Fact Check: Osama Bin Laden Alive, General Motors Dead
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/...ve-GM-dead
Sure, Bin Laden’s dead. But what he stood for – a weaker America on foreign policy, less American presence on the international stage, a corrupted American economy, a Middle East dominated by Islamists -- is stronger than it was on September 10, 2001. And as Barack Obama continues to kowtow to Islamists across the Middle East, provide flexibility to their supporters in Russia, rely on their funders in China to finance our debt, and slice our military budget, Bin Laden’s lifeforce only grows more vibrant.
But what about the second half of the Biden formulation? Even if Bin Laden’s alive, what about General Motors?
It’s dead, too. When GM faced bankruptcy, it faced it for one reason: the United Auto Workers had contracts that put GM on the ropes. Instead of allowing GM to go through the normal bankruptcy process, though, President Obama tossed $100 billion at the problem -- $50 billion in straight grants through TARP, a waiver of $45.4 billion in taxes, $360 million in stimulus, and a huge tax credit for buyers of the God-please-don’t-spontaneously-combust Chevy Volt. Meanwhile, he also forced GM bondholders to take pennies on the dollar while awarding UAW a far higher share of their holdings.
Where did the taxpayers end up? We’re going to lose well north of $42 billion on the auto bailouts, and much more when you include tax breaks and credits. GM’s such a disaster area that it premiered on the market at $33 per share in 2010. It now trades at just under $23 per share.
But didn’t it save jobs? Of course not. While Biden and Obama claim that they saved some 1.5 million jobs, as National Review points out:
This preposterous figure is based on the assumption that if GM and Chrysler had gone into normal bankruptcy proceedings, the entire enterprise of automobile manufacturing in the United States would have collapsed — not only at GM and Chrysler but at Ford and foreign transplants such as Toyota and Honda. Not only that, the Democrats’ argument goes, but practically every parts maker, supplier, warehousing agency, and services firm dedicated to the car industry would have collapsed, too. In fact, it is unlikely that even GM or Chrysler would have stopped production during bankruptcy: The assembly lines would have continued rolling, interest and debt payments would have been cut, and — here’s the problem — union contracts would have been renegotiated. Far from having saved 1.5 million jobs, it is not clear that the GM bailout saved any — only that it preserved the UAW’s unsustainable arrangement.
Actually, the GM bailout didn’t even save the 250,000 jobs Bill Clinton cited in his speech at the Democratic National Convention. While the auto industry has added about 236,000 jobs, almost none are at GM. The companies who are best off are the ones who never got bailed out. In April 2009, Obama’s own advisors told him this – they said that job losses would be only 10 to 20 percent of the bankrupt companies. Obama himself summarily laid off 100,000 people at GM and Chrysler dealerships during the auto bailouts.
Isn’t GM number one in sales? No, it isn’t. Its sales increases lag behind Toyota, Volkswagon, Porsche, and even Kia. The vaunted Chevy Volt, a disastrous automobile creation that the Obama administration touted as its great breakthrough, has turned out to be more Yugo than SUV – each one produced costs the taxpayers some $49,000, and their manufacture has started and stopped more often than Obama’s sputtering economic “recovery.” And overall, GM is only number one if you count the 1.2 million vehicles created by China’s Wuling, in which GM is a small stakeholder, and ignore every company in which Volkswagon owns a majority. GM has smaller revenue than both Toyota and Volkswagon. GM’s current market share is 18 percent; in 2011, it was 20 percent. It’s headed the wrong direction.
Even GM’s sales are false. Over 90 percent of its car loans are of the subprime variety, meaning many folks won’t pay them back. In order for GM not to go bankrupt, it’s going to need another cash infusion or a dramatic change in circumstances – to break even for the taxpayer, the stock needs to trade at $53 per share…
