Gm ipo

[ChumpDumper]

I said that they could restructure their labor contracts and other contracts for longterm success.

So that is just a given to you, but you have no proof it could be done and have admitted you can't prove anything.

All this deal did was reward the banks with TARP and gave the unions shares.

Are you saying the bondholders got nothing?

[Ignignokt]

So that is just a given to you, but you have no proof it could be done and have admitted you can't prove anything.

Are you saying the bondholders got nothing?

There's definately no guarantee of any thing. But they would have had the chance to better structure the company and sell of bad assets.

And the bondholders got screwed by getting shafted, it's not nothing, but that doesn't make it good or just.

By that logic, if blacks got free justin bieber tickets for reperations, i guess that's better than nothing.

[Ignignokt]

But atleast they got something! I win!/chumpdumper

[ChumpDumper]

There's definately no guarantee of any thing.

Thanks for finally sticking with the position you walked back to.

Until you try to change it again, I guess.

[ChumpDumper]

They got something and I admit I can't prove any other process would have been better after claiming another process would definately [sic] have been better. I win!

[Ignignokt]

Thanks for finally sticking with the position you walked back to.

Until you try to change it again, I guess.

I can't stop you from self congradulating yourself, nor from putting words or speaking on behalf of me.

Until you stop, we'll continue.

[ChumpDumper]

I can't stop you from self congradulating yourself, nor from putting words or speaking on behalf of me.

Until you stop, we'll continue.

I was thanking you.

And you flip-flopped all on your own. I don't think you feel the need to; it's just the way you are.

Unless you stop whining about it, we'll continue.

[Marcus Bryant]

I agree, it was too easy to say having $85 is better than $0.

Right, of course that was all that was at issue. Naturally a limited intellect such as yourself would seize the easy chips.

[ChumpDumper]

Right, of course that was all that was at issue. Naturally a limited intellect such as yourself would seize the easy chips.

I know there are other issues. I was specifically referring to the initial price that was reported compared to what it will actually end up costing. I'm guessing the former number will still be bandied about much more than the latter.

You are free to talk about any of the other issues as you see fit.

Do you want to discuss the other issues?

[CosmicCowboy]

Ahhh...I had to make a run to the ranch. Glad to see the progressives are still blowing each other and congratulating themselves on how smart they are. Chump, your little intellectual lightweight minions are quite humorous.

The big bank arbitrage guys wrote the buyout with the help of the GS guys that were running the show.

They scooped up bonds in the panic at pennies on the dollar till they had 54% and then ed the rest of the mom and pop bondholders.

I find it quite humorous that you progressives are condoning the major ing that the "real" salt of the earth investors in GM took.

[ChumpDumper]

Ahhh...I had to make a run to the ranch. Glad to see the progressives are still blowing each other and congratulating themselves on how smart they are. Chump, your little intellectual lightweight minions are quite humorous.

The big bank arbitrage guys wrote the buyout with the help of the GS guys that were running the show.

They scooped up bonds in the panic at pennies on the dollar till they had 54% and then ed the rest of the mom and pop bondholders.

I find it quite humorous that you progressives are condoning the major ing that the "real" salt of the earth investors in GM took.

Not really condoning -- it's just that no one including you has proved they would have made much more money any other way.

I see you folks congratulating yourselves on your complete ability to back up anything you said. I find it humorous. It didn't take much in the way of smarts to stump all of you, although that really wasn't my intention. I figured at least one of you could actually come up with some realistic numbers.

[CosmicCowboy]

Chump, you just surprised me.

I would have expected a knee jerk defense like that from Manny and Parker. I'm sure they jerk off to thoughts of Arriana Huffington every night. Boutons just needs to stay on his meds.

That's your pathetic posse.

Seriously, do you really condone the Federal Government just stepping in and re-writing 200 years of civil law because it was convenient? Because one should never let a good crisis go to waste?

I know that you enjoy the literal parry and thrust of the forum and you sometimes just take a position to stir up...I do it all the time.

But do you REALLY think that was right? You are basically the only real critical thinker in this forum that automatically assumes the liberal/progressive position.

Do you REALLY want your government to be able to rewrite civil law just because it is temporarily expedient to the alleged common good?

This is a serious question.

If you give me some swarmy Manny knee jerk flip response I will have to re-evaluate my perception of the ChumpDumper.

[clambake]

why don't you post some numbers to support your position?

[ElNono]

The taxpayer was going to be on the hook with or without the bailout. This is something people don't seem to understand:

People who lose their jobs in recessions are a severe burden upon a society financially.


Unemployment benefits, loss of tax revenue, domino economic effects are all something to be considered (among other factors) when determining how much money the taxpayer was going to lose in either scenario.

False dichotomy.

GM doesn't have to go out of buisiness together. IT's not like their assets were going to get burnt.

IF GM would have filed for bankruptcy, then who ever the new owners and inverstors were could have restructured the labor contract and set those same people back to work.

GM still had huge assets and infrastructure, you just had to let the corporation restructure thru bankruptcy.

Bankruptcy would have put the power back to the company instead of the govt and the unions.

What restructuring/bankruptcy on a company that size you ever seen that didn't include layoffs?

[Mikesatx]

I gave you a think tank undergoing such a study and yet the only thing you can say is that they're located in Ann Arbor and then have a conflict of interest. Perhaps you can provide us with specifics on how that CoI affected the study and where it skewed the figures.

I couldn't tell you if the study is legit or not. To be honest it doesn't make a difference. When 50 bil is the price tag I think the government can assure that there are no conflicts of interest. You and I as the taxpayer should demand it. Do you remember the corporate scandels of Enron and Worldcom? Firms were double dipping their audit and consulting services. If you are bidding for the business of a multi-billion dollar client and you land the audit gig there is big incentive to also get the consulting work. Thus the conflict of interest and regulatory change separating the two lines of business.

Do you really follow our government this blindly?

[clambake]

are you saying the bondholders/shareholders should have demanded it?

or are you in the pool of those who claim theft?

[clambake]

I'm sure they jerk off to thoughts of Arriana Huffington every night.

have you ever considered taking you and your "Posse" to some kind of group therapy for this constant, closeted train of thought?

[Mikesatx]

are you saying the bondholders/shareholders should have demanded it?

or are you in the pool of those who claim theft?

The bondholders got screwed the shareholders suffered the fate of any other shareholder of a bankrupt company. That wasn't my point with the post. The government should have demanded and provided to the taxpayer an unbiased audit of GM and their plans to use our tax dollars. Whether lib or repug if you are asked to fit a bill of that size you should expect the government to do their due dilligence and act in the best interest of us the taxpayer.

[Winehole23]

. Whether lib or repug if you are asked to fit a bill of that size you should expect the government to do their due dilligence and act in the best interest of us the taxpayer.

Due diligence is in the eye of the beholder. Larry Lindsey got fired for saying the Iraq war could cost $200 billion dollars. Sec'y Rumsfeld said that was way off base.

Rummy was right: Lindsey underestimated the cost by a factor of four or five, and the clock is still running.

Have prolonged low interest rates been in the interest of taxpayers, or have they been more a political expediency to keep credit churning and delay more or less inevitable corrections, such as the one we should have had in 2001? Where was the unbiased study on that?

Was there any due diligence on behalf of the US taxpayer for TARP or the emergency facilities of the US Federal Reserve in 2008-9, or again, wasn't all that more intended to benefit banks, bank receivers and the likes of AIG? All our government did by way of restraint was to keep the bailout approriation under $1Trillion. That's not counting QE or any of the Fed pawnshops that gave out cash loans in exchange for financial dreck. (All in all, the bailout comes to $13-14 trillion so farI think.)

And speaking of the TARP, isn't the FDIC required by law to take action BEFORE an insured bank poses any substantial risk to the US taxpayer?

Medicare part D? Estimates way low again...

Don't get me wrong, mikesatx, I don't think your emphasis on protecting the US taxpayer is wrong. I just don't think our government, Red or Blue, respects that anymore. Spending is power. If you think otherwise, I'd be very interested to know why.

[ChumpDumper]

Chump, you just surprised me.

I would have expected a knee jerk defense like that from Manny and Parker. I'm sure they jerk off to thoughts of Arriana Huffington every night. Boutons just needs to stay on his meds.

That's your pathetic posse.

Seriously, do you really condone the Federal Government just stepping in and re-writing 200 years of civil law because it was convenient? Because one should never let a good crisis go to waste?

I know that you enjoy the literal parry and thrust of the forum and you sometimes just take a position to stir up...I do it all the time.

But do you REALLY think that was right? You are basically the only real critical thinker in this forum that automatically assumes the liberal/progressive position.

Do you REALLY want your government to be able to rewrite civil law just because it is temporarily expedient to the alleged common good?

This is a serious question.

If you give me some swarmy Manny knee jerk flip response I will have to re-evaluate my perception of the ChumpDumper.

They didn't rewrite civil law. All the parties agreed to the process in lieu of a traditional bankruptcy.

I can see why it was done that way. If a real majority of any of the parties involved actually opposed the agreement and it was indeed forced upon them, this would still be in the courts and rightly so. However, all the parties wanted the federal government involved because that's where the $43 billion was coming from. Like it or not, that made the government a player in the negotiations.

Now I'm fine with folks insisting the government should never bail out any industry under any cir stance, but I feel that kind of thinking needs to be applied to any government intervention on any level in order to really be credible. As far as my feelings are concerned, we slipped of that slope far too long ago to really find a place to draw a line between what intervention can be considered kosher and what cannot.

I see the GM bailout as another out of court settlement, with the federal government as the primary new investor with admittedly too much negotiating power. That part sucked because of all the politics that were actually injected into the process or inferred by critics, but again, that is what the parties agreed to because they wanted the money.

I really just got into some of the details of this because of this thread, so I'm learning as I go. As far as I can tell, it looks like the bondholders still hold those bonds and will see some kind of return on those in the future in addition to any potential gains from their new stock ownership. I've seen reports of some bonds recently valued as high as 40 cents on the dollar. It just seems like the process for the bonds is going to take a very long time as MLC is sitting on a ton of assets that no one really wants to buy.

[MannyIsGod]

CC, do you enjoy thinking about me jacking off?

[MannyIsGod]

that think tank study takes into account all three filing bankruptcy. Ford didn't need a bailout. They were doing fine. That study is not pertinent to this situation because we are only talking about letting one Giant fail instead of three like the article and the think tank state.

So that scenario doesn't say much.

Also it's silly not to think that Toyota, or any other foreign car maker wouldn't have bought the assets of GM.

No it also takes into account a 50% reduction across the board and only gives you lost tax revenue. It's not meant to be taken as an exact prediction of what will come only to show that the cost of a bailout is likely going to be borne by US government in one manner or another. It doesn't even go into the increased costs to the Federal and State governments just the loss of tax revenue.

Toyota may have purchased the assets but considering they weren't fully operating (I'm not sure if they are now) all of their own plants its really crazy to assume they'd be able to continue any measured production at the GM plants. I can see them purchasing the brand names and keep some of the production open but we would no doubt see a large scale reduction and huge ramifications in the US economy.

The main point to take from this is that while bailouts cost money, not bailing out ALSO costs money. At what point does the smart fiscal pragmatic move matter more than principle?

[MannyIsGod]

I couldn't tell you if the study is legit or not. To be honest it doesn't make a difference. When 50 bil is the price tag I think the government can assure that there are no conflicts of interest. You and I as the taxpayer should demand it. Do you remember the corporate scandels of Enron and Worldcom? Firms were double dipping their audit and consulting services. If you are bidding for the business of a multi-billion dollar client and you land the audit gig there is big incentive to also get the consulting work. Thus the conflict of interest and regulatory change separating the two lines of business.

Do you really follow our government this blindly?

Wait, are you really asking me if I follow the government blindly while at the same time dismissing something from a source outside the government and asking for the government to provide proof itself?

You point to Enron and Worldcom scandals but act as if the federal government is somehow immune to this?

You're upset that I can't provide you a study by the CBO but completely dismiss a study that you have no idea if its biased or not just because you assume the CBO would do a better job when the CBO doesn't have experts in that field and would likely use the same type of information the CAR used?

So, maybe you should ask yourself why you want to follow the government so blindly before you ask others who provide you with outside sources that question. Thats pretty damn amazing.

[Marcus Bryant]

Have prolonged low interest rates been in the interest of taxpayers, or have they been more a political expediency to keep credit churning and delay more or less inevitable corrections, such as the one we should have had in 2001?

Obviously a benefit for the consumer, but not the saver. Which speaks well to America as it stands in the 21st Century. A grand country if you can afford to buy .

[Mikesatx]

Due diligence is in the eye of the beholder. Larry Lindsey got fired for saying the Iraq war could cost $200 billion dollars. Sec'y Rumsfeld said that was way off base.

Rummy was right: Lindsey underestimated the cost by a factor of four or five, and the clock is still running.

Have prolonged low interest rates been in the interest of taxpayers, or have they been more a political expediency to keep credit churning and delay more or less inevitable corrections, such as the one we should have had in 2001? Where was the unbiased study on that?

Was there any due diligence on behalf of the US taxpayer for TARP or the emergency facilities of the US Federal Reserve in 2008-9, or again, wasn't all that more intended to benefit banks, bank receivers and the likes of AIG? All our government did by way of restraint was to keep the bailout approriation under $1Trillion. That's not counting QE or any of the Fed pawnshops that gave out cash loans in exchange for financial dreck. (All in all, the bailout comes to $13-14 trillion so farI think.)

And speaking of the TARP, isn't the FDIC required by law to take action BEFORE an insured bank poses any substantial risk to the US taxpayer?

Medicare part D? Estimates way low again...

Don't get me wrong, mikesatx, I don't think your emphasis on protecting the US taxpayer is wrong. I just don't think our government, Red or Blue, respects that anymore. Spending is power. If you think otherwise, I'd be very interested to know why.

You covered a lot in your post. I spent 45 min replying to it earlier and by the time I finished I was logged out and lost the reply. I'll try and be brief.

There is a big difference between corporate bankruptcy and going to war. If the decision is made that war is the best option you are not going to worry about a budget. You are going to try and win and limit the loss of our soldiers as much as possible. We have been involved in the middle east long enough to do cost analysis. It wouldn't hurt and I welcome it.

You may think the federal reserve is a political body and in some ways it may act like it. I look at Greenspan and Bernanke who have been the only fed chairmen since 87 and both have served for both dems and repugs. Their rate decisions in a normal environment are based on inflation. If the markets start to heat up and the economy is running great they push rates up to cool things down. If the market cycle is on the decline rates are lower to stimulate the economy. 2008 was not a normal environment so they stepped in and did things they normally don't do.

FDIC is supposed to step in if it becomes clear the financial ins ution isn't going to make it. AIG's failure would have had a far more significant economic impact than letting GM go. doesn't justify their actions. They should be held accountable. We should also be asking our government where was the oversight we pay for as taxpayers? There was a failure there as well.

Medicare is simply a disaster. I agree completely an unbiased third party should come in and audit Medicare. Common sense tells me a horribly off forecast in year one would be closer in year two and so on.

Your last statement I agree with. Both sides are irresponsible. What I would like to see is more people from both sides get off their asses and get involved and the very least get informed. Ask tough questions and not be afraid to say there needs to be a change even it means a change from the guy you thought was originally the answer.