Free Republic

Rumor has it that in a matter of days, after months of negotiation with big banks, the White House may announce a settlement that would let the banks off the hook for their role in the foreclosure crisis -- paying a tiny fraction of what's needed in exchange for blanket immunity from future lawsuits.

Less than two years after emerging from bankruptcy,General Motors Co.has regained the title of the world's largest automaker. GM's worldwide sales rose 7.6% to 9 million vehicles in 2011. The Detroit manufacturer last held the top spot in 2007 before it was surpassed byToyota Motor Corp.the next year. Chevrolet, GM's flagship brand, set a record by selling nearly 4.8 million vehicles. That was more than what many entire auto companies posted in sales last year, including Nissan and Honda. "It is an accomplishment that GM has been able to reverse the tide in the U.S. and Asia, and they are...

Mitt Romney told CNBC Wednesday that he’s happy to have a debate about private equity alleged role in killing American jobs — because President Obama also forced companies to shed jobs at car dealerships during the auto bailout. So it is somewhat ironic that Romney’s former firm, Bain & Company, was among the private consulting firms that advised the Obama auto bailout team. And what did Bain recommend? Cutting dealerships. Romney’s ties to Bain Capital and its predecessor firm Bain & Company have come under scrutiny in recent days as his GOP rivals accuse him of “vulture capitalism” that made...

Romney has said that Obama is putting free-enterprise on trial and that some in the GOP are joining him? What? This is according to the un-aired ad "Bain & Co: The 1994 Ad By Sen. Ted Kennedy Which Will Floor Mitt RomBOT In 2012": The day Romney took over at Bain, "he had his predecessor fire hundreds of employees." The company was rescued with "a federal bailout of $10 million dollars." "According to the Globe, Romney's company failed to repay at least $10 million to a failed bank and the rest of us had to absorb the loss. Romney abd...

On the heels of his decisive victory in the New Hampshire primary, Mitt Romney took the attacks on his private sector record used by GOP rivals and turned them against President Obama. Romney’s critics have accused him of destroying jobs in order to increase profits for his investment firm, Bain Capital, but speaking Wednesday on CBS, Romney said that what he did was no different from the Obama administration’s auto industry bailouts. “In the general election I’ll be pointing out that the president took the reins at General Motors and Chrysler – closed factories, closed dealerships laid off thousands and...

I'm just curious - which of the Candidates will pledge that they will not allow ANY bailouts ? No bailouts of private equity, hedge funds, pension funds. Private equity has, according to Zerohedge today, enormous amounts of debt coming due in the next few years, debt that funded buyouts of businessness that are floundering. European sovereign debt and banking bubbles look like they will cause bankruptcy of some kind in the American financial industry. Mr. "frontrunner" Romney; will he pledge no bailouts ? Mr. Ron Paul probably will - but he apparently is intent on knocking out all other Republican...

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...

The Club for Growth wrote a white paper on Governor Romney back in 2007. Most of the information below is from that repory, but since Romney has been outspoken on several issues then, weve updated his record to reflect those positions. ...During his initial 2002 campaign Romney refused to sign an anti-tax pledge, but he pledged to balance the budget without raising taxes and touted his fulfillment of that pledge throughout his term. But the details suggest that he broke his verbal committment. Romney did not impose any broad-based tax hikes he imposed a slew of fee hikes. He opposed...

We know two things with certainty: In the week ended December 13 (14th excluded), one or more banks, most likely European, borrowed up to $2.5 billion from the Fed's Primary Credit Discount Window. And since US banks are drowning in dollar-based liquidity, any need to approach the Discount Window now, in the context of trillions of Excess Reserves, carries with its exponentially greater stigmata than it ever did during Lehman days. Also, in the week ended December 14, the Fed did a mid-month settlement of $31 billion in MBS purchases—a transaction which allowed a Primary Dealer to source critical liquidity,...

One hates to disagree with accomplished professionals. And yet it’s obvious that the experts of this great Age of the Accredited Professional (AAP) have really blown it. They assured us that they could manage the economy — indeed, micro-manage the economy — and that things were all right. And yet, the bust happened, and they’ve been scurrying to prevent an utter debacle. It looks to me that, for all their trillions in bailouts, they haven’t succeeded. Government policies of deficit spending and ever-increasing debt are self-destructing, right on top of a bubble’s bursting, a bubble created by experts (mostly government,...

Vice President Joe Biden, now best known for being the man who relies primarily on Jon Corzine for financial advice, continued his recent roll of epic linguistic blunders this morning. As Reuters reports, the VP, "joked during a visit to debt-choked Athens on Monday about bringing money to help Greece out of its deepest financial crisis in decades. Introducing a member of his delegation during a meeting with Greek President Karolos Papoulias, Biden said: "This man represents the Treasury department. He's brought hundreds of millions of dollars." His comments drew laughs from both the Greek and U.S. delegations." It...

As the news came out on Friday morning, the headline reported that the unemployment rate dropped to 8.6% from 9%–at first glance, the rate looked like 98.6 on the economic thermometer. The analysts are still arguing over the meaning of this data, but for traders and investors the real outcome is meaningless. It may lead to foreign investors purchasing U.S. equities as America is seen to be a relatively stronger economy, especially when compared with the EUROPEAN CREDIT-STRESSED environment. The headline number is fraught with all types of data pollution as the bean counters strive to figure out how many...

Pressed in the interview about how that was not "a point of view one normally associates with conservatives," Mr. Gingrich replied that there are times "when you need government to help spur private enterprise and economic development." He cited electricity and telephone network expansion as similarly effective private-public purposes. "It's not a point of view libertarians would embrace, but I am more in the Alexander Hamilton-Teddy Roosevelt tradition of conservatism," he said. He added, "I'm convinced that if NASA were a GSE, we probably would be on Mars today."

In 2008, the United States government and Federal Reserve helped bailout European banks to the tune of trillions of dollars.  The reactions to this by Congress and the public ensured that any future bailouts would have to be performed through the use of a proxy institution. It appears that this proxy institution has been found, as the IMF on November 22nd just opened a new credit facility with the primary purpose of providing liquidity to sovereign nations, especially those currently in the Euro Zone. IMF talking points on new credit facility * IMF APPROVES CREDIT LINE PROGRAM CHANGES TO PROVIDE...

AUSTIN – Gov. Rick Perry today issued the following statement on today’s news regarding the Federal Reserve’s undisclosed bank loans: “These outrageous secret federal loans to bailout big banks are why Americans are disgusted with business-as-usual Washington, the Federal Reserve and taxpayer-funded bailouts. The actions of Chairman Bernanke and Secretary Geithner have again proven that Washington insiders cannot be trusted to stop bailouts, protect taxpayers, or create jobs. “My economic reform plans seriously overhaul Washington, end federal bailouts and cut government spending, regulations and taxes to put American job creation and our economy on the right track.”

In one of the best Marx Brothers scenes is from A Night at the Opera, where Groucho and Chico are ripping up a contract and they finally come to the SANITY CLAUSE, in which Chico proclaims there is no SANITY CLAUSE. In tomorrow’s Financial Times, there is a story about France pushing for a Christmas gift from the ECB. The gift that the French are hoping for is a backstop for the European banks that are under severe stress because of the huge amount of EURO sovereign bonds on the banks’ balance sheets. In order for the ECB to act,...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- New fires involving the lithium-ion batteries in General Motors Co.'s Chevrolet Volt have prompted an investigation to assess the risk of fire in the electric car after a serious crash, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Friday. One Volt battery pack that was being closely monitored following a government crash test caught fire Thursday, the safety administration said in a statement. Another recently crash-tested battery emitted smoke and sparks, the statement said. GM, which was informed of the investigation on Friday, said in a statement that the Volt "is safe and does not present undue risk...

12/31/2010 9,390,476,088,043.35 4,634,739,130,665.17 14,025,215,218,708.52

President John F. Kennedy’s nephew, Robert Kennedy, Jr., netted a $1.4 billion bailout for his company, BrightSource, through a loan guarantee issued by a former employee-turned Department of Energy official. It’s just one more in a string of eye-opening revelations by investigative journalist and Breitbart editor Peter Schweizer in his explosive new book, Throw Them All Out. The details of how BrightSource managed to land its ten-figure taxpayer bailout have yet to emerge fully. However, one clue might be found in the person of Sanjay Wagle. Wagle was one of the principals in Kennedy’s firm who raised money for Barack...

The collapse of MF Global Holdings gives Americans yet another reason not to trust Wall Street. The firm filed for bankruptcy as federal regulators were looking for $600 million missing from customer accounts. Its CEO, former Democratic New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, had bet that European leaders would bail out smallish countries that were too big to fail. His bet did not pay off. The only good news out of this story is that Washington won't be bailing out MF Global. Corzine said he won't take a reported $12 million in severance. If he truly wants to atone, then Corzine...