what eventually became TARP just had to be passed by Congress in a huge rush because without it we faced TEOTWAWKI? That the banking system would freeze up, ATMs might cease working, payrolls not be met, bills go unpaid, blah blah blah? And then the bailout bill failed to pass and Congress took a month to
decorate the Christmas tree of a must-pass billnegotiate then pass TARP?After the public witnessed those follies, do you really think most people outside the financial press are taking all the talk about a “fiscal cliff” seriously? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me again… uh uh, ain’t gonna fool me again.
I grew up in a UAW family. My dad, uncles and many cousins worked the assembly lines. Except for one uncle who was in management.
He sat in on many contract negotiation sessions in the 1960s and 1970s.
As a teenager I can recall one Christmas Eve family gathering when he said that the way things were going with the union demands and GM caving in time-after-time, that eventually General Motors would go bankrupt.
I place this to be around 1970 or 1971.
Of course all the union members in the family, including my dad, pooh-poohed the idea as being absurd.
Those were the days of “what’s good for General Motors is good for the country.”
And that is actually true in this case. Our country needs to declare bankruptcy and reboot to the lean government that the Founding Fathers intended.
I remember that! I grew up in southeastern Michigan and we had the same dinner table conversations when we were kids.
My Dad was a engineer, frustrated at how dysfunctional his work place had become. Our lease cars were getting less and less reliable. The kids at school regaled each other with how their fathers screwed up the Cadillacs he was assembling. Other kids couldn’t wait to drop out and go work on the line…
Now we see how all that turned out.
I also worked in and around the auto industry in the 70s. From where I sat, I could see the crushing affect of the unions on GM’s production quality and costs. But higher management also had a lot to answer for. Collectively they seemed a lot like the upper bureaucratic levels of academia and government today. You do the best you can while accepting the political realities of strong unionization. Job one under such circumstances is to keep your resume updated and your golden parachute well secured.
My grandfather was president of the local branch of his union. He realized that the union demands were not viable, the union was asking for more than the mill could make, that the demands would destroy the mill. Though it was a union shop, he managed to leave the union and tried to counter their influence. The union members just wanted bigger checks. Eventually he retired and not long after the mill went bankrupt. It reopened. And went bankrupt again. It partially reopened and then closed permanently. Now it rusts away. The town is now popular with retired people because of all the cheap empty houses.
IIRC, the justification Bush put out for the EO is that GMAC was and is a financial institution with a fairly large impact if it went down. He didn’t pull it completely out of thin air.
The entity known as General Motors in January 2009 no longer makes motor vehicles. It even sold its name.
Ford is doing just fine. They resisted the administration’s pressure to accept money in exchange for control. They were confident that Obama knew how to run something…his mouth. And a deficit.
I have faith in American manufacturing. Like many things AO (after Obama), they will be stronger.
27% of GM autos are made in the USA. The company was granted to the UAW and the bondholders were given 10% on their dollar. GM does not have to pay Fed Income Tax for 5 years.
Obama’d end game for the national debt is to run it up to where it can’t be paid or serviced and then declare insolvency. Screw the US Gov’t bondholders as they are all rich and they don’t need the money exactly like General Motors’ previous bondholders. He will find a way to make Goldman Sachs whole however.
What most people don’t realize is that neither China nor Japan nor Brazil etc. hold the majority of our national debt. Most of our debt is held by Americans. As in your 401k, as in your IRA, as in your pension. Imagine for a minute all your invested money, including your retirement, suddenly being halved, quartered or penniless. Even if your money is not in US bonds, it is likely the stocks you have are in companies that have some of their assets invested in bonds. And Social Security, if it’s still alive, would likely go down as well. That’s what America not paying its 16 Trillion debt would mean.
And to think, it only took conservatives three years to belatedly try to hold Obama’s feet to the fire over this illegal fiasco. And they are trying to do so only after the Dems are already using the myth they created as an election jingo. Conservatives always hit quick and hard on issues like abortion or flag waiving, but they never even try to hold Dems accountable for the out and out lies. Thanks for the fine article based in the facts, Mr. Simberg. But, on this issue and many others, we look like the bloodied guardian of the bridge in “The Holy Grail”. How are you going to undo three years of myth making in the next six weeks in the minds of all of these Honey Boo Boo voters? Better late than never, as we always end up saying. ABO2012
See?!? THIS person is what is wrong with the country. THIS person conveniently forgets that the gop was in such a minority (starting in Jan of 07) that they were literally LOCKED out of democrat meetings in congress when the dems decided to to sell off the country and bankrupt it. That the dems had a bullet proof majority and didn’t even have the numbers to filibuster in the senate as the dems pushed through one lousy piece of legislation after another.
THIS person has forgotten (or never KNEW) that the whole point of the 2010 election was to at least get enough people in there to put a break on the God-forsaken dems and their plan to dismantle this country. There was NEVER going to be enough seats in 2010 to get anything actually done – but we could slow THEM down.
In Mr. Baker’s defense, I don’t think he was talking about lack of legislation or lack of GOP attempts to block the auto bailout – but rather about their campaign tactics. He is right that the GOP does not counteract Progressive lies and disinformation campaigns often enough or hard enough. While they are saying “Obama saved the Auto Industry and killed Bin Laden”, The GOP should be saying “he wasted billions of your money on an illegal bailout of his UAW cronies ” and “He took so much credit for killing Bin Laden that it got our ambasador to Libya killed also” . That the Dems can get away with such lame and mendacious sloganeering is beyond pathetic.
Mike, both you and Jim Baker fail to consider the mainstream news media, that covers for the Democrats. For Republicans, getting the message out is not that easy. What station would carry a message on the 6 o’clock news that “the unions were bailed out by Obama” at the expense of bondholders? They would instead show a clip of Biden or Obama bragging about saving GM. The media attitude was like Obama said – “You lost. Get over it”. They are shills for the Democrats.
Absent from all this discussion is the loss of 20,000 jobs at Delco, hundreds of dealerships closed, some of which had been family owned for decades, along with the loss of all the jobs and services associated with these businesses. GM may be alive for now, but it cost more than just bond holder money, it cost the welfare of thousands. I won’t criticize Biden for this claim, it’s unfair to be critical of someone cognitively challenged.
Granholm = Wasserman-Schultz (with slightly better hair)
The obfuscation of what “bankruptcy” means, what Romney said and meant, and what Obama actually did is being replicated in the non-issue Obama is fomenting over Romney’s taxes.
Obama and his surrogates have accused Romney of “tax avoidance.” Tax avoidance is perfectly legal; everybody who has ever taken a deduction for anything, from home mortgage to dependents to business expenses or losses, has engaged in it. Taxpayers are, indeed, encouraged to engage in tax avoidance by making use of the legitimate deductions available to them.
It is tax evasion that is illegal, not “avoidance.” Many of the Obama Administration’s top people engaged in tax evasion, by simply not paying their taxes—including the current Secretary of the Treasury. Charles Rangel was convicted of tax evasion, too—and he is only one of many Democrats who have been caught in this activity.
In accusing Romney of “tax avoidance,” the Obama campaign is playing upon the ignorance of an electorate which does not understand the fundamental difference between the legitimate “avoidance” and the illegitimate “evasion.” By the same token, by falsely suggesting that “bankruptcy” necessarily involves the cessation of a business rather than restructuring—and by trumpeting Bain’s closing of businesses which could not be successfully saved by restructuring—the campaign is seeking to create a false impression among the ignorant of Romney’s actual position.
Another obfuscation is the cannard that Romney is paying taxes at a lower rate than the Average Joe – completely leaving out the part that he hasn’t actually had a job in the last few years (i.e. no income) but is living on and paying a second tax on the capital gains income he’s received from stocks he invested in.
Something they encourage all of us to do.
I will never buy a GM or Chrysler product again because of our government’s shenanigans on both sides of the aisle. I won’t buy Ford or Harley Davidson either, but only because I refuse to support the USW or UAW.
bin Laden is no longer driving his Chevy Volt, and neither is anybody else.
GARY SHILLING: Here’s Why There’s No Housing Recovery And Prices Will Collapse Another 20% Matthew Boesler | Sep. 19, 2012,
http://www.businessinsider.com/gary-shilling-no-housing-bottom-in-sight-2012-9
Gallup Poll: Number Of Americans Who Don’t Trust The MSM Hits All-Time High, 60%…
http://weaselzippers.us/2012/09/21/gallup-poll-number-of-americans-who-dont-trust-the-msm-hits-all-time-high-60/
Amazing stat on Stossel last night (well, I saw it last night on TiVo).
In the last 20 years, Toyota has added 15,000 jobs in the US.
GM has shed 400,000 jobs in the US
If true astounding, and I don’t see this trend reversing anytime soon.
Three unrelated reports, about GM:
(27 May 2012) In 2009, Czar Obama gave $49.5 billion in bailout money to Government Motors (GM). GM knew what to do with this money. It created jobs in China, where it has 2,700 dealerships. GM’s Cadillac division sponsored a movie produced by the Communist Party of China that praises the history of the founding of the Party. The head of GM bragged in a speech in China that 70% of GM’s cars are made outside the U.S. (Source: 25 May 2012 Tea Party Economist)
(22 Aug. 2012) In May 2011, Greg Martin (executive director of communications strategy for Government Motors) said that Shanghai GM “is a completely separate and distinct business entity based in China that has no organizational or financial ties whatsoever” with the Detroit company. “It is not GM” Martin said then. “It is not GM money. And it is in no shape or form, or indirectly, taxpayer money.” In July 2012, Martin said Shanghai GM is GM … We make money, they make money.” Why the contradictory statements? In 2011, he wanted to convince taxpayers that bailout money was not being spent in China. In 2012, he wanted to make sure sales in China were included in GM’s total. Toyota bounced back from safety recalls and natural disasters, selling 4.97 million vehicles globally in the first half of the year to retake its crown as the world’s top vehicle maker from GM. (Sources: 25 July 2012 The Globe and Mail, 30 July Daily Caller)
(27 Aug. 2012) Yes, Government Motors really is giving $520-590 million to an English soccer club. In return, Manchester United will wear “Chevrolet” on their jerseys. (Source: 31 July 2012 Reuters)
Just can’t make this stuff up!!! God Bless America. Amen.
The lies just keep on rolling in from the Democrats.
All the bailout really did was help the Unions and get rid of Saturn because its plant was in a Non Union Right To Work State at the taxpayers expense. Pretty much par for the course wit
h every policy and action from this administration. Taking our country down and further in debt since 2009.
Why is Mr. Obama even running again when he said he would cut the debt in half his first term and has done nothing but make everything worse with his administrations failed policies.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaQUU2ZL6D8
This treatment of the bondholders of GM and Chrysler has devastated the bond market. A bond is simply a loan to another party, and the terms of the loan hinge upon the risk and reward of the repayment in an open, legal, and competitive market for loan money. The US government simply said, “Kings X” to these companies lenders, and said the money does not have to be repaid, per the law. Why? So that the unions would support Obama. There are retirees eating dog food because they put their retirement funds in a purchase of safe GM bonds.
This legalized theft cries to heaven for vengeance. Is there any wonder why money is not being loaned now? Buyer beware has been replaced by only suckers believe in the law.
There is no reason why any American should buy a GM product ever again. But our larger, unsolvable problem is weighing which political party cheated the most for the too-big-to-fail 1%, and ripped the 99%, us?
Conservatives has two enormous problems to overcome. First, too many “Americans” are lazy and stupid. An informed public would not put up with the lies and exaggerations. Obama understands that and simply feeds these people lies in the form of one liners that are easy for these morons to remember. I’m angry about this because I believe it is these people who are allowing Obama to even compete and thereby running the risk of me and my children living in slavery. He should be 15 points behind in the polls by now with his record. The second significant hurdle is a lying and traitorous media. I hope that someday these people will be held to account for their actions. Without a free press and a media that is doing their job, corrupt leaders like Obama easily manipulate the media and we loose our freedom as a result. This corrupt media is the reason we are just now vetting Obama’s background from his childhood and where he came from. The problem is this disgusting media lap dog for Obama won’t report any of the information. God help us.
GM will die. Many of my lifelong GM driving friends, are switching to Ford trucks, knowing full well the razzing I am going to do!
I think the issue is more complex. Yes the Rattner group acting for the Adminiistration put the auto union ahead of the Indiana union pensioners, reversing their claimant status in bankruptcy. But, in the end, what did the auto union get? All they got was monetary promises for their retiree healthcare. What did they have before this all happens back in 2007 or so, monetary promises for their retiree’s healthcare.
Also, the auro union had to agree to the deal. If they hadn’t, the Indianna bond holders quite well might have gotten less on the dollar.
But what about the industry? Perhaps, GM would have had to shed more brands. Surely, Opel might have been putting on the chopping block, which would have reduced GM’s ability to engineer small cars around the world since that is what Opel does for
them. And, who knows, GMC might have had to go. But aren’t Chevy trucks professional grade too? Would that have been a loss? And maybe a Chinese firm would buy Buick.
GM got too big and too isolated from reality, as did their union. Something had to change. The force of competition from Asia and Europe changed the American auto market place and the American companies had to change or disappear. Rattner’s group did
change GM and Chrysler. A more radical housecleaning might have done more. But only by changing and changing a lot could
GM and Chrsler ever hope to survive.
change.
Fascism.
Now you know what it is.
I think the situation is a lot simpler than everyone is suggesting.
Had GM gone bankrupt, a bankruptcy referee would have parceled out the assets and determined who got paid and in what proportion. As it occurred, Obama decided who got what and in what proportion, and the Government ( taxpayers ) are left holding the bag. The auto industry suppliers would have been damaged to some extent for a period of time, but the auto industry as a whole would have recovered very nicely. There are innumerable sources of vehicles in the USA with or without GM and they would have all seen their slice of the pie increase. GM was a poorly run business, destroyed by the unions, and deserved to go bankrupt. Anyone who says differently, even other auto companies, just fear the wrath of the Obama Administration. It is the Government that is now propping up Gm with subsidies and vehicle purchases. On a personal note, I will never buy a GM vehicle again. I believe that a lot of others feel the same. GM
has destroyed the economic lives of many people. The Obama Administration took care of the rest. ( The common shareholders,
the bondholders, non-union pensioners, all who have lost everything or a large percentage of the value of their assets ).
As an airline pilot, I still find it amazing that two administrations were willing to bailout the auto industry. The previous administration was reluctant to bailout the airline industry in the wake of 9/11. Several carriers either declared BK or completely went out of business.
Fiat, Italy govt to examine export-focused measures September 22, 2012|Reuters
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-09-22/classified/sns-rt-us-fiatbre88l0an-20120922_1_fiat-chief-executive-italy-s-fiat-fiat-plans
Do you know where the GM jobs, and money went? After the bailout with U.S. taxpayer dollars? Here is where they went!
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=Lvl5Gan69Wo
Dana Perino said it best when Bob Beckel used the obama/biden bumper sticker. Beckel “GM is alive , osama is dead” , Dana’s reply was perfect, ‘How’s our ambassador to Libya?? She was kinda p o’d when she said it to. just the right amount of ‘bite’…
The only thing Obama saved was the UAW.