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Michael Moore: General Motors ‘Criminals’ Deserve Death

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Photo Credit: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP

Photo Credit: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP

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.

Moore blamed former President George W. Bush’s Transportation Department for ignoring the problem in 2007 and praised new GM CEO Mary Barra for telling the truth about the problem.

“Only now, under the newly-configured GM — owned, essentially, by you and me from 2009 through last year — has the truth come out,” he wrote. “And my guess is that it has to do with the fact that a mother now runs General Motors.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Former GM Engineer, Husband Convicted of Stealing Trade Secrets for Possible Use in China

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DETROIT (AP) — A former General Motors engineer with access to the automaker’s hybrid technology was convicted Friday along with her husband of stealing trade secrets for possible use in China.

Shanshan Du won a transfer within GM in 2003 to be closer to the technology and then copied documents until she accepted a severance offer and left the company in 2005, prosecutors said.

Du, 54, and Yu Qin, 51, were found guilty Friday by a federal jury in Detroit after a trial that lasted weeks. Qin also was convicted of wire fraud and attempting to obstruct justice by shredding documents. They shook each other’s hand after the verdict but declined to comment, as did their attorneys.

Du faces up to 10 years in prison, while her husband faces up to 30. No sentencing date has been set.

Prosecutors told jurors that GM trade secrets were found on at least seven computers owned by the Oakland County couple. The government doesn’t believe the information ever made it to China, although Qin had set up his own company, Millennium Technology International, and claimed to have made contact with GM competitors overseas.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama’s (un)American Auto Bailout (+video)

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By Michelle Malkin. Cue “Fanfare for the Common Man” and rev up the Government Motors engines. Wednesday is Great American Auto Bailout Day at the Democratic National Convention. Party propagandists have prepared a prime-time-ready film touting the “rescue’s” benefits for American workers. UAW President Bob King will sing the savior-in-chief’s praises.

But like all of the economic success stories manufactured by the White House, the $85 billion government handout is a big fat farce.

“I said I believe in American workers, I believe in this American industry, and now the American auto industry has come roaring back,” Obama bragged on the campaign trail. Here’s the inconvenient story they won’t tell you:

GM is once again flirting with bankruptcy despite massive government purchases propping up its sales figures. GM stock is rock-bottom. Losses continue to be revised in the wrong direction. According to The Detroit News, “The Treasury Department says in a new report the government expects to lose more than $25 billion on the $85 billion auto bailout. That’s 15 percent higher than its previous forecast.”

The claims that GM paid back its taxpayer-funded loans “in full” — a story peddled in campaign ads narrated by Hollywood actor Tom Hanks — were debunked by the Treasury Department’s TARP watchdog this summer. GM still owes nearly $30 billion of the $50 billion it received, and its lending arm still owes nearly $15 billion of the more than $17 billion it received. Bailout watchdog Mark Modica of the National Legal and Policy Center adds: “In addition to U.S. taxpayers anteing up, Canada put in over $10 billion, and GM was relieved of about $28 billion of bondholder obligations as UAW claims were protected. That’s an improvement of almost $90 billion to the balance sheet, and the company still lags the competition.” Read more from this story HERE.

The Romney Campaign has finally figured out that this false story about the GM bailout is just smoke and mirrors. See the campaign’s new ad, just released yesterday:

General Motors headed for bankruptcy . . . again

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President Obama is proud of his bailout of General Motors. That’s good, because, if he wins a second term, he is probably going to have to bail GM out again. The company is once again losing market share, and it seems unable to develop products that are truly competitive in the U.S. market.

Right now, the federal government owns 500,000,000 shares of GM, or about 26% of the company. It would need to get about $53.00/share for these to break even on the bailout, but the stock closed at only $20.21/share on Tuesday. This left the government holding $10.1 billion worth of stock, and sitting on an unrealized loss of $16.4 billion.

Right now, the government’s GM stock is worth about 39% less than it was on November 17, 2010, when the company went public at $33.00/share. However, during the intervening time, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has risen by almost 20%, so GM shares have lost 49% of their value relative to the Dow.

It’s doubtful that the Obama administration would attempt to sell off the government’s massive position in GM while the stock price is falling. It would be too embarrassing politically. Accordingly, if GM shares continue to decline, it is likely that Obama would ride the stock down to zero.

GM is unlikely to hit the wall before the election, but, given current trends, the company could easily do so again before the end of a second Obama term.

Read more from this story HERE.

The United States lost billions more than expected on auto bailout

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The Treasury Department says in a new report the government expects to lose more than $25 billion on the $85 billion auto bailout. That’s 15 percent higher than its previous forecast.

In a monthly report sent to Congress on Friday, the Obama administration boosted its forecast of expected losses by more than $3.3 billion to almost $25.1 billion, up from $21.7 billion in the last quarterly update.

The report may still underestimate the losses. The report covers predicted losses through May 31, when GM’s stock price was $22.20 a share.

On Monday, GM stock fell $0.07, or 0.3 percent, to $20.47. At that price, the government would lose another $850 million on its GM bailout.

The government still holds 500 million shares of GM stock and needs to sell them for about $53 each to recover its entire $49.5 billion bailout. At the current price, the Treasury would lose more than $16 billion on its GM bailout.

Read more from this story HERE.

How Obama Will Bankrupt the Auto Industry (and Taxpayers)

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On this lovely, but exceedingly hot, Sunday afternoon, with computer-in-lap, I am enjoying the benefits of wireless Internet technology as I sit in the passenger’s seat of my five-year old SUV purchased from CarMax. My husband and I enjoy road trips just about as much as we enjoy the steamy-hot cups of java that we sip along the way. For the majority of the Bush 43 years, a cup of Starbucks cost more than a gallon of gas, but now both are essentially the same, meaning this road trip will more than likely be the last we can afford to take – until America puts a Republican president back in the Oval Office.

Proponents of President Obama’s new vehicle cafe standards might argue that his policy makes it affordable to get back out on the road in this day of almost $4.00 per gallon of gasoline. While vehicles that sip gasoline like we sip our coffee on road trips sounds enticing, do not be fooled; this sipping will come at a cost quite unaffordable to most Americans.

Consider the $40,000 Chevy Volt that was declared the Motor Trend 2011 Car of the Year for its advanced engineering that allows the car to run as a series hybrid, parallel hybrid, or as an electric vehicle. Sounds nice – until you realize the car’s price tag is higher than the average per capita income of $39,000, and the cost of electricity is on the rise.

General Motors may indeed deserve credit for Volt’s technology, but GM’s partnership with Motor Trend’s publisher, Source Interlink, calls into question if the Volt received the award standing on its own four wheels, or “Government Motors” had a little help from its Uncle Sam – and now must convince taxpayers that our “investment” was worthwhile, as well as set the stage for the next phase of this administration’s back door approach to “Cap and Trade.”

The administration assumes its new cafe standards of 54.4 miles per gallon by 2025 will somehow spur economic growth when auto makers begin to crank up the assembly lines to make automobiles most of us cannot afford. In the first two months of this year, out of 268,308 Chevrolets sold, the Volt accounted for one-fifth of 1 percent, or 602 — indicating that most American’s are not interested in the 4 cylinder sardine can on wheels — even if it is the “car of the future” as described by Obama.

Read More at Floyd Reports  By Susan Stamper Brown, Floyd Reports