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GM’s Barra Got Email in 2011 About Steering Problems

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Photo Credit: CNBC

Photo Credit: CNBC

The Congressional committee investigating the long-delayed the recall of millions of vehicles equipped with a faulty ignition switch, released a flurry of internal General Motors documents Friday showing what it described as “failures within the system” that allowed critical safety issues to go unaddressed.

Exactly why the ignition switch problem went unresolved for as much as a decade has spurred a series of investigations by the Department of Justice, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and both houses of Congress. During two Capitol Hill hearings last week, GM CEO Mary Barra was repeatedly criticized for failing to offer clear answers about the ignition switch problem.

One of the documents released Friday showed that while in her previous job as GM’s global product development chief, Barra was kept clearly in the loop about a separate recall issue involving steering problems on the Saturn Ion and other GM products.

Read more from this story HERE.

Hey Joe Biden! The GM Volt is Dead and Al Qaeda is Alive

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Joe Biden’s premature victory cry of “GM is alive and Bin Laden is dead,” rings pretty hollow these days. If that’s all he and President Obama have to hang their hat on after 4 years of “hope and change,” it is a pitiful campaign slogan.

A similar, premature proclamation hung around George Bush’s neck when he declared “victory” in Iraq, when in reality there were still bloody years ahead.

Heralded by the 2009 Obama apology tour speech in Cairo, this week was a shock to Joe and his boss Barack Obama, as their naive “re-set” of foreign policy shattered in violence. Our Ambassador in Libya was killed and our embassies all over the Islamic world were under siege by angry mobs.

The knee jerk reaction from the shocked Obama administration was to blame the violence on spontaneous reaction to a cheesy video on the internet that poked fun of the Islamic religion. But facts lead to the conclusion that at least the Libyan embassy attack was pre-planned and under the influence of Al Qaeda … Ominously for the Obama/Biden narrative, killing Osama Bin Laden, didn’t mean the end of Al Qaeda and the huge wave of anti American violence showed the last 4 years of Obama diplomacy hadn’t changed hearts and minds in the Islamic world.

But buried under the blizzard of foreign policy failure, another tassled shoe was about to drop. It was learned the heavily govt. subsidized Chevy Volt, built by the heavily govt. subsidized General Motors has had disastrous sales. In spite of huge tax credits and the Obama administration trying to artificially inflate sales by forcing the defense Dept to buy Volts…few in the general public are buying them. Forbes Magazine said there are enough scams here to satisfy a Chicago politician.

The Volt was the poster child of the Obama administration, an example of “how to” in leading the way for billions of govt dollars doled out to “renewable energy” schemes. Almost all of these green energy schemes, including subsidizing, solar companies and electric car manufacturing, have proven to be an utter failure.

Last week General Motors stated they wanted the Obama administration to sell its share of stock it owns in their company, the image of being known as Government Motors is hurting business.

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Ed Farnan’s articles are also carried in:

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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:

Video: New Anti-Obama Campaign Launched Regarding His Assault on Delphi’s Non-Union Pension Plan

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In a news release yesterday, Let Freedom Ring announced a multi-million dollar campaign to reveal what Obama did to the non-union Delphi auto parts employees’ pensions while simultaneously bailing out union pensions.

Here’s the campaign’s damning “Top Priority” ad:

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.