Taking over the means of production:
Biden Admin Announces $1.7 Billion to Modernize Auto Manufacturing Facilities.  The federal government is spending $1.7 billion to modernize automobile manufacturing facilities, helping the industry compete with foreign subsidies and create and protect jobs.  As part of the Automotive Community Benefits Plan, the current administration will extend grants to 11 selected manufacturing plants in eight states, including in Georgia, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, that have temporarily closed or were at risk of closing.  Federal funding, which will come from the Inflation Reduction Act, will be dedicated to retrofitting factories, installing equipment, and bolstering annual production.  Grant capital will also allow these at-risk facilities to convert to manufacturing electric vehicles and related components and a broad range of new-generation cars, such as fuel cell vehicles, hybrid cars, and high-growth vehicle drive trains.

Dealers Beg GM for Hybrid Vehicles, Can GM Do Anything Right?  In case you are wondering how GM continually sells below average cars, the answer is tariffs.  Trump and Biden both have placed huge tariffs on foreign vehicles in an attempt to force people to buy US brands and overpay for them.

GM Laying Off 1,300 Workers — Got $824M From Taxpayers In 2022.  General Motors is laying off 1,300 workers.  They just announced they would be delaying electric pickup truck production. [...] In 2022, GM got $824 million from taxpayers in Michigan.  GM promised to convert its Orion plant to make electric vehicles and that they'd create 4,000 jobs in Michigan.

Bidenomics: American Auto-Giant Blindsides Over 900 Workers with Sudden Layoffs.  General Motors is closing its IT Innovation Center in Chandler, Arizona, cutting 940 jobs. [...] "Today's announcement that GM plans to close its Arizona IT Innovation Center came as a complete surprise," economic development director Micah Miranda said.  "We've recently been working with their local team about higher education partnerships, mentoring, and a promotional video highlighting Chandler's Price Corridor.  With this unfortunate news, we plan to work closely with our workforce development partners to assist with employment opportunities for those impacted," Miranda said.

Joe Biden Keeps Touting The Auto Bailout As A Success.  Here's The Full Story.  During the 2008 Great Recession, the three major U.S. automakers — General Motors (GM), Chrysler and Ford — each experienced significant declines in sales, according to a Reuters timeline.  Obama formed a presidential task force in February 2009 led by Timothy Geithner, secretary of the Department of the Treasury, and Lawrence Summers, director of the National Economic Council, which was devoted to keeping the U.S. auto industry afloat, The New York Times reported at the time.  However, the bailout didn't save the U.S. auto industry, but transferred tens of billions of taxpayer dollars to the United Auto Workers (UAW) union, according to experts.

Forget it when journalists and other Democrats stand on principle.  As soon as Obama took office, he showed he had no respect for the law or equal treatment under the law as he violated bankruptcy law to award political supporters over more secure creditors. [...] The Obama administration shook down corporations at Justice, EPA and CFPB and used a significant amount of funds for political purposes and to reward supporters.

Spoiler:  It's the taxpayers.
Tesla's Secret Source of Cash Has Finally Been Revealed.  General Motors Co. and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV disclosed to the state of Delaware earlier this year that they reached agreements to buy federal greenhouse gas credits from Tesla.  While the filings are light on detail, they haven't been reported on previously.  They also represent the first acknowledgments from carmakers that they're turning to Tesla for help to comply with intensifying U.S. environmental regulations.  The deal with GM will come as a surprise to those who thought years of sales of plug-in hybrid Chevrolet Volts and all-electric Chevy Bolts would leave the largest U.S. automaker in the clear with regard to regulatory compliance.  But while sales of those models have put GM in a position where it doesn't need extra credits today, demand for its battery-powered vehicles are dwarfed by its gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs.

Trump, Mnuchin Call For GM To Pay Back Federal Bailout.  President Trump made his frustration with GM abundantly clear on Tuesday when he threatened to cut all EV subsidies to the Detroit carmaker.  But on Wednesday both the president, this time joined by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, took the administration's attacks on GM to their next logical endpoint:  Demanding that the federal bailout recipient return the $11.2 billion loss eaten by taxpayers from the federal bailout that the company received during the depths of the financial crisis.

Destroyed for Nothing.  General Motor's announcement that it's cutting thousands of jobs and closing several plants has met intense criticism because the company was the beneficiary of a $50 billion government bailout in 2009 — which wound up costing taxpayers $11 billion — even as the government awarded the United Auto Workers' health-care fund a 17.5 percent stake in the restructured company.  Like many big American companies, GM has been the recipient of government-subsidized largesse over several decades.  One particular piece of this history is especially noteworthy now.  Nearly 40 years ago, in one of the most egregious cases of eminent domain abuse in American history, GM built a plant on land seized from homeowners and businesses in Detroit, obliterating a multi-ethnic neighborhood known as Poletown — all for a plant that will now be shuttered so that GM can invest somewhere else in new manufacturing facilities.

GM Layoffs: A Tragedy Caused By Embracing Government Subsidies, Not Markets.  General Motors' decision to close four U.S. plants and lay off 14,700 workers, 15% of its domestic workforce, is an economic tragedy.  And it might have been avoided if GM had listened to the market, rather than the Obama administration.

Major North American GM Workforce Reduction Announced Due to Declining Sales of Sedan Vehicles.  Following major drops in the sedan sector of the U.S. automotive market, General Motors CEO Mary Barra announced plans to halt production next year at three assembly plants:  Lordstown, Ohio; Hamtramck, Michigan; and Oshawa, Ontario.  GM will fully stop production on several models assembled at those plants:  Chevrolet Cruze, Cadillac CT6 and the Buick LaCrosse.  These cuts could lead to approximately 6,000 to 8,000 lost jobs.

Obama's 'car of the future' goes kaput.  It came with a turbocharged four-cylinder engine, churned out about 140 horsepower, and made upwards 40 mpg highway.  What's more, the Chevy Cruze was the only compact sedan to come with a presidential seal of approval.  When a prototype of the 2011 model rolled off the assembly line, then President Barack Obama put his signature on the hood writing that the Cruze was "the car of the future."  But the future lasted only seven years.  Responding to slumping sales, General Motors announced plans to push the Cruze out of their showrooms and off of a cliff.

General Motors cutting nearly 14,000 workers in North America and putting five plants up for closure.  Auto giant General Motors is cutting up to 14,000 workers in North America in a restructuring that will lead to a focus more on self-driving and electric vehicles.  More than 8,000 white-collar workers will either take buyouts or be laid off, and 6,000 factory workers could lose their jobs in the U.S. and Canada.  The company is also putting five plants up for possible closure in addition to dropping 15% of its workforce.

Electric Cars:  The Real Killers.  There weren't any "zero emissions" mandates or carbon credits back in the mid-'90s and while CAFE — the government's fuel economy edicts — did exist, back then it was only 27-something miles-per-gallon and so it wasn't yet necessary to build EVs as compliance cars, just to even out the MPG math (as it is now; this is one of the non-market mechanisms being used to nudge EVs onto the market).  So the EV1 had to stand on its own two bowed and rickety legs — and of course, couldn't.  As today, it was much too expensive ($35,000 in mid-1990s dollars) to make any kind of economic sense and didn't go very far and took forever to recharge before you could go not-far again.  Which didn't make sense generally.  GM tried give-away leases but that was just the problem.  The only way to get people into an EV1 was to basically give it to them.

Now that Obama is gone...
700 laid-off GM workers will get their jobs back.  It the kind of news that no one who gets laid off expects to hear — you're rehired!  But that's exactly what's about to happen 700 General Motors workers who were laid off earlier this month when the automaker cut 1,100 jobs.  The automaker said Wednesday [3/18/2017] that it is adding 500 jobs back to its Lansing Delta Township plant in 2018.  And another 180 jobs are being created at a nearby plant in Flint, Mich., for laid-off GM workers from Lansing.

GM Has Huge Supply of Unsold Cars.  U.S. consumers want vehicles built on light truck bodies — pickups, sport utility vehicles and crossovers.  U.S. carmakers have failed to switch production from passenger cars to light trucks fast enough to keep up with the changing demand, and now they are paying the price with bloated inventories of cars nobody wants to buy.

"Car Recession" Bites GM: Inventory Glut, Layoffs, Plant Shutdowns.  But GM already booked those vehicles on dealer lots as revenues.  GM has been reacting to its fabulously ballooning inventory glut by piling incentives on its vehicles.  But that hasn't worked all that well though it cost a lot of money.  Now it's time to get serious.  It will temporarily close five assembly plants in January and lay off over 10,000 employees, spokeswoman Dayna Hart said today [12/19/2016].

General Motors announces plans to lay off 2,000 employees at two US plants.  General Motors announced its plans to lay off more than 2,000 workers just hours after Donald Trump won the presidential election - putting his campaign promises to an early test.  Trump criticized the manufacturer after reports that it would shift some of its production to Mexico and vowed during his campaign to prevent layoffs in the auto industry.  But on Wednesday [11/9/2016], the company announced that it would lay off more than 2,000 workers indefinitely at two assembly plants in Ohio and Michigan -- two swings states that Trump won — starting in January.

The Editor says...
That's one way to put it.  It would be more truthful to say that GM delayed the announcement until after the election, to give Hillary Clinton a better chance of winning.

Clinton-backed branch of foundation donor GM now caught in major scandal.  Hillary Clinton had glowing words for the General Motors plant in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, when she traveled there in 2011 as secretary of state to announce the joint venture — of GM and an Uzbekistan state-owned firm — as a finalist for a State Department award.  "It is a collaboration between Uzbek and American companies, and it will serve as a symbol of our friendship and cooperation," Clinton said, touting the plant's "newest, most advanced technology."  The visit came a year after the General Motors Foundation had contributed $684,455 in vehicles to the Clinton Foundation.

Fiat Chrysler ending car production in the US.  The company may be called Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, but by early next year, it won't be making cars in the U.S.  Instead, Fiat Chrysler's U.S. plants will be focusing entirely on pickups and SUVs for the Ram and Jeep brands.  Fiat Chrysler is winding down production of the Chrysler 200 and Dodge Dart and will primarily produce Jeep SUVs and Ram pickups in the U.S.  The company's remaining car models will be made in Mexico or Canada.  Ending passenger car production in the U.S. is part of CEO Sergio Marchionne's multibillion-dollar plan to increase profit margins to match competitors.  It's a bet that recognizes the growing popularity of SUVs in America, low gas prices and lower cost of producing vehicles in Mexico.

Where's the Presidential Debate on GM's Crony Capitalism?  A dive into GM's filings with the Securities & Exchange Commission reveals that while the carmaker makes nearly all of its profits in the U.S., it pays virtually no U.S.  federal, state or local taxes.  The carmaker paid just $5 million in federal taxes last year, its SEC filings show.  For its total federal, state and local bill, all in, it booked zero taxes, the filings show.  Meantime, in 2015, GM paid more than $908 million in taxes to China, due to its profits from its joint ventures there, the filings show.  GM's historically low tax bill has flown under the radar screen in this presidential election season, when candidates from both parties offer ideas on reforming the corporate tax code.  While the White House has railed against loopholes for big corporations, Democrat candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders continue to stump for getting companies to pay their "fair share," and the GOP candidates largely push for lower tax rates.

Fullsize GM SUVs have a problem that's making owners sick.  Some fullsize SUV owners are getting sick, thanks to a buffeting and vibration problem in 2015 model year examples of the Chevy Tahoe and Suburban, Cadillac Escalade, and GMC Yukon.  According to owners' complaints to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the issue can vary from an annoying vibration inside the cabin to an experience so severe that it leads to dizziness and headaches.

GM to sell Chinese-made cars in the US: report.  General Motors plans to sell Chinese-made cars in the United States beginning early next year, a first for a major automaker, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday [11/12/2015].  GM, the top US automaker, will introduce the Buick Envision, a midsize sport-utility vehicle made in Shandong province, the Journal said, citing unidentified people familiar with the plan.

'What a Phony': See Why Greta Says AG Lynch 'Sold Us Out Fast'.  Earlier this week, the Justice Department announced a $900 million settlement over the automaker's defective ignition switches, which are blamed for the deaths of 124 people.  The feds also deferred prosecution of the company for three years and no individual employees were charged.  Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, praised GM for cooperating with the investigation[.]  "Good behavior after the fact does not absolve G.M. or any company of responsibility but companies should be encouraged to act as G.M. did here to help the truth come out faster," he said.  Some victims' family members were disappointed with the punishment, with one woman — whose daughter died in a 2006 crash — arguing that GM's executives "knew what they were doing and they kept doing it."

GM plans to sell Buicks made in China to Americans.  Most Buick vehicles sold in the United States after 2016 could be imported from China and Europe, according to two sources familiar with parent General Motors Co's plans.  Only two of Buick's future US models, replacements for the mid-size LaCrosse sedan and the large Enclave crossover, are expected to be built in North America, according to the sources, who did not want to be identified because their companies work with GM.

What was the Point of GM Share Buyback?  General Motors' shares have taken a hit this week with the catalyst for the latest downturn being news out of China.  Continued weakness in China (including weakening car sales) has led the country to devalue its currency in an attempt to bolster its economy at the expense of its trading partners.  This latest news confirms my views that GM's China gamble puts the company and its shareholders at increased risk.  The horrible performance of GM's stock over the past few months also brings into question the rationale for the much-hyped share buyback that was instigated by ex-Obama Auto Task Force member, Harry Wilson[.]

Gov't: Fiat Chrysler must offer to buy back 500,000 pickups.  Fiat Chrysler must offer to buy back from customers more than 500,000 Ram pickup trucks and other vehicles in the biggest such action in U.S. history as part of a costly deal with safety regulators to settle legal problems in about two dozen recalls.

The Obama Presidency — A Cacophony of Corruption.  [Scroll down]  Conjure up the Harding administration and one thinks singly of the Teapot Dome Scandal, where politically privileged special interests received government largesse while other, more deserving applicants, were, quite simply, ripped off.  Would Obama ever do such a thing?  Just ask the GM creditors who were denied bankruptcy deficiency claims while the Obama administration orchestrated a multi-billion-dollar payoff to its political cronies at the UAW.

G.M. Inquiry Said to Find Criminal Wrongdoing.  Justice Department investigators have identified criminal wrongdoing in General Motors' failure to disclose a defect tied to at least 104 deaths, and are negotiating what is expected to be a record penalty, according to people briefed on the inquiry.  A settlement could be reached as soon as this summer.  The final number is still being negotiated, but it is expected to eclipse the $1.2 billion paid last year by Toyota for concealing unintended acceleration problems in its vehicles, said the people, who did not want to be identified because the negotiations weren't complete.

It's Official: Taxpayers Lost $16.6 Billion On The Auto Bailout.  [I]f you look at only the new money the Obama administration spent bailing out General Motors, Chrysler, and Ally Financial, taxpayers did get back "every dime" of that cash.  But that completely ignores the $17.4 billion President Bush promised General Motors and Chrysler in December 2008.  If you take the entire Troubled Asset Relief Program bailout into account, taxpayers spent a total of $79.7 billion on the auto bailout, received only $63.1 billion back, for a total loss of $16.6 billion.

Despite Recalls, G.M. Pays Workers a Big Bonus.  To cope with the gravest safety crisis in its history, General Motors has spent freely — almost $3 billion — to compensate accident victims and recall nearly 30 million vehicles.  But when the company closed the books this week on last year's recall-plagued financial results, Mary T. Barra, its chief executive, had one more costly decision to make:  Should the decade-long failure of executives, engineers and lawyers to address deadly defects in millions of cars result in a smaller annual bonus for G.M.'s blue-collar workers?

Obama Brags About $10 Bil Auto Bailout At Plant He Helped Idle.  Just days before Obama's planned swing through Detroit, the Treasury Dept. reported that the final taxpayer cost of the auto industry bailout was $9.26 billion.  That equals $441 for every single car and light truck that GM and Chrysler have sold since 2009.  That's an awfully big price tag for Obama to claim bragging rights over.  Maybe the outsized bailout cost explains why Obama will give his talk at an assembly plant owned by Ford, which didn't take any bailout money yet somehow managed to survive the recession.  Ford did, however, put its hand out for a $5.9 billion low-cost Department of Energy loan, which it used in part to convert that Wayne, Mich., plant from one that made popular SUVs to one that now makes politically correct hybrids and compacts.

Government Says It Lost "Only" $9.26 Billion On Auto Bailout.  A Department of the Treasury report this week released some of its final numbers on the auto industry bailout, with good news:  "only" $9.26 billion was flushed down the drain bailing out America's labor union-dominated auto industry.

Federal government lost $9.26B on auto bailout.  The U.S. government lost $9.26 billion on the auto industry rescue, according to the final accounting released late Monday [12/29/2014].  In its report, the U.S. Treasury Department said it recovered $70.43 billion of the $79.69 billion it gave to General Motors Corp., Chrysler LLC and auto lending arms Ally Financial Inc. and Chrysler Financial.  The government was repaid through a combination of stock sales, partial loan repayments, dividends and interest payments.

50 Things Barack Obama Has Done Wrong:  [#12]  Taxpayers lost 25 billion dollars on Obama's bailout of General Motors and Chrysler.  Chrysler isn't even an American company any more.  It's now owned by an Italian company, Fiat.

Still Fighting: The Delphi Workers Obama Robbed.  The White House pretended to champion American workers this week with gimmicky initiatives on federal job training and "workplace innovation."  But far from the Beltway dog-and-pony show, a group of American workers ruthlessly shafted by the Obama administration was finally getting some real support — and inching toward justice.  It was five years ago this summer that 20,000 white-collar nonunion workers from Delphi (a leading auto parts company spun off from GM in 1999) had their pensions sabotaged as part of a rotten White House deal with Big Labor.  Two court rulings this summer have given the victims hope.  Their plight must not be forgotten.

General Motors recalls 717,949 more vehicles.  General Motors (GM) is recalling an additional 717,949 vehicles due to a range of issues, including loose bolts and potentially incomplete welding on some seat hooks.  The carmaker has recalled nearly 29 million vehicles this year, most due to faulty ignition switches.  The recall-related repairs are expected to cost GM $1.2bn (£700m).

General Motors Recalls Another 3.16 Million Vehicles, Boosts Quarter Recall Tab To $700 Million.  The Detroit-based automaker on Monday [6/16/2014] recalled another 3.16 million 2000 to 2014 model year vehicles, according to a U.S. regulatory filing.  It was the second recall over consecutive business days, coming on top of a recall Friday of more than 500,000 Camaro sports cars plus other models.  GM also said it now expects to record recall-related costs of $700 million for the second quarter, up from a previous estimate of $400 million.

GM to recall further 3.4 million vehicles over ignition problems.  General Motors says it needs to change or replace the keys for about 3.4 million cars because they could cause the ignition switch to move out of position if they are carrying too much weight.  In a statement released Monday, GM said that the switches can rotate out of 'run' if the key has excess weight and the car 'experiences some jarring event', such as hitting a pothole or crossing a railroad track.

GM Is Alive. Drivers Are Dead. Any Questions?  How many lives and billions of taxpayer dollars will it take before the cost of Obama's meddling with the economy becomes prohibitive?

Did the Obama administration defraud purchasers of GM shares?  When a controlling shareholder in a corporation sells shares to the public, and the corporation subsequently discloses damaging information known to it at the time of the sale, the SEC normally gets to work investigating a possible crime.  Withholding such data can be a crime, defrauding investors by withholding material information.  It would appear that something like that happened when the federal government sold GM shares to the public.  In the private sector, it would be time to call in the criminal defense lawyers.

GM Bailout Cost Taxpayers Far More Than Just $11 Billion.  The Detroit Free Press' announcement on Wednesday [5/14/2014] that taxpayers lost more on the General Motors bailout in 2009 than originally thought was brief, to the point, and missed most of the real story behind the GM bailout.  Taxpayers lost $11.2 billion following the government's sale of the last of the stock it held in GM following the company's government-assisted bankruptcy and restructuring, according to the announcement.  The key quote from a Treasury spokesman, however, was revealing.  Said Adam Hodge:  "The goal of Treasury's investment in GM was never to make a profit, but to help save the American auto industry, and by any measure that effort was successful."  Not if one was a bondholder in GM.  Not if one believed that a company should be run by experienced automakers and not by government bureaucrats.

General Motors Is Recalling 51,000 Cars to Fix Fuel Gauge.  General Motors is recalling 51,640 Buick Enclave, Chevrolet Traverse and GMC Acadia sport utility vehicles of the 2014 model year because faulty software may cause the fuel gauge to read inaccurately, federal regulators said Saturday [5/3/2014].

US government says it lost $11.2B on GM bailout.  The U.S. government lost $11.2 billion on its bailout of General Motors, more than the $10.3 billion the Treasury Department estimated when it sold its remaining GM shares in December, according to a government report released on Wednesday [4/30/2014].  The $11.2 billion loss includes a write-off in March of the government's remaining $826 million investment in "old" GM, the quarterly report by a Treasury watchdog said.

G.M. Seeks to Fend Off Lawsuits Over Switch.  General Motors moved on Tuesday [4/22/2014] to prevent future safety lapses by expanding its oversight of problematic vehicles even as the automaker continued to take an aggressive legal posture in dealing with its past missteps.  General Motors has asked a federal bankruptcy judge to dismiss dozens of potentially costly lawsuits filed against the company over its handling of a defective ignition switch in millions of cars, and to bar similar cases in the future.

Released Emails Reveal GM CEO Was Warned of Steering Problems in 2011.  Despite the testimony of GM CEO Mary Barra that the company "acted without hesitation" to address the ignition switch problems that served as the basis for the latest recall of millions of vehicles, emails show that GM failed to address product problems, some of which Barra herself seemed fully aware of, at least as far back as 2011.  The company, often derided as "Government Motors" because of the billions of tax dollars infused into it by President Obama, has been under fire this month because of ignition switch problems linked to dozens of crashes and perhaps as many as 13 deaths.

Did GM Reject Safer Ignition Switch Design in 2001 Because of Cost?  Newly released internal GM documents reveal that the company in 2001 considered — and rejected — an ignition switch design that two prominent safety advocates say could have avoided the problem that led the automaker to recall millions of vehicles this year.  The company's decision to reject the safer switch was motivated by cost, the advocates say.  They say GM documents show that design was the same one GM quietly began providing years later, in 2006, as a replacement part, and is now beginning to add to all recalled vehicles.

GM to seek court protection against ignition lawsuits.  General Motors Co said it would ask a U.S. court to bar lawsuits related to actions before its 2009 bankruptcy, signaling a tougher stance toward legal claims stemming from its recent recall over faulty ignition switches.

The GM Scandal Is Worse Than You Think.  Here's another reason why government should never own a business. [...] Not only did the Obama administration have the power and ideological motive to damage the largely non-unionized competition, it was busy propping up a company that was causing preventable deaths.  No one is innocent, of course, but not everyone is bailed out.

Why GM's safety calamity, an utter Washington failure, isn't a hot TV topic.  GM, you'll recall, had to be rescued by the taxpayers in 2009, and the federal stake was so large that the company was dubbed Government Motors when it went through bankruptcy.  But bankruptcy rules require a disclosure of all liabilities as well as assets.  By hiding the defect in its cars, GM may have committed bankruptcy fraud.  Beyond that, the utter failure of the National Highway Transportation Safety Agency to crack down on the defective ignition switch is an embarrassing failure.  But regulatory agencies are a journalistic backwater, drawing a fraction of the coverage lavished on the White House, Congress and politics.  Even so, with GM's CEO and the acting NHTSA chief scheduled to be hauled before a Hill committee today, you'd think there would be a drumbeat on the air.

What will it take to put you in this government-created death trap today?  If you buy a car from Government Motors (yes, I still call 'em that), you have chosen... poorly.

Michael Moore: General Motors 'criminals' deserve death.  Liberal filmmaker Michael Moore believes that whoever was responsible at General Motors for failing to recall a faulty ignition switch deserves death.  "I am opposed to the death penalty, but to every rule there is usually an exception, and in this case I hope the criminals at General Motors will be arrested and made to pay for their pre-meditated decision to take human lives for a lousy ten bucks," he wrote.

GM Recall Scandal Goes Straight to the White House.  New General Motors CEO Mary Barra will testify before Congress Tuesday about why it took so long for GM to issue product safety recalls involving faulty ignition switches that caused air bags to fail in crashes, contributing to thirteen deaths. [... She] ought to be accompanied by former Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, as well as "car czars" Steven Rattner and Ron Bloom, together with White House and Treasury officials who oversaw the government's huge bailout of General Motors.  Many — though not all — of the safety problems happened on their watch.  In addition, LaHood and other Obama administration officials led a witch-hunt against Toyota during the same period.

No One In Media Asks Where GM's Top CEO, Barack Obama, Was During All This.  In addition to the 4.8 million vehicles recalled for various problems ranging from dodgy ignition switches to non-deploying airbags, an additional 1.3 million are now being recalled due to a problem with the power steering that could cause an accident.

GM stops selling some Cruze small cars, offering no reason.  General Motors Co said on Friday it had told its dealers to stop selling certain Chevrolet Cruze small cars without saying why, in another blow to a company already facing a crisis over defective ignition switches linked to at least 12 deaths.

Recall Could Cost GM Billions and Its Reputation.  General Motors Co.'s recall of 1.6 million vehicles could prove to be one of the most costly in automotive history.  The company not only faces fines.  The legal liability triggered by what could be thousands of personal injury lawsuits may be just as damaging to the reputation of GM's important brands, which almost certainly will erode sales.  At the heart of the injury to GM is the accusation that some of its employees knew about an ignition switch fault as early as 2004.

Obama's SOTU: 18 Lies and Distortions That Should Concern Us.  [#5] The auto industry came roaring back, he claims.  Chrysler is now Fiat and GM is struggling.  Ford, which didn't take taxpayer money is faring the best.

Fiat to buy full control of Chrysler.  U.S. automaker Chrysler will become fully owned by Italy's Fiat under terms of an agreement announced Wednesday that also involves the United Auto Workers union.  The agreement comes more than 4½ years after the Obama administration brought Fiat in to keep Chrysler in business as part of a packaged bankruptcy proceeding.

GM's CEO rejects repaying Feds for bailout losses.  The General Motors bailout may have cost the government $10 billion, but GM CEO Dan Akerson rejects any suggestion that the company should compensate for the losses.  He says Treasury officials took the same risk assumed by anyone who purchases stock.

The Editor says...
That is an obvious canard.  When a private individual buys stock he risks the loss of some or all of his money.  When the government buys stock, it risks other people's money.

Government Gets Out of General Motors With Loss of $10.5 Billion .  The U.S. government this week sold its last shares of General Motors Company, ending the multi-billion dollar bailout of the automaker and costing taxpayers a net loss of approximately $10.5 billion.

Government sells remaining stake in GM.  The U.S. government ended up losing $10.5 billion on the General Motors bailout, but it says the alternative would have been far worse.

Federal Government Sells Off Last GM Stock.  The federal government announced today [12/11/2013] that it has sold the last of its General Motors stock, about 31.1 million shares or 2 percent of the company, ultimately losing about $10.5 billion on the original investment.  The government once owned 912 million shares, or 60.8 percent of GM, which it received in return for the $49.5 billion bailout given to the auto manufacturer during the financial crisis of 2008-09.

Obama uses fuzzy math to blame Bush for GM losses.  With final losses from the auto industry bailout near $15 billion, President Obama is using fuzzy math to claim that taxpayers lost no money on his administration's portion of the rescue program, analysts say.  On the heels of the Treasury Department's announcement Monday that it was selling its final shares of General Motors Co. acquired during the 2008-09 bailout, Mr. Obama seems more intent on claiming credit and avoiding blame than providing taxpayers with a final accounting of the bailout that also included Chrysler LLC and GM's financing arm, Ally Financial.

GM doesn't owe $450 million in retiree benefits, U.S. judge rules.  A federal judge said General Motors Co is not required to pay $450 million to cover medical benefits for retirees, in a defeat for the United Auto Workers union.

Treasury to sell last GM shares from auto bailout. How'd taxpayers fare?  The Treasury Department is finally getting out of the automotive business, five years after interceding to rescue the US industry from apparent annihilation at the onset of the Great Recession.  On Thursday [11/21/2013], it announced it sold 70.2 million shares of General Motors (GM) stock and intends to sell its remaining 31.1 million shares by Dec. 31.  Once the final sale is complete, however, US taxpayers will have lost nearly $10 billion of the $49.5 billion the federal government used to prevent the auto giant from collapsing in 2008, Treasury officials say.

Treasury Seeks an Exit From G.M. by Year End.  The Treasury Department said on Thursday that it would sell its remaining shares in General Motors by year's end, allowing the government to finally sever ties to the bailed-out automaker a few months sooner than expected.  If the government meets that projected timeline — the plan is subject to market conditions — it would clear the last vestiges of its 2009 rescues of G.M. and Chrysler, controversial moves that the Obama administration has defended as crucial to saving jobs.  In exchange for providing loans to the two carmakers, the Obama administration took majority stakes in the companies.  The lifelines to G.M. and Chrysler have cost taxpayers several billion dollars.

Government Dumping Stock in General Motors.  A new report given to Congress on Tuesday [11/12/2013] reveals that the federal government bailout of General Motors is going to end up costing the U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars once the feds sell their share completely.  In October, the U.S. government sold another $1.2 billion worth of stock in the fallen giant, leaving the government's share down from 7% on September 26 to as low as 4% by October 31.

It's official: GM bailout has cost taxpayers almost $10 billion.  If Drudge had not linked to this Detroit News story by David Shepardson on his website today, there would have been no national media attention to news of the massive subsidy given primarily to labor unions.

GM got bailout, now ships jobs to China.  Saving General Motors from bankruptcy was among President Obama's most frequently cited achievements when he ran for re-election last year.  Democrats everywhere touted the company's revival as proof of the 2009 bailout's wisdom.  That was then.  Now, Obama has quietly released the auto manufacturer from a bailout requirement that it increase its production in the U.S.  Instead, GM is spending billions of dollars building up its production capacity in ... China.

Chrysler to invest $164M in Mexican engine plant.  Chrysler Group LLC confirmed Thursday [10/10/2013] that it will invest $164 million in its engine factory in Saltillo, Mexico, to boost production of its Tigershark engine.  The Auburn Hills automaker has invested nearly $1.25 billion in Saltillo this year, and Mexican President Enrique Pena was on hand Thursday to thank CEO Sergio Marchionne for his ongoing commitment to the country and dedicate the new van assembly plant that went online in July.

Poll: Texans Reluctant to Buy GM Trucks Because of Bailout.  More than half of Texans said that the nearly $50 billion taxpayer bailout of General Motors may deter them from buying from the company, according to a survey released Tuesday.  The National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC), a nonprofit ethics watchdog, surveyed more than 500 Texas residents and found that 40 percent said the bailout would "absolutely" affect their decision about buying one of GM's new pick-up trucks.  More than 22 percent said it would "likely" or "very likely" affect their decision, while just 24 percent answered "not too likely."  About 150 of those surveyed said that they were in the market for a new truck.

Former Auto Czar Admits Telling GM to Selectively Fund Pensions.  The GM bailout cost taxpayers nearly $50 billion, with the federal government taking over more than 60 percent of the automaker after it went bankrupt.  Delphi, which was GM's largest supplier of parts, had been itself in bankruptcy since 2005 and did not have enough money to fund its pensions.  Under the bailout, the automaker agreed to fully fund pension obligations of former hourly employees who were members of the UAW union and had worked at GM's Delphi before it became an independent company in 1999.

Detroit bankruptcy filing puts Obama in awkward spot.  When Detroit on Thursday became the largest U.S. city to file for bankruptcy, it punctured a major narrative that was key to President Obama's re-election: that his auto bailout would help resuscitate the Motor City's battered economy and inject life into an area unable to shake hard times.

Flashback: Obama boasted in 2012: 'We refused to let Detroit go bankrupt'.  On October 13, 2012, President Obama boasted to Americans in his weekly address that he refused to "let Detroit go bankrupt."  "[W]e refused to throw in the towel and do nothing," Obama said.

Government Motors Is Alive and Detroit Is Dead.  Last Oct. 13, President Obama boasted in a weekly address about the bailed-out auto industry that, "We refused to throw in the towel and do nothing.  We refused to let Detroit go bankrupt.  I bet on American workers and American ingenuity, and three years later that bet is paying off in a big way."  Less than a year later, the American auto industry is indeed surviving, bolstered largely by a Ford that refused government assistance and foreign transplants located in right-to-work states.  Even General Motors has been forced to pay the free market some lip service, lest its customers go elsewhere, even as it accepts Chevy Volt subsidies.  Detroit, however, is dead, and unions and government killed it.

Chrysler to recall 840,000 vehicles.  US carmaker Chrysler has said that it will recall nearly 840,000 vehicles.  This includes 490,000 vehicles which may have a potentially faulty component for head rests that are designed to move forward during rear-end crashes.  It is recalling 282,000 minivans to fix software which is "inadvertently programmed" to deploy side airbags on the opposite side to that of an impact.

Chrysler expected to formally refuse Jeep recall.  In one of the biggest-ever showdowns between an automaker and the government, Chrysler on Tuesday [6/18/2013] is expected to file papers explaining its refusal to recall 2.7 million older Jeep SUVs that are at risk of catching fire in rear-end collisions.

NHTSA's Jeep Witch Hunt.  Having saved Chrysler to satisfy its Big Labor pals, will the Obama administration now feed it to its tort-lobby friends?  That's one question that pops to mind after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's (NHTSA) announced — and Chrysler refused — the recall of 2.7 million Jeep Grand Cherokees and Jeep Libertys this week, thus opening the automaker to hundreds of millions of dollars in damage suits from trial lawyers.

Another Obama Victory! Taxpayers to Lose $10 Billion on GM Bailout.  The hits just keep on coming. We're sure to be told it could have been worse, but thanks to the deft maneuvering of noted businessman Obama we're only losing $10 billion.

Thanks for the Bailout, Suckers! GM Builds a New Plant in China.  As a general rule, corporations should be able to build plants where they want, whether it's in America or elsewhere.  Moreover, if they choose to go overseas, we should be asking, "Why is that?"  Are our corporate taxes too high?  Do we have too many regulations?  Is there something else that we can do as a nation to be more business-friendly, to keep building plants here in America, so that we can employ more people and rake in more taxes?

Nationalized GM now builds Cadillacs in China, creating thousands of jobs — in China!
GM Wins Approval to Build $1.3 Billion Cadillac Plant in China.  General Motors Co., the largest foreign automaker in China, said it won regulatory approval to build a Cadillac factory to boost sales of luxury vehicles in the world's biggest automobile market.

Obama Saved Detroit — for China and Italy.  We taxpayers ponied up the money for Chrysler's revamped lineup, the profits from which are going to prop up unsustainable union jobs at an unsustainable company in an unsustainable foreign country.  And as soon as Marchionne cons banks out of enough money to buy Chrysler's outstanding shares, then all of Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep's profits will wind up in FIAT's sinkhole.  GM on the other hand retooled its lineup with our tax dollars, the profits from which are going to build more plants in China to build cheap [...] cars to sell to unemployed Americans.

Welcome to General Tso's Motors.  American taxpayers may have rescued GM during its moment of need, but it is China that is disproportionately benefiting from the bailout of America's erstwhile automotive icon.  GM's most recent round of investments vividly demonstrates the change.

Little Red Ink Corvette.  General Motors CEO Daniel Akerson plans to roll up to Capitol Hill Thursday [3/21/2013] in a flashy new Corvette Stingray less than 24 hours after settlement talks fell apart in a lawsuit that could cost GM at least $1 billion — and add to the nearly $20 billion taxpayers have already lost on the 2009 bailout.  GM spokeswoman Heather Rosenker expects a "full house" when Akerson debuts the 450 horsepower sports car at the Capitol Hill Club.  The CEO then plans to update the bipartisan gathering on the state of GM in a closed-door meeting.

GM has 574,000 Cars In Dealer Inventory, Despite No Interest Loans, Highest Car Discounts.  As of yesterday desperate car buyers who can't rub two dimes together, can drive to the local unemployment office in the luxury of their brand new Chevy Imapala, or alternatively pick a just as worthless Chevy Malibu, HHR WAgon, Traverse SUV, as well as a Silverado, Colorado and Avalanche pickups, which are now offered at either 72 or 60 months of interest-free loans.  "The 60-month deal also applies to the Buick Enclave and GMC Acadia SUVs and Sierra pickups."  That pretty much covers the entire line up.

The "Stuffing" Is Back As GM's February Dealer Inventory Soars To Second Highest Ever.  [GM has] a near record 743K cars with dealers -- the second highest ever.

Where 'Channel-Stuffed' German Cars Go To Die.  This car park of chaos is full of nearly-new cars meant for destruction so as never to enter the car market as a cheap alternative and to maintain a high-priced spare parts market.  It seems the Keynesian profligacy or digging a hole to fill it in has progressed in the 21st century to building a car and crushing that car as the engine of growth for our economies.

Treasury gradually unloads GM stock.  The department is expected to unload its approximately 300 million shares on the open market by the end of 2014.

Fannie Motors.  General Motors has flooded financial markets with auto-backed securities in an effort to offload its risky subprime loans onto banks, a strategy industry insiders say could produce a bubble.  High production costs and falling profit-per-car have led auto manufacturers to turn to financing to earn higher profits.  Automakers have capitalized on lending by not only loaning money to customers but also packaging and selling those loans to investors in a manner similar to the sale of mortgage-backed securities that created the housing bubble.

Grand Theft Auto Loans.  Bailout recipient General Motors leads the world in car sales thanks in part to subprime auto lending that may cause a fiscal calamity, financial and auto industry observers fear.  "You have the government trying to sell the bailout and this recovery and they've allowed, encouraged GM to revive itself off the back of subprime lending," said Ed Niedermeyer, auto industry consultant.

GM reports $4.86B profit in '12, to pay workers up to $6,750 in bonuses.  General Motors Co. said Thursday [2/14/2013] it earned $4.86 billion in 2012, down from a record $7.59 billion profit in 2011 mainly due to one-time tax accounting changes and a non-cash charge in Europe of certain assets that hit the carmaker's bottom line.

Government Motors Stole $20 Billion from Taxpayers, Spent $18 Million on Lobbyists.  This is what happens when government gets into business.  Crony capitalism ends up with the taxpayers footing the bill for insider deals between connected CEOs and unions and their pet politicians.

The dirt on 'Government Motors'.  Maybe the most disturbing news in "American Turnaround," Ed Whitacre's new book that describes his stint as head of General Motors, is how naïve he was about what it means to run a company that's been bailed out by the federal government, and is now regulated by the anti-business types who populate the Obama administration.  As Whitacre takes the job back in 2009, he thinks that the automaker's government masters are rational people looking to help the company survive and thrive.  Along the way, he finds out that they're not.

GM Buyback of Treasury Shares — Why Now?  General Motors moved quickly to complete its buyback of 200 million shares from the US Treasury Department before year end.  It is a welcome sign that the Obama Administration is finally beginning to exit taxpayers' GM stake, a move that could have been made a year and a half ago when share price was closer to $30.

The Auto Bailout Failure Is Now Complete.  Taxpayers had sunk $50 billion into a union bailout in 2009 and were now proud owners of 26.5 percent of the struggling company.  Reportedly, GM had growing concerns that the stigma of "Government Motors" was hurting sales in the United States.  At the time, any transaction would have come at a steep loss to taxpayers and undermined the president's questionable campaign assertions that the auto union rescue had been a huge success.

GM is alive and taxpayers got ripped off.  Even by the standards of Washington, spending about $31 billion worth of taxpayer dollars to get yourself re-elected is a pretty audacious act.  Yet that is exactly what President Obama did with the GM bailout.  "Osama bin Laden is dead and GM is alive" was his campaign's mantra.  And lest anyone think that using TARP funds to keep the auto company alive was an act of charity, Obama said as recently as October:  "We got back every dime."  Now that the election is over, he doesn't need to keep up that pretense any more.

The Feds Can't Unload GM Quick Enough.  With the GM buyback of shares from the government, and a planned sell-off of remaining government-owned shares, it's likely that taxpayers will lose about $25 billion on the deal.

Making Mullah Mobiles.  A French car manufacturer that is partially owned by the taxpayer-funded General Motors Company (GM) claims to have ceased its longtime business dealings with Iran, though experts have cast doubts on this claim.  GM owns a seven percent stake in PSA Peugeot Citroën, which has faced intense scrutiny for its business relationship with Iran.  Peugeot has long been one of Iran's central auto partners, providing parts and technology to Iran's leading car manufacturer, Khodro Company.  Khodro is believed to have economic ties to the regime's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Debunking Obama's "Big Three".  The GM bailout was a financial mistake.  GM should have gone through a standard bankruptcy to allow it to restructure properly.  Instead, when GM had its IPO the United Auto Workers union cashed out big time.  This group, the same group largely responsible for the initial demise of GM in the first place was given 17.5% to 20% ownership of the company (depending on how you count Chrysler and GM percentages).  Why?  It's the Chicago way.

Auto Bailout Loss Could Exceed $70 Billion.  Courtesy of the $83 billion auto bailout — on which we are already poised to lose more than $40 billion — the taxpayers are stuck with 26% stock ownership of General Motors.  It could get much worse.

GM Wins, America Loses.  Having already heard Obama praised, repeatedly, for saving GM, and having witnessed both presidential candidates show support for the company, I've decided that it's time to explain — not in emotional terms or statistics, but in simple philosophical truths — what exactly it was that Obama saved.  For when the matter is closely examined without national prejudice, it turns out that what Obama did by "saving" GM was actually quite sinister.

This is an original compilation, Copyright © 2024 by Andrew K. Dart

America's cry for help lost in the White Noise.  Back in the salad days of President Barack Obama in the Oval Office, the first sign of the coming soft tyranny against We the People should have been the roughly 2000 car dealerships forced out of business by the anti-free enterprise cabal squatting on the White House. [...] This was the first visible social engineering adventure of the Obama regime and tens of thousands of jobs were lost as a result.

Congressmen: Were Conservative Car Dealers Targeted for GM Closures?  Republicans Mike Kelly (PA-03) and Jim Renacci (OH-16) circulated a letter Thursday [5/16/2013] requesting Treasury Secretary Jack Lew to release documents detailing the process and methodology the Automotive Task Force used to shut down General Motors dealerships in 2009 during the automotive industry crisis.  Renacci's Northeast Ohio Chevrolet dealership was closed in 2010 after losing a battle with General Motors.

Here are 1,366 well sourced examples of Barack Obama's lies, lawbreaking, corruption, cronyism, hypocrisy, waste, etc..  [#101] Although Obama claimed that his "Cash for Clunkers" program would help the environment, it actually caused net harm to the environment.  Because the program required cars to be shredded instead of recycled, it wasted 24 million barrels of oil.  Many of the cars that were destroyed were in perfectly good condition.  Because the program's minimum requirement for so-called "fuel efficiency" was only 22 mpg, the reduction in pollution was negligible.

Cash for Clunkers Was a Complete Failure.  Keynesian economics is fundamentally misguided because it focuses on how to encourage more spending when the real goal should be to figure out policies that result in more income.  This is one of the reasons I wish people focused more on "gross domestic income," which is a measure of how we earn our national income (i.e., wages, small business income, corporate profits, etc) rather than on "gross domestic product," which is a measure of how our national income gets allocated (consumption, investment, government, etc).  Simply stated, Keynesians put the cart before the horse.  Consumption doesn't drive growth, it's a consequence of growth.

13 Incompetent Failures in the Obama Administration.  [#7] U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner determined where the "stimulus" money would go.  His decisions lost billions on auto bailouts for failed companies, wasted even more billions on "cash for clunkers," and produced economic confusion by supporting failing companies at the expense of strong ones.  This crony capitalism and financial mismanagement contributed to the Obama economic slump masquerading as a "recovery."

Study: 'Cash For Clunkers' Reduced Spending.  The Obama administration has hailed the"cash-for-clunkers" stimulus program for its part in the automobile industry recovery.  But a recent study is putting the program that ended in 2009 back in the news and highlighting its alleged failures.  Economists from Texas A&M University evaluated the stimulus program and found it cost the automobile industry billions of dollars.

50 Things Barack Obama Has Done Wrong:  [#7]  Not only was Cash for Clunkers a wasteful government program that "cost $1.4 million for every job it created and did little to reduce carbon emissions," destroying the "clunkers" helped dramatically jack up the cost of used cars for the rest of the country.

Obama's Economy In Action! Data Shows Cash For Clunkers Was An Epic Debacle.  "Cash for Clunkers," the 2009 Obama administration stimulus program designed to spend $2.85 billion to jumpstart the auto industry, turned out to be a complete disaster — for the auto industry.  In the minds of Obama's team of advisers and economists, the program made total sense, of course.  The plan was to dangle a $4,500 credit to persuade car owners to trade in their older automobiles for new cars with better fuel efficiency. [...] According to the findings of three Texas A&M University economics professors, "Cash for Clunkers" ultimately caused auto industry revenue to shrink by about $3 billion in less than a year

Study: 'Cash for Clunkers' [was] an even bigger lemon than thought.  While the program's fuel-efficiency restrictions led to the purchase of more fuel-efficient cars, Americans ended up buying cheaper cars than they otherwise would have, the study found.  "Strikingly, we find that Cash for Clunkers actually reduced overall spending on new vehicles," the researchers reported, noting households "tended to purchase less expensive and smaller vehicles such as the Toyota Corolla, which was the most popular new vehicle purchased under the program."  They found buyers who participated "spent an average of $4,600 less on a new vehicle than they otherwise would have."

Clunker progressivism.  "Cash for Clunkers" was born with Obama's administration as a component of his stimulus.  Its fate is a window into both why the recovery has been extraordinarily weak and what happens when progressives' clever plans collide with recalcitrant reality. [...] Most of the 677,842 sales were simply taken from the near future.  That many older vehicles were traded in — and, as required by law, destroyed.  Gayer and Parker accept as reasonable an estimate that the cost per job created by the program was $1.4 million.  Although the vouchers did not come close to covering the cost of the new cars, voucher recipients seem not to have reduced their other consumption.

Our Cash For Obama's Clunkers.  The last five years of American economic policy has been a sad and expensive replay of what governments should never do.  Amidst the uproar over the pathetic ObamaCare website rollout, many Americans missed the stinging report about Obama's Cash for Clunkers program.  Not surprisingly, it was a failed program that cost us $1.4 million for each job allegedly created — a perfect representation of the failure of government-led economies.

Study says 'Cash for Clunkers' created few jobs.  The nearly $3 billion "Cash for Clunkers" program approved by Congress in 2009 did little to boost the environment and created few jobs, a new study released Wednesday [10/30/2013] found.  A Brookings Institution study found the $2.85 billion program "provided a short-term boost in vehicle sales, which were pulled forward from sales that would have occurred in subsequent months.  There was a small increase in employment but the implied cost per job created ($1.4 million) was far higher than other fiscal stimulus programs."

Whoops — 'Cash for Clunkers' Actually Hurt the Environment.  According to the Automotive Recyclers Association (ARA), automobiles are almost completely recyclable, down to their engine oil and brake fluid.  But many of the "Cash for Clunkers" cars were never sent to recycling facilities.  The agency reports that the cars' engines were instead destroyed by federal mandate, in order to prevent dealers from illicitly reselling the vehicles later.  The remaining parts of each car could then be put up for auction, but program guidelines also required that after 180 days, no matter how much of the car was left, the parts woud be sent to a junkyard and shredded.

Great News: Obama's Cash for Clunkers Actually Hurt the Environment.  When you have an administration run by pinheads who haven't spent much time outside government, you get things like Cash for Clunkers. [...] Of the 250 million cars on America's roads, Cash for Clunkers swapped just 690,000.  Of those, many were relatively young and fuel efficient, so we didn't save all that much gasoline.

"Cash for Clunkers" environmental cost/benefit balance seems to have been negative.  That should make us skeptical, but also, if it's true, more critical of the government, since (I assume) they knew all this and did it anyway.