I consider the GM and Chrysler bankruptcies armed robbery by the US Government.
Not content with looting secured bondholders of almost $5.6 billion, the US Treasury decides to take what little is left in "old Chrysler" so secured creditors will get none of the remaining $2 bllion in assets.
Treasury sent the notice of default on Aug. 13, said old Chrysler, now known as Old Carco LLC, in a bankruptcy court filing today. The U.S. government lent Old Carco $3.34 billion to complete its bankruptcy, according to the filing.
Old Carco said it was negotiating with Treasury to "address" the default. The best assets of the old company were sold to a group led by SpA. Old Carco has now reported an $11.8 billion loss on the Fiat sale, leading to a net loss of $10.2 billion in June, court records show.
The company's private creditors, who lent Chrysler $6.9 billion and expected to get about $2 billion back from the Fiat sale, might get nothing if the Treasury demanded payment of its loans, said the lawyer for a group of creditors who tried to block the Fiat deal earlier this year.
"Having stripped Chrysler's first lien lenders of $5 billion in connection with the sham sale of Chrysler's assets to a shell corporation, Treasury is now trying to make it difficult for the lenders to recover any of their losses from the scraps that were left behind," said Thomas Lauria, who represented the group, in an e-mail today. Anyone see this in the press until today? I sure didn't.
As I said: armed robbery. It cannot be allowed to stand.
I'm afraid it will stand. The Wall Street Journal has several articles around this subject today, one about the legal situation, and they concluded these novel preferences are perfectly legal. link The question becomes, can we do more than just vote out the bums next November?
#1
..can we do more than just vote out the bums next November?
Well, since AG Holder is now introducing prosecution of previous administrative officials for their acts, he's setting the precedent for him and others come 2013.
#5
NEVER should have "bailed" them out in the first place. the market ruled that they were not competitive, plain and simple. In a "real" capitalist market they would "go away" and their bond holders, creditors, workers get fairly screwed.
THATS the system we here in the USA have set up with laws of business practice
#1
Perhaps Obamaists would like to exploit the fact that Social Security cash flow has gone negative during his watch, many years before predicted. And the first Baby Boomers haven't quite hit 65 yet.
Posted by: ed ||
09/10/2009 7:44 Comments ||
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#3
Somewhat unrelated comment (but fitting, given the subject matter) directed to Rantburger 'trailing wife' (I have a feeling you'll find it):
id 'ten' T
= I D I O T
(no, this was not directed 'at' her...she inquired as to the meaning in a post last night for which comments are now closed. The comment was directed at the troll who hijacked the commentary)
#4
Thank you, logi_cal. I assumed it was something clever, coming from you, and now I shall be able to be clever, too. :-) It is amusing, though, when id10ts try that, "I speak X languages," thingy in this forum, which is why I didn't send him to the Sink Trap. Too, the lads and lasses haven't had a chew toy in ages.
Posted by: ed ||
09/10/2009 7:24 Comments ||
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#3
Our MSM are and BO are thick as thieves. They are not going to do any hard-hitting, investigative reporting. I can't remember the last time they did anything like that--and that it was also true. Dan Rather and the NYTs and others in the MSM have often made up stuff that wasn't true.
[Asharq al-Aswat] Those who carried out the 11 September 2001 attacks, were they extremist Serbian nationalists, no it was the Israeli Mossad, no, pardon me, it was a US group of Seventh Day Adventists! Not at all, the one who carried out the terrible attacks was the US Central Intelligence Agency [CIA]!
The suggestions and imaginary illusions continue to pour in the direction of evading the real consequences of the reality, which is that those who carried out the 11 September attacks were Muslim youths who believe in a hard-line interpretation of Islam, who are led by Osama Bin Laden, and who are encouraged and were then encouraged by millions of Muslims.
The idea that the Serbs were the ones who carried out the 11 September attacks to take revenge for US interference in the Serbs' war against Bosnia and the Croats was pronounced by Hasanayn Haykal, symbol of Arab political journalists who follow the pan-Arab direction. He said it days after the explosions took place (Lebanese Al-Safir newspaper 1 October 2001).
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
09/10/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
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Jonah Goldberg, National Review The author of Liberal Fascism reacts to Friedman's appalling column from yesterday.
...If only America could drop its inefficient and antiquated system, designed in the age before globalization and modernity and, most damning of all, before the lantern of Thomas Friedman's intellect illuminated the land. If only enlightened experts could do the hard and necessary things that the new age requires, if only we could rely on these planners to set the ship of state right. Now, of course, there are "drawbacks" to such a system: crushing of dissidents with tanks, state control of reproduction, government control of the press and the internet. Omelets and broken eggs, as they say. More to the point, Friedman insists, these "drawbacks" pale in comparison to the system we have today here in America.
I cannot begin to tell you how this is exactly the argument that was made by American fans of Mussolini in the 1920s. It is exactly the argument that was made in defense of Stalin and Lenin before him (it's the argument that idiotic, dictator-envying leftists make in defense of Castro and Chavez today). It was the argument made by George Bernard Shaw who yearned for a strong progressive autocracy under a Mussolini, a Hitler or a Stalin (he wasn't picky in this regard). This is the argument for an "economic dictatorship" pushed by Stuart Chase and the New Dealers. It's the dream of Herbert Croly and a great many of the Progressives.
I have no idea why I still have the capacity to be shocked by such things. A few years ago, during the worst part of the Iraq war, I wrote a column saying that Iraq needed a Pinochet type to bring order to Iraq and help develop democratic and liberal institutions. To this day, I get vicious hate mail from liberal and leftist readers for my "pro-dictator" stance. Meanwhile, Thomas Friedman, golden boy of the NYT op-ed page, is writing love-letters to dictatorships because they have the foresight to invest in electric batteries and waterless toilets or something. It looks like there's reason to hope I was wrong about Iraq (I certainly hope I was). But at least I favored a dictatorship of sorts -- for another country! -- because I thought it would lead to a liberal democracy. Here, Friedman lives in a liberal democracy but has his nose pressed up against the candy store window of a cruel, undemocratic, regime and all he can do is drool over the prospect of having the same power here. It's disgusting.
Posted by: Mike ||
09/10/2009 13:03 ||
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#1
"Disgusting" isn't half the word needed here.
Of course the unwritten and unsaid implication of Friedman and his ilk is that HE / THEY will get to be the autocrats and make all the rules.
Things like this make me think longingly of crucifixion.
OK, I have to get this out. Please comment on it, shoot at it, print it and wrap in around the TP roll, but I do believe this to hold true. I must first thank Fred for the bandwidth to speak my piece. He is a modern day Paul Revere. Fred's battle cry is not, "One if by land, two if by sea". It is, "Fight all enemies foreign and domestic". As I sat watching Countdown on MSNBC, then O'Riley on FOX my mind focused to the true issues before us.
First was what happened to the news? When I grew up watching TV the news was great. Lots of hard stories about life, politics, the war, Russia, etc... Then at the end there would be a five minute commentary. Usually the executive producer or someone of that caliber, not a reporter, would make comment on something the station felt important. This was good and welcome. It was like the newspapers my father used to read, lots of news with a section for commentary and opinion. I'm not lamenting the good old days here, this is just how it was. Our media kept the news on one page and opinion on another.
Now when you watch the "news" there isn't any news just long opinion sections. It is ALL biased, agenda driven, and meant to sway ideals. For example: If a tree gets blown over during a storm and hits someone, MSNBC will scream the right deforested the area reducing protection for the tree, thus causing the event and Bush knew it would happen. Then FOX would claim the left would not let the right remove the tree even though they knew it was a hazard. The news of the child left an orphan would be used only as fodder by each side to bash each other, and not as the main story line. CNN of course would have that vile woman prejudging God as the murderer. This would be comical if not so sad.
After Olbermann I watched O'Riley. He spoke of the culture war, hmmm. He called the left progressives, or something. I got angry and emotional about the topic, yes it was health care, and I had to stop and think about just exactly why I was angry. Health care in the US is in trouble, it is not working like it should, and we need to get it back on track. I don't think anyone will argue that it is fine the way it is. Peeling back the arguments to the root really opens up to the truth. At the end of the day it is not about health care, GM, bailouts, or any of these distractions. We are in the midst of a fight to control America, this is an interesting coup d'état. Let me explain at my level. There are three branches to our government that runs/controls this nation. That is the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial. The media has always seen itself as protected, a watch dog, and free. After Viet-Nam and Nixon's Watergate the leadership of the networks realized the true power of their media when forces are combined, and seemed to make the conscious decision to stop reporting the news and to start molding public opinion. The media has de facto placed itself as the fourth element of power in our nation.
Historically we can see how this happened. Viet-Nam and the Watergate event showed how powerful the media can be if they release the information correctly. The media stayed one step ahead of Nixon during Watergate. They timed the releases of information to take down the president, not to get to the truth, and they crucified him. Reagan was the great communicator. He knew how to use the media and in the end when the networks turned on him, he had a terrible time managing it.
Now to the Clintons. They were the tipping point and really gave control to the networks. The Clintons would check public opinion before each decision. They would check the polls and then release White House policy based on those polls. In effect, they were giving the decision making process, or better said power over the process to the polling organizations and the networks that controlled them. For this the press loved the Clintons. NBC, CBS, ABC ran policy for our country for years. The news showed starving babies in Somalia and we sent in the Marines. The military tried to stop the warlords that caused the starving and the press objected when there was fighting. We lost another military operation; I wish the press played to win. Bush came along and put the press on notice. I believe Bush saw it clearly when he told the press that he ran the country not them. That started the war over control of our nation's minds. The press went after him. Every decision was torn apart, every action criticized. FOX and the talk radio fired up in response. For the networks this was a boon. Left vs. right and market share to the victor. Even the campaigns to get advertisers to stop advertising on Beck or Olbermann is shallow and transparent at best, making the public complicit in stealing advertising customers is more the reality. If MSNBC gets Tide to stop advertising on FOX, just what do we think Tide will do? They certainly won't stop advertising; they will change networks and go to ones that they won't get complaints about. Over to you MSNBC with Tide and the revenue. We, the left and right are pawns here and fools.
This leads us to Obama. He is probably the weakest president we have ever had.
I would argue, weakest in living memory, but that's a quibble.
He ain't no Millard Fillmore...
He is a talking head, not capable of a speech without the script in front of him. The networks supported him, protected him, spread misinformation to support him, and they still do. They do this because they can control him; the coup by the networks is complete. What the networks failed to realize and take into account is all the elements of free speech. They so arrogantly wrapped themselves in the 1st amendment thinking it was all about them. They failed in assessing the American people's will and all the avenues of and for free speech. The networks controlled TV; they controlled the press, both newspapers and magazines. They did not control AM radio, a media that was disbanded by the networks with the advent of FM. They do not control the internet. And they certainly do not control free speech as advent of the town hall meeting and tea parties demonstrates.
This all goes back to Olbermann and MSNBC. He said last night that everyone who opposed Obama unconsciously did it out of some latent racial hate. He was spitting angry and his hypocrisy raged. I do think he was close, meaning that the visceral response to Obama is a rather pavlovian one, but not from bigotry, rather from America's ingrained ability to see a fraud and to sense when our liberties are at risk. We did not get to 200 plus years old drinking the kool-aid. The old adage, "I'm not sure what is going on here, but I'm sure it's not good" is at work here; both the left and right see it, on both sides. Americans are good at identifying a fraud, or puppet, and when they are told to shut up and take it from the government, well, historically, all hell breaks loose. I believe if we are not careful all hell will.
We as a people, as a nation, are at a crossroad in time. We are fighting the wrong enemy; we are fighting the wrong battles. We are fighting for our 1st Amendment rights and for proper representation, but our enemy is not Congress, the Senate, or even the office of the President. Our enemy is the networks. They have confused the issues in a very well run Psy-op campaign to get inept leaders that are easily influenced by the networks in power and control their every move. These politicians, on both sides, run to the media coverage, to dinners, to interviews, but hide and put up pictures at town hall meetings because they are too cowardly to face the people that elected them. They know they are frauds, they know they have no business in politics and leadership, and they are deathly afraid the masses will call them out on it. We have a choice to make about the networks: we can either continue to bicker like kids over age old issues while the networks ransack our kingdom or we can unite and go after our real enemy. The Left is not my enemy, they are balance. I am not their enemy, I am balance. The networks have divided this country and turned us against ourselves. We must first take down the networks and get back to news being covered, not editorialized. Then systematically get a Congress and Senate that answers to the people and not the networks and network polls.
I think we might be seeing another pay-off for our nation's investment in 49 Pan's education.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
09/10/2009 12:43 ||
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#1
Well 49....I guess my first question is how and is there a plan. I agree totally but there has to be a plan. I know I stopped watching MSM and wouldn't waste my money on "news papers" long ago because of the bias. Please...put together a plan, put it out there, and we'll go.
#2
Health care in the US is in trouble, it is not working like it should, and we need to get it back on track. I don't think anyone will argue that it is fine the way it is.
Hmm..so when was it better? 1950? 1970? 1990? What's not available today to more people than it was back then? [Here's a hint - emergency rooms in most hospitals. Gone. Why? Maybe because the federal government mandated that no ER could turn anyone away, but failed to underwrite the cost of that little morality play. So where do the 'poor' go now? Why to the same ERs that provided services before. Namely government facilities sheltered in the economic cocoon of deficit expenses, like endangered species habitats.]
I never watch network news, and dropped the paper over a year ago when I decided the only thing that wasn't a lie in the paper was the comics and some of the classifieds.
And I tell anyone who asks what I've done and why. Damned if I'll pay with either time or money to be lied to.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/10/2009 19:29 Comments ||
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#4
I know a quick way for the Republicans to get the networks back on the straight and narrow, if not pro-Republican side. Loudly suggest that the major media corporations are an oligopoly that needs to be dealt with in an antitrust campaign.
Even a few Republican leaders saying so, and GE and Disney CEOs would personally shove oily rags in the mouths of their radical journalists.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/10/2009 20:38 Comments ||
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#6
Healthcare is fine. You don't have coverage and need and Emergency room and you will get care in an Emergency room. Doesn't matter if you are legal or not. This has helped to bankrupt the States but that's another issue, and reforming Healthcare won't solve that.
#7
OK Armyguy, time to stop bitching and build a plan. Point taken, more to follow, NSDQ.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
09/10/2009 21:29 Comments ||
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#8
It's a Heisenburg problem Pan.
The area under a curve can better be defined by smaller and smaller slices of the curve. Remember that?
But if you are measuring a living social curve, each touch shifts it. More news, more channels, more touches introduces more deviation. Carefully orchastrated touches on a common theme, 'sampling' the social curve, will steer it(pun intended, thank you).
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
I cannot begin to tell you how this is exactly the argument that was made by American fans of Mussolini in the 1920s. It is exactly the argument that was made in defense of Stalin and Lenin before him (it's the argument that idiotic, dictator-envying leftists make in defense of Castro and Chavez today). It was the argument made by George Bernard Shaw who yearned for a strong progressive autocracy under a Mussolini, a Hitler or a Stalin (he wasn't picky in this regard). This is the argument for an "economic dictatorship" pushed by Stuart Chase and the New Dealers. It's the dream of Herbert Croly and a great many of the Progressives.
