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General Motors reported year end earnings figures today. The company made about $9 billion dollars in 2011. How much of its "fair share" is GM paying in taxes? Zero. In fact, from GM's financial report, they actually received a "benefit" of $110 million for the year. The UAW benefited as well, as they are set to receive $7,000 per worker in profit sharing bonuses. The sweet tax deal GM receives was set up by the Obama Administration as the company was granted a multi-billion dollar tax credit for loss carry-overs when they exited their bankruptcy proceeding. Normally, the company would...

Yes, I know Athens is burning as some of the more violent demonstrators threw some Molotov cocktails and the media was given some photo ops so the situation can be understood by those too involved with life’s challenges to read. If that sounds acerbic it is because I have been writing about the Greek debt crisis since December of 2009 when the Chinese investment funds reneged on a promise to purchase $25 Billion of Greek bonds and the debt crisis was in full swing. Again, Athens may be the present battleground but the political and financial games are being played...

In the words of Yogi Berra, it looks like déjà vu all over again as General Motors plans to "relaunch" the Chevy Volt. Just in case you missed the first rollout that saw certain financial news networks dedicate loads of airtime to help GM build the hype surrounding a vehicle that was to be a savior for GM as support was garnered for a taxpayer bailout and subsequent IPO, we now get a second take on the failed first production. Many of the same cast will appear as cronies at Motor Trend will be cited for giving the Volt...

<p>MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- Wisconsin homeowners are expected to receive $140 million as part of a national $25 billion settlement with the nation's biggest mortgage lenders over foreclosure abuses.</p> <p>Gov. Scott Walker and Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen announced the terms Thursday as part of the settlement with Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Ally Financial.</p>

Clint Eastwoods Halftime in America Chrysler propaganda commercial is taken apart by the great one. Mark Levin.

Amid the controversy over Chrysler’s “It’s Halftime In America” Super Bowl commercial, a glaring question remains: if Chrysler is back on top and so strong, then why hasn’t it repaid taxpayers the $1.3 billion it still owes them?

Refinancing mortgages... a plan pushed by Glenn Hubbard, Dean of Columbia business school, also a top economic advisor to GOP hopeful Mitt Romney.

Some very humorous (if not cost-effective) ads were exhibited by General Motors during this year's Super Bowl game. GM continues to freely spend its stockpile of taxpayer supplied cash reserve as it even aired a spot touting the Chevy Volt. At a cost of $3.5 million for a 30 second spot the expense equals about 15% of the total revenues GM brought in during the entire month of January for the Volt when sales fell to a dismal level of 603. What is the reasoning behind spending so much to advertise a vehicle that sells in such small numbers...

GM, Ford feud over Super Bowl ad (Reuters) - A simmering feud between General Motors Co and Ford Motor Co heated up on Sunday as Ford objected to GM's Super Bowl advertisement for its Chevy Silverado pickup truck. The ad, which will run on NBC's television broadcast of the Super Bowl on Sunday, depicts an apocalyptic scene in which Chevrolet Silverado pickup trucks and their owners escape death and make it to a pre-arranged meeting point. But, one of their friends, identified as "Dave," who drives a Ford, doesn't make it to the meeting site, in the video that plays...

Has this ever been mentioned on Cable News? Did Obama actually hand GM 50 Billion Dollars to build the Volt? And if so? How many have been sold and how many had to be recalled? The last update so far was that we have spent 250 Thousand on every Volt Sold, and didn't they all get recalled? Kinda like what happened with the Ford Pinto Blowabout? If the math is wrong,please recalculate. But it looks like another 50 Billion went down the tubes,along with Solyndra. You could of fed millions of starving Americans with 50 Billion !!!

Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao says Beijing is considering greater involvement in the eurozone's rescue funds, the temporary European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) and the upcoming European Stability Mechanism (ESM). Wen made the comments yesterday (2 February) at a joint news conference with visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Beijing, without making explicit financial commitments. He said China, which has made similar positive but non-committal comments in the past, is still studying how it might lend further support. Simultaneously, ambassadors representing the 17 eurozone member states signed the ESM Treaty in Brussels, paving the way for the €500-billion permanent bailout...

Say, isn’t this starting to resemble a certain reality-game show on television? Or would I be fired for pointing that out? Last night, reports surfaced that casino and real-estate tycoon Donald Trump would endorse Newt Gingrich in Nevada today, just two days before the binding caucuses. This morning, both CNN and ABC say that Trump will now endorse … Mitt Romney: Mitt Romney will receive Donald Trump’s presidential endorsement Thursday, sources with knowledge of the endorsement told CNN. Trump will make the announcement in Las Vegas, two days before the Nevada caucuses. ABC is a little more specific about its...

Who is celebrity mogul Donald Trump going to endorse in the Republican presidential nomination contest? The Associated Press reports that Trump plans to endorse former House speaker Newt Gingrich in Las Vegas today. But CNN is reporting that Trump is going to endorse former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. Both cite anonymous sources. AP cites a “source close to Gingrich’s campaign.” But the news service also quoted Gingrich saying Wednesday that he had “no idea what the Donald is going to do.” “Trump is the only person who knows what Trump will do,” said Gingrich campaign spokesman R.C. Hammond.

Also video interview link below in comment on Gov't Conflict of Interest on Chevy Volt Probe? Well-respected car guy and General Motors supporter, Bob Lutz, posted a piece on Forbes that attacked "right-wing" criticism of the Chevy Volt. With all due respect and noting that I have nowhere near the credentials of Mr. Lutz, I feel it appropriate to respond to the ridiculous defense that we have seen of a vehicle that is costing taxpayers billions of dollars while offering little in return. I also have some questions of my own for Mr. Lutz and GM. First, let's address the...

Unemployed out of work longer than six months New data shows Florida is the worst state in the country to lose a job. Last year, 53% of jobless people in Florida were out of work longer than six months, according to the Brookings' Hamilton Project. Analysts blame it on the implosion of the housing market, which came to a screeching halt in 2007. The state's unemployment rate soared to one of the highest in the nation, peaking at 12% in December 2010. In the past year, the state's employment rate has dropped, following the national trend. About 130,000 jobs were...

Back during the days of General Motors' bankruptcy proceedings, media reports cited the many "sacrifices" made by the politically favored UAW. I have long wondered what these many sacrifices were, as UAW members seem to be doing pretty well since the GM bankruptcy. One such "sacrifice" was a supposed agreement that the UAW could not go on strike at GM until after 2015, as mentioned in this Bloomberg piece, and accepted as fact by all media sources. I questioned this assertion in a piece I wrote in December of 2010 , but as has been the case with much...

Cry me a river. General Motors' CEO is complaining that the Chevy Volt has become a "political punching bag." As the Detroit Free Press reports , GM CEO Dan Akerson defended the Volt before a House of Representatives subcommittee Wednesday, saying that the hybrid electric vehicle seemed to be under attack as much for political as practical reasons. 'We did not design the Volt to become a political punching bag, and that’s what it’s become,' Akerson said. The optics of Akerson, CEO of a company whose very existence today stems completely from an infusion of tens of billions of...

Germany is pushing for Greece to relinquish control over its budget policy to European institutions as part of discussions over a second rescue package, a European source told Reuters on Friday. "There are internal discussions within the Euro group and proposals, one of which comes from Germany, on how to constructively treat country aid programs that are continuously off track, whether this can simply be ignored or whether we say that's enough," the source said. The source added that under the proposals European institutions already operating in Greece should be given "certain decision-making powers" over fiscal policy.

President Obama is proud of his administration’s role in rescuing the U.S. auto industry, via government-financed restructurings of General Motors and Chrysler. But in campaigning for re-election on this aspect of his record, he has shown an unfortunate, and remarkably ungracious, tendency to distort the record of his predecessor. Specifically, Obama told an Iowa audience Wednesday that “the administration before us, they had been writing some checks to the auto industry with asking nothing in return. It was just a bailout, straight -- straightforward. We said we’re going to do it differently.” Uh, not exactly. President George W. Bush never...

The Wall Street Journal reports that GM will attack critics during a Capitol Hill hearing Wednesday. “General Motors Co. Chief Executive Dan Akerson is preparing to go on the offensive against congressional critics who say GM's battery-powered Chevrolet Volt is a government-financed misfire, according to people familiar with the company's plans,” the paper reports.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have already cost US taxpayers over $200 billion. If Obama gets his way on mortgage writedowns, the GSEs estimate it would take another $100 billion. Since such estimates are always overly-optimistic by a factor of 3 to 10, I estimate the cost to taxpayers would be $300 billion minimum. Please consider Fannie, Freddie writedowns too costly: regulator The regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac told lawmakers that forcing the two mortgage firms to write down loan principal would require more than $100 billion in fresh taxpayer funds. In a letter sent on Friday to...

General Motors' CEO, Dan Akerson, is scheduled to testify at congressional hearings on the NHTSA delay in reporting Chevy Volt fires. GM and the government agency waited about five months to report an incident involving a Volt which erupted in flames weeks after a crash-test. Up to this point, Akerson has not exactly been honest about the Volt; can we now expect him to come clean? A culture of deceit has been evident at GM since the Obama Administration orchestrated a manipulated bankruptcy process that favored the politically powerful UAW over other classes. It was during the time of...

Last week the Detroit News reported that NHTSA claimed that the White House had nothing to do with the agency's delay in disclosing its Chevy Volt fires to the public. Supposedly, NHTSA contacted the White House three months after the Volt fires and waited another two months before releasing the information to the public. Whether or not the Obama Administration is being honest about its involvement in NHTSA's Chevy Volt investigation, it is clear that we are in an unprecedented situation with the President of the US having his reelection chances largely tied to the success of General Motors,...

SUMTER, S.C -- SUMTER, S.C.- Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said his record at Bain Capital which included buying and later closing down a photo album plant in Gaffney is the same as President Barack Obama's record in bailing out the auto industry. "What the president has done overseeing GM and Chrysler has been reminiscent of what people in the private equity industry do. To try and save the business, you have to cut back to a core that matches the revenue of the business," Romney said Saturday in an interview with The State's editorial board. "And so, the president...

Gingrich returned to the stump Thursday with a heavy dose of populism and defended himself against charges of being anti-capitalist and anti-free enterprise. "I think when you have crony capitalism of politicians taking care of their friends, that's not free enterprise, that's just backdoor socialism in which the rich get all the money and the rest of us get left, get left with all the debt," Gingrich told an audience of senior citizens gathered at the state fair grounds for a convention. Gingrich said he's been "amazed" by the intensity of critics who he said are attacking him for questioning...

It wasn't really a TARP style bailout - worse - Romney's Bain placed a $10 million dollar liability with the taxpayers. All this while he benefited $4 million dollars directly... The facts of the Bain & Co. turnaround are a little more complicated, but a Bostin Globe report from 1994 confirms that Bain saw several million dollars in loans forgiven by the FDIC. Fact remains an FDIC bailout only occurs when the Fed and politicians agree, not to mention the bailoit comes from funds paid by every bank customer who eats highet costs as a result of funds going to...

"...Mitt Romney says he saved Bain & Co. but he didn't tell you the day he took over he had his predecessor fire hundreds of employees or the way the company was rescued was with a federal bailout of $10 million dollars. According to the Globe, Romney's company failed to repay at least $10 million dollars to a failed bank and the rest of us had to absorb the loss. Romney, he and others made $4 million dollars in this deal which cost ordinary people $10 million dollars. Mitt Romney - maybe he's just against government when it helps working...

See what I did there with that headline? Government Motors won’t like it. Here’s a little vignette that might tell us much about the difference between the mainstream media and the rest of us. As I’m walking into Newt Gingrich’s townhall at Public Service New Hampshire in Manchester, I am behind a pair of MSMers, a man and a woman. The two are chatting about the event and the fact that it’s a Republican candidate, and the woman mutters something about “crosses and swastikas.” The man just chuckles. No bias to see here. As we’re walking along the sidewalk...

The Thinly-Veiled Fed Bailout Of Europe Phil's Stock World Dec. 30, 2011, 5:45 AM The ECB is borrowing U.S. Dollars from the Fed to bailout European banks. And that is in addition to the Long Term Refinancing Operation (LTRO). However, the "borrowing" is not called "borrowing." It's called a "temporary U.S. dollar liquidity swap arrangement." Yet it is really borrowing because it's going massively in one direction for the purpose of giving the ECB Dollars to lend to European banks, so the ECB can avoid lending more Euros. The ECB doesn't want to tarnish its "inflation fighting" reputation and further...

First it was Zero Hedge. Then Ron Paul joined in. Now it is the turn of a former Dallas Fed Vice President, Gerald ODriscoll, to outright accuse the Fed of bailing out Europe courtesy of "incomprehensible" currency swaps, and implicitly accusing Bernanke of lying that he would not bail out Europe even as he has done precisely that. And not only that: by cutting the USD swap spread from OIS+100 to OIS+50, the Fed has made sure it gets paid less than ever for extended Europe the courtesy of bailing it out all over again. Incidentally, O'Driscoll says, "America's central...

Pennsylvania Congressman, Mike Kelly, wants to end the $7,500 tax credit that affluent purchasers of electric vehicles are currently taking advantage of. The most hyped of these vehicles has been General Motors' Chevy Volt, but other plug-in cars, like Fiskers and Teslas, sell for close to $100,000 and make a strong case for Rep. Kelly's argument. Let's look past the recent Chevy Volt fires. The value of a vehicle will be determined by the consumer. It does not matter if Jay Leno and other rich purchasers say they love their Volts. The real questions are, should taxpayers be paying...

It wasn't really a TARP style bailout -- worse -- Romney's Bain placed a $10 million dollar liability with the taxpayers. All this while he benefited $4 million dollars directly. “The way the company was rescued was with a federal bailout of $10 million,” the ad says. “The rest of us had to absorb the loss … Romney? He and others made $4 million in this deal. … Mitt Romney: Maybe he’s just against government when it helps working men and women.” The facts of the Bain & Co. turnaround are a little more complicated, but a Boston Globe report...

General Motors Co. (GM) has hired management consultant Hackett Group (HCKT) to help identify areas to cut an undetermined number of white-collar jobs, said two people familiar with the matter. Hackett Group, based in Miami, will help identify opportunities for cuts and efficiency improvements at headquarters and elsewhere in North America, said the people, who asked not to be identified revealing private plans. GM has been trimming engineers and other white-collar staff, said Jay Cooney, a spokesman, who declined to comment on whether the Detroit-based automaker had hired Hackett Group.

Recently the Chevy Volt, General Motor's (GM) venerable electric-hybrid car, turned one-year old. This marks an important occasion for GM that they have been able to sell and bring to market this electric-hybrid car. The real question for GM, what's next?To date GM has fallen short of it's lofty sales target for the Volt. They expected to sell 10,000 Volts in a one-year period, but they have fallen short of that goal by about 40%. They have only sold around 6,000 Volts around the country. (Not surprising from a company that keeps making promises it cannot keep.) For GM, the...

Gingrich also admitted that as a student of history, the fact that the Chairman of the Federal Reserve and the Secretary of the Treasury both agreed that the global financial system was on the edge of total failure also caused him to go from opposing T.A.R.P. to favoring its passage.

Sales for the Chevy Volt have been stagnant and it has become apparent that lack of supply is not the reason. GM CEO Dan Akerson is responsible for tying the success of GM into the success of the Volt by having made lofty claims that the vehicle was, in fact, the future of the company while investing a major portion of marketing dollars to help support the perception. Deception was evident as statements were made that the vehicle was "virtually" sold out and supply couldn't keep up with demand, while evidence surfaced that this was not the case ....

Bloomberg reported last week that General Motors will be paying $12 million in additional bonuses to its UAW workers for meeting "quality targets." It's nice to see the holiday spirit of giving at GM. Unfortunately; US taxpayers are not faring as well as Government Motors' politically favored union members. The Obama Administration still refuses to exit its stake in GM with Treasury serving as Money Manager for the American taxpayers. Geithner and friends continue to gamble on a market-timing strategy to "maximize" taxpayers return on its GM bailout (sorry, "investment.") So, how are they doing? Back in July, I...

Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill are moving to block the International Monetary Fund from using U.S. money for European bailouts, as talks intensify across the pond over how to stanch the debt crisis. Some U.S. lawmakers want their concerns addressed as part of the feverish end-of-year budget talks. On the House and Senate side, lawmakers have introduced legislation to wall off U.S. taxpayer money from playing any role in averting a European meltdown. "It's time to stop the bailouts and start restoring fiscal discipline to our own economy," Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., said in a statement, as he and 25...

The Federal Housing Finance Agency is looking into contracts between the government-sponsored enterprises and mortgage servicers to determine the best step to take when a servicer fails to perform well. In the third quarter, Fannie Mae bought back mortgage servicing rights from Bank of America covering $74 billion in unpaid principal balance, according to its third-quarter financial statement. It was 11% of the Fannie loans being serviced by BofA.

Here's another surprise for Chevy Volt owners. Autoblog reports that General Motors is holding an online chat with Volt owners about winter driving. Part of the chat reveals that, despite the fact that GM claimed the Volt is purely electric for a range of about 35 miles, the vehicle will use gas in cold conditions. GM states, "Please be aware: when starting your Volt in these colder months, in some instances, your gas engine may engage regardless of the state of charge of the battery. This was designed into (the) Volt to generate heat for the battery when temperatures...

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (WA-05) and Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) Dec 8 - With the European debt crisis dominating the news and threatening to pull the world into a double-dip recession, there are growing calls for Uncle Sam to come to the rescue. The U.S. is already committing untold billions to the $1.4 trillion European bailout fund, but that's not enough, according to some European leaders and even U.S. politicians. They say that while the EU bailout is costly, it's also necessary. They are only right about the cost. These endless bailouts are not only unnecessary, but are in fact...

The 17 eurozone states and six other EU countries agreed early Friday to create a new treaty that will allow them to introduce stricter fiscal rules in the hope of containing a worsening debt crisis, but Britain's prime minister immediately threatened to block the new accord. The failure to get agreement among all 27 members of the European Union at a summit meeting in Brussels reflected in large part a deep split between France and Germany on the one hand and Britain on the other. France and Germany are the two largest economies in the eurozone; Britain does not use...

Chrysler Group LLC confirmed today that its new small car, the first vehicle to feature Fiat SpA (F.MI) technology, will be called the Dodge Dart. The car, in production at the automaker's assembly plant in Belvidere, Ill., will be featured in January at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. With this vehicle, Chrysler will have a small-car offering in its portfolio for the first time in more than a decade. The car also will allow majority stakeholder Fiat to raise its stake in Chrysler by 5 percentage points to 58.3 percent once it is certified by the U.S....

General Motors has announced it is buying back Chevy Volts from any purchasers who are concerned about safety risks associated with the vehicle. NHTSA is currently investigating fires that occurred after crash tests of the vehicles when the volatile lithium-ion batteries ignited days after the tests. Any buybacks of the vehicles sets the stage for wealthy purchasers to take advantage of lax rules for the $7,500 tax credit available on the vehicle. Essentially, many purchasers can return their Volts and then go ahead and apply for the credit, even though they do not currently own the vehicle and received...

I made an appearance on the Cavuto show last night to discuss low sales for the Chevy Volt. This came after I had listened in on the sales conference call by General Motors. I recognized a major shift on the call regarding the Volt, which is that GM management is finally starting to hedge on the potential for Volt sales after having hyped the vehicle as being a game changer with projections of demand that far exceeded supply. Statements such as "It's much more than just being about sales, the Volt is a magnet to showcase our brand." give...

What you are about to read should absolutely astound you. During the last financial crisis, the Federal Reserve secretly conducted the biggest bailout in the history of the world, and the Fed fought in court for several years to keep it a secret. Do you remember the TARP bailout? The American people were absolutely outraged that the federal government spent 700 billion dollars bailing out the "too big to fail" banks. Well, that bailout was pocket change compared to what the Federal Reserve did. As you will see documented below, the Federal Reserve actually handed more than 16 trillion dollars...

PARIS: Saying that he wanted to tell the truth to the French people, President Nicolas Sarkozy said Thursday night that Europe could be "swept away" by the euro crisis if it does not change. He said that Europe would "have to make crucial choices in the next few weeks," and that France and Germany together were supporting a new treaty to tighten fiscal discipline and promote economic convergence in the eurozone. The European Union needs "an overhaul," Sarkozy said, to remain relevant and competitive, but he was vague about the details of what needs to be done. "If Europe does...

Link only, per FR posting rules

General Motors will buy Chevrolet Volts back from any owner who is afraid the electric cars will catch fire, the company's CEO said Thursday. In an exclusive interview with The Associated Press, CEO Dan Akerson insisted that the cars are safe, but said the company will purchase the Volts because it wants to keep customers happy. Three fires have broken out in Volts after side-impact crash tests done by the federal government. Akerson said that if necessary, GM will recall the more than 6,000 Volts now on the road in the U.S. and repair them once the company and federal...

Some troubling inconsistencies are arising regarding General Motors and NHTSA's response to the crash-tested Chevy Volt fires first reported a few weeks ago. NHTSA and GM delayed informing the public of the initial Volt incident that occurred about six months ago until recently. According to an early NY Times piece on the exploding Volt, NHTSA and GM claimed that they were unable to replicate the fire that occurred at the time. In fact, according to a CNN Money piece that ran when the story first broke, GM spokesman Greg Martin stated that the Volt battery pack was subjected to...