Thursday, October 17, 2013

Editorial: GM got bailout, now ships jobs to China

"Saving General Motors from bankruptcy was among President Obama’s most frequently cited achievements when he ran for re-election last year. Democrats everywhere touted the company’s revival as proof of the 2009 bailout’s wisdom. That was then. Now, Obama has quietly released the auto manufacturer from a bailout requirement that it increase its production in the U.S. Instead, GM is spending billions of dollars building up its production capacity in ... China."

This is happening despite the fact that the Treasury Department has to date recovered just $36 billion of its original $51 billion loan to GM. By most analysts’ predictions, American taxpayers will be out approximately $10 billion when the remaining stock is sold off. Which is a long way of saying that it now appears that taxpayers paid $10 billion to make it easier for GM to accelerate its foreign outsourcing and send more manufacturing jobs to China."

It is yet more proof that Mitt Romney was right in the 2012 presidential campaign: GM should have gone through a traditional bankruptcy instead of the politicized farce of a taxpayer-funded bailout and government managed “bankruptcy.” The TARP funds involved could have instead been used to provide liquidity for a managed sale to a private buyer that minimized the opportunities for political interference in the new GM’s operations."

Washington Examiner

21 comments:

Paddy O said...

Too many big words!

Democrats good, Republicans evil!

Some Democrats are more equal than others.

Matt Sablan said...

The consequences! They were unexpected!

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Romney's prophetic words.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Democrats have lorded over De:toilet for how long? How many decades?
And yet they blame Republicans and continue to fuck up the rest of the nation.
go team go!

edutcher said...

The Romster was right - again.

Shouting Thomas said...

Criticizing Obama like this is.... RACIST!

Clearly, anybody who would criticize Obama is a member of the Klan!

Revenant said...

I agree that GM shouldn't have been bailed out, but had they not "shipped jobs to China" taxpayers would lose even more money on the deal. It is a lose/lose scenario.

YoungHegelian said...

Of course, GM is moving production to China. Did the Feds as part of their restructuring of GM make the unions reform their work rules or lower their costs in any way? What, and piss off perhaps the most powerful Democratic lobby? Of course they didn't, you silly person!

So now the Democrats are between a rock & a hard place. If they hold GM to its "keep the jobs in the USA" rule, GM sales tank, maybe GM itself tanks, and the Demos get to explain just how much taxpayer money got shitcanned in their sweetheart deal with GM. Or, they let GM export jobs, and the unions, who the Demos fought so hard to shield from the consequences of their years of folly, just get screwed over anyway.

And, yeah, Romney the heartless android was right. What a surprise that is!

I'm Full of Soup said...

Lem:

Don't forget to include this too in the calculation. The IRS, with no real legal basis, made an exception for GM which allowed it to take tax loss carryforwards worth another $20 Billion or so. That is money we the taxpayers are also losing in this deal.

Methadras said...

Just another example of how government fucks things up even more. Everything they touch shatters into chaos.

Mitch H. said...

Even without a bailout (assuming GM survived a bankruptcy, which seems a fair assumption) they would be expanding in China. The real potential for expansion in car sales for the short-term is China. They aren't going to be selling a lot of new cars in an absolute sense in North America - steal market share from each other and other car companies, yeah, but it's a mature market. China was a virgin automobile market even ten years ago, and it hasn't run out that line yet.

Yeah, the bailout was horrific, but unrelated to the China expansion.

Trooper York said...

It doesn't matter that Romney was right. He is a Mormon and that disqualifies him from being President.

If you don't believe me just ask Crack.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

More crossed messages. The Repub propaganda machine has been on the fritz this month. Either it was really a union bailout or they are shipping union jobs to China. Which is it?

Ignorance is Bliss said...

When President Obama needed union voters, it was a union bailout. That has since changed.

test said...

AReasonableMan said...
More crossed messages. The Repub propaganda machine has been on the fritz this month. Either it was really a union bailout or they are shipping union jobs to China. Which is it?


You can tell a lot about someone by evaluating what evidence they find conclusive. ARM thinks the fact that GM managers made a decision not in furtherance of Obama's goals is proof of something about Republicans.

If he could think straight he wouldn't be a leftist, so I guess we shouldn't be surprised.

bagoh20 said...

"Either it was really a union bailout or they are shipping union jobs to China. Which is it?"

It can be and was both. The union gained clout and ownership in the deal, then like many business owners realized that unions suck. They simply sold out their members for easy money and growth. How surprising. They even have less concern for American jobs than the Japanese.

The left is such sucker for labels, fluff and appearances. A "union" is just a big corrupt organization full of self-interested people who often have a background in thuggery. They will sell out anyone to make sure their own personal income and retirement is protected. Going to China is to protect their holdings, period.

bagoh20 said...

I'd be willing to bet that virtually nobody that has ever gotten a government bailout follows the requirements anymore. You get the money, the release, and then you do what you want, often the same thing that got you in trouble the first time. It pretty much what you would expect, unless you are one to believe in this leftist idea that bad outcomes are just bad luck.

Get ready to hear this excuse a lot in the near future about Obamacare. But if you are a supporter, don't feel bad, because the Republicans are bad and Obama beat them or something. That sucky healthcare, with big bills, and lost access are just bad luck.

Michael Haz said...

Good luck trying unionization in China.

rcocean said...

Funny how Republicans and Libertarians never seem to complain about TARP or bailing out AIG and Goldman Sachs but bailing out GM just really gets their goat.

One reason Romney lost Ohio is he wouldn't shut up about how "Bad" it was to bail out GM and how good it was to bail out AIG.

expected response: "We did complain about TARP and AIG" - maybe but the "complaints" are 10-1 in favor of the GM bailout.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

Funny how Republicans and Libertarians never seem to complain about TARP or bailing out AIG and Goldman Sachs but bailing out GM just really gets their goat.

It's pretty easy to understand once you realize that many of us have looked at the details.

TARP, as originally designed and intended, was a damn good program that helped provide liquidity when it was badly needed, at very little overall cost. The big flaw with it was that the law was written loosely enough that it could be used for things other than liquidity, such as bailing out GM.

Mitch H. said...

If you haven't heard conservatives or libertarians complaining about Goldman Sachs being bailed out, you haven't been listening to many of them, rcocean. Among other reasons, Goldman Sachs is pretty much the farm team of the corporatist Washington ascendency.