Taxpayers about to be screwed on GM bailout.‏

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/breaking/chi-gm-to-buy-back-500m-in-shares-as-us-plans-to-sell-its-stake-20121219,0,5307001.story

The Treasury plans to sell its remaining stake in General Motors over the next 15 months, allowing the automaker to shed the stigma of being partly owned by the U.S. government.  Yes because anyone really care if GM is owned by the government.

GM said Wednesday it will spend $5.5 billion to buy back 200 million shares of its stock from the Treasury by the end of this year. The government, in turn, plans to sell its remaining stake of 300 million shares on the open market over the next 12 to 15 months. 

GM will pay $27.50 for each share, about an 8 percent premium over Tuesday's closing price of $25.49. The shares shot up more than 8 percent in premarket trading to $27.57.   So they aren’t really paying a premium if the stock has now risen above the selling price and the taxpayer is getting less money.

The deal almost certainly means that the government will lose billions on a $49.5 billion bailout that saved GM from being auctioned off in pieces during the financial crisis in 2008 and 2009. GM's buyback will cut the Treasury's stake to 19 percent from 26.5 percent. For it to break even, Treasury would have to sell the remaining 300 million shares for average of about $70. 

"This is fundamentally good for the business," he said at a hastily called news conference Wednesday morning.   Good for business but sh*tty for the taxpayer.

Treasury said it will have recovered more than $28.7 billion of its investment through repayments of loans, sales of stock, dividends, interest and other income after GM buys back the 200 million shares. But that leaves Treasury about $21 billion short of recouping its investment. 

The move was approved by the GM board on Tuesday evening.  I bet that was a tough discussion.

a ban on corporate jet ownership and requirements on manufacturing a certain percentage of GM cars and trucks in the U.S. will be lifted.

So when GM went into bankruptcy they unloaded their healthcare and retirement expenses onto the union.  The Union agreed to future pay cuts for all future hirees.   The Government came in with truck loads of money they were suppose to get back (Wink wink).  Now the expenses are gone.  The money will never be paid back.  Jobs no longer have to be in America.  The executives can fly around on their fancy private jets again.  The stock price will go up to help out Wall Street.  Everyone wins except the taxpayer and the American workers.  What a shock.  GM will point out how well they are doing.  Wouldn’t everyone be doing well if they received 21 Billion Dollars and then never had to pay it back?

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=Lvl5Gan69Wo  

The terrible acting continues‏

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/humbug-fiscal-cliff-talks-expected-drag-christmas-article-1.1219541

Washington is pretending they are upset about potentially having to work through the holidays (Wink wink).  The reality is they love working through the holidays.  They do some of their best work when everyone is home with families not paying any attention to what they are doing.  The banks were all deregulated Christmas Eve 1999 when nobody was looking.  The result of that action was the implosion of all the banks in 2007 (followed by the 700 Billion dollar federal bailout). Oops.  Luckily nobody remembers nothing about nothing and nobody is ever held accountable for anything.  They are counting on that still being the case in 2012.  So everyone just get with your families and enjoy some egg nog and cookies and pay no attention to what they are doing down there in Washington.  The less you know the better.  If you were ever let in on their closed door meetings it would surely ruin your holidays.  So look away and mind your business.  You will find out soon enough how they are about to stick it to you.

CEO's being heard loud and clear.‏

Nov 14 Obama met a crowd of CEO’s to talk about the fiscal cliff.

http://money.cnn.com/2012/11/14/news/ceos-obama/index.html

Yesterday Obama met with a new group of CEO’s to talk about the fiscal cliff.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/28/us-usa-fiscal-obama-business-idUSBRE8AR01T20121128

Republicans also met with the CEO’s

http://www.buzzfeed.com/rebeccaberg/house-republicans-to-meet-ceos-this-week

All those millions and millions and millions (of dollars) in campaign contributions have paid off.  Corporate America always has a seat at the table.  You can be sure when the new policies are rolled out corporate America will be well taken care of.  They pretend corporate America doesn’t like Obama (Wink, wink).

I didn’t see where Obama met with Homeless people, or unemployed people.  Or Unions.  Just the crème de la crème of corporate America always gets through the white house door.  Obama is always all ears.

So when they announce they are going to RAISE revenue by CUTTING corporate taxes and you scratch your head and wonder how taking in LESS money is going to fix the problem. It isn’t going to fix anything but it will help payback for all those campaign contributions.  It will help reward the CEO’s who sent the jobs overseas and helped create the fiscal problem in the first place.  Then it will encourage them to keep right on doing it.  No jobs will be created (Despite what they tell you).  The debt will continue to get worse at an accelerated rate.  Entitlements will be hacked to pieces as part of the “shared sacrifice”.

Enjoy the show.

1.8 Million in Bonuses to reward FAILURE

http://www.boston.com/business/news/2012/11/29/hostess-seek-approval-for-executive-bonuses/AnYdA7P2giL6RYJypXQ1dI/story.html

Yes it is all the Unions fault.  The Union didn’t agree to take huge pay cuts.  So the company no longer exists.  Lets reward the executives with 1.8 million in bonuses.  Nothing says you did a great job like driving the company face first into the ground.  That kind of accomplishment should be celebrated.  The workers get the blame and the pink slip.  The executives run home with the suitcases full of cash.

Hostess Brands Inc. is asking for a judge’s approval to give its top executives bonuses totaling up to $1.8 million as part of its wind-down plans.

The maker of Twinkies, Ding Dongs and Ho Hos says the incentive pay is needed to retain the 19 corporate officers and ‘‘high-level managers’’ during the liquidation process, which could take about a year. Two of those executives would be eligible for additional rewards depending on how efficiently they carry out the liquidation. The bonuses would be in addition to their regular pay.

The bonuses do not include pay for CEO Gregory Rayburn, who was brought on as a restructuring expert earlier this year. Rayburn is being paid $125,000 a month.

In court Thursday, an attorney for Hostess noted that the company is no longer able to pay retiree benefits, which come to about $1.1 million a month. Hostess stopped contributing to its union pension plans more than a year ago.