Government Motors

Government Motors

GM? Today they get their final lifeline… 30 billion more in Taxpayer dollars, but still bankrupt:

But the officials said Sunday they would try to steer clear of getting involved in the automaker’s day-to-day operations, though the government will maintain the right to set upfront conditions for providing assistance in “exceptional cases.”

The administration expects company CEO Fritz Henderson will continue to serve in that capacity, officials said, though they added that Henderson serves at the pleasure of the board — some of whose members would be replaced. Those new members have not yet been identified, though administration officials said there would be some continuity between the old GM and the new GM.

The administration said it will also avoid involvement in determining which dealerships are closed as the automaker continues downsizing, nor will the administration seek to name members to an oversight board determining the company’s compensation for executives.

Also, just a couple of things to remember if you are seeing the astroturf spam about “Republican Dealers being picked on” that’s been making the rounds the past two weeks:

  1. Correlation is not cause
  2. 88 percent of Car Dealers are Republican donors anyway, a strong correlation was bound to be there, if they didn’t find a strong majority of Republicans in the data, something would be wrong. The difference between 92 percent and 88 percent is statistically insignificant with the small sample size of closing dealers.

Automakers Get 17.4 Billion of Our Money

I’m a confirmed, committed capitalist but the bailout of Detroit is not capitalism at all — it’s corporate socialism, or you could call it Union Welfare as well. This is sickening beyond belief so I will reprint the new Chrysler/GM/Ford ad,

I’m a confirmed, committed capitalist but the 17.4 billion dollar bailout of Detroit is not capitalism at all — it’s corporate socialism, or you could call it Union Welfare as well. This is sickening beyond belief so I will reprint the new Chrysler/GM/Ford ad, h/t Virginia Postrel:

bigthree

Update: the Term sheet for GM bailout. (.PDF link)

Update: Ford is not getting bailed out, hat’s off to them, and perhaps my next car purchase will be a Ford, although that’s sacrilege in this family.