Mikeyavelli wrote:
Obama didn't lose anything. He knocked America on its schumer. Obama came in when the American economy collapsed because of bad loans given to people who couldn't pay them back. Obama's plan was to crush America's economy further. Every move the sunnuvabich made was to cripple America further. He gave General Motors to the unions and stiffed me, a bond holder and a stock holder. (I sold my Cadillac and will never buy a GM car, ever.)
Obama throttled businessman, raised taxes, created regulations, stopped energy production, and tried every economic trick to make America weak.
America noticed, and voted for the guy who is making America great again.
Obama didn't lose anything. He knocked America on... (
show quote)
This is old news and some no longer applies..
But then your post is the same way.. nothing applies..
In late 2008, Chrysler, Ford and General Motors were mired in crisis. The companies needed immediate cash, or they faced collapse.
President George W. Bush authorized initial loans to Chrysler and GM (Ford declined) before leaving office. Then the problem ended up in the new president’s lap.
The Obama administration extended billions more in loans and led a restructuring of the two companies in which the government took an equity share in GM and Chrysler.
Critics, including Romney, said the auto makers should have gone through the normal bankruptcy process.
"A managed bankruptcy may be the only path to the fundamental restructuring the industry needs. It would permit the companies to shed excess labor, pension and real estate costs," he wrote in a November 2008 op-ed in the New York Times.
But others pointed out that, with the credit markets frozen and the wider economy in dire straits, the car companies wouldn’t get private financing and would go out of business.
During the process, the United Auto Workers, the union representing car company employees and retirees, made concessions to help the companies stop bleeding. We consulted several sources for an explanation on what each side gave.
In sum, the union eased demands on wages, overtime pay, job security and, most significantly, health benefits. In 2007, the union and car companies had agreed to hand over management of retiree health benefits to a trust fund. The companies agreed to put money in the fund, and the union assumed the uncertainties of rising health care costs and investment fluctuations.
But in 2009, the car companies were on the brink and had no cash to put in the fund. The alternative contribution: company stock.
That’s how an independent health care trust for UAW beneficiaries ended up owning Chrysler and GM stock. As of February 2012, the trust holds a 41.5 percent stake in Chrysler and a 10.3 percent stake in General Motors.
Here’s one important point: The stock is owned by an independent health care trust called the UAW Retiree Medical Benefits Trust, not the UAW itself. (The trust is also often referred to by the acronym VEBA.)
A 2011 letter to its 840,000 beneficiaries said the trust is "a separate entity, independent of the auto companies and the UAW. The trust has its own assets. The assets in the trust are not the property of the auto companies or the UAW. Instead, those assets are held in the trust on behalf of the covered retirees. Those assets can only be used to provide medical benefits to UAW retirees and their families. Neither the UAW nor the auto companies can use those assets for any other purpose."
The letter further explains that the UAW appoints five of the 11 members -- a minority -- to the trust’s board.