Your REAL problem is General Motors

I haven’t heard many of you weigh in on this issue, and the ones that DID weigh in on it did so marginally, or from a view point that left me feeling that some really don’t understand…….”things”.  That issue is the announcement by GM that it intends to shutter some plants, at least one being in a state critical to President Trumps future as the leader of a nation of idiots.

Let’s take the democrat bombast out of this right away…..democrats would endure anything to ruin the President and the nation, and putting a few thousand people out of work by closing their plants is a small price to pay; I am sure that the left feels like it can get enough illegal voters, immigrants and terrorists in the nation to pick up the slack.  So let’s ignore this.  And, for the record, I get that a lot of you do not like Trumps’ tone.  I personally don’t care about his tone, I have worked for a lot of tactless people, and I myself have been accused of being a bit abrupt at times…..and I don’t think that matters as long as he is producing……face it, a lot of people he deals with need to be talked down to REGULARLY, so I don’t care….but I get it that you do.

General Motors, like the other big two of the big three car makers, suffered from YEARS of bad management, and gang rape by the UAW and its’ partners…..and I am not talking about the rank and file; if you want me to pay me $45 an hour and a pension and benefits for driving a forklift or installing a windshield…. I AM GOING TO DO IT.  I am no fan of unions, which I DO think had a role in the early 1900’s.  But union roles have largely been co-opted by the government (except for those wild ass salaries), so I ain’t feeling the love.  

Any research you do on the fall of Detroit, the car manufacturers, and US industry as a whole, places plenty of blame on the manufacturers, as well as on unions that frankly didn’t care as long as they were getting theirs’.  I WHOLEHEARTEDLY disagree with the bail out of two of the three automakers (and I drive a vehicle from one of those two).  I also disagree with the bailout of the investment banks….but that is another story.  And I DEFINITELY disagree with the way the Obama administration basically took over GM as part of the bail out.   I listened to a man who had owned a total of 18 GM cars in his life, and was heavily invested in GM, until the bail out saved the unions and cost him 50% of every nickel he had invested in GM….money that was just gone, to pay off the unions. GM and the unions could have avoided all of that, but hey, why bother when the tax payer will pay for it….and NOBODY asked the taxpayer for THEIR input.  So, GM took not only a multi-billion dollar bail out, paid off the unions, closed a bunch of dealerships, and cut the portfolio of their common stockholders in half, they did not change a single management process, the union did not change a process, it was then back to normal operating.  What most people do not know is that GM had struck a deal with the treasury, that allowed slightly less than $10 Billion of the bailout money to be put into GM’s financing arm (basically their bank); General Motors Acceptance Corporation (GMAC), which then promptly changed its’ name to Ally Financial (or was bought by the existing Ally Financial.  That almost $10 Billion was to be used by GM to RE-PAY portions of the original loan to GM.  If it sounds like the taxpayer gave GM billions, then gave them billions to pay back the original billions….that is exactly what it did.  Now you know why experts say that we will never know if GM has actually re-paid ANY of the bail out money.  In the end, GM received around $49 billion in tax payer dollars, some of which it used to re-pay part of that very loan.  To date, the most honest figure I can find is that GM still owes about $15 billion in the original loan…..which there is some doubt will ever be repaid.

As I said, in return for the GM name, the corporation closed a slew of dealerships, actually acquiesced to a CEO put forward by the (then) Obama administration AND….and this is not a commonly known fact, became THE defacto government test bed for cars that, thus far, nobody wants.  That is correct; while demanding that GM operate at a profit, the government, under the libs, requires GM to produce cars that ensure it operates at a loss.  General Motors is now un-officially, “Government Motors”.  Overall, the loss to the government (you and me) for all of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), which INCLUDED the GM bailout (the GM numbers, however are NOT included when discussing the recoup of TARP money owed) is estimated by the Treasury Department, to be $100 Billion.  A total of 30% of that is from the auto-makers.  About 70% of that 30% is from GM.  General Motors, to date, has repaid NO money as a result of profit from sales….none…..zero (I doubt they ever will).  The Treasury Department estimates that “one day”, “in the future”, when General Motors can once again sell its’ stock at a profit (stock that became virtually worthless to the stock holders after the bail out) then it will be able to repay some of the bail out money.

“Some day”, “in the future”, $49 Billion, borrowing money to pay for borrowed money, making cars that won’t sell, changing no processes….this is what happens when the government takes over stuff…..we all lose.

Why do you need to know this?  General Motors took as much money from the government as it costs to put troops on the southern border to protect from the liberal/media promoted illegal immigrant invasion…..which is all over the news regardless of how often it is shown to be a fraud.  The government, the PEOPLE, basically bought GM whether we wanted it or not (I did not)…..and in my mind, the President earned EVERY RIGHT, by virtue of the shitty deal made by his predecessor, to tell the CEO of GM what HE WANTS THEM TO DO.  He hasn’t acted through congress (and he won’t, because if it meant GM being the most dollar producing entity in the history of man, the left would oppose it because President Trump wanted it).  He hasn’t done an executive order, he hasn’t asked for legislation, he has told the CEO of GM what he WANTS to see, and GM should heed that….because they will need help again….because remember, they didn’t change anything.

If you have a problem with GM’s announcement of plant closings, after screwing its’ stockholders, paying off the unions, and returning to business as usual….then you DO have a problem with GM’s announcement of plant closings, and not the Presidents’ tone.  Take President Trump out of it and what you have a problem with is General Motors…..they robbed the nation, in daylight, in public, with government help, then robbed it again to make the first theft less painful, then ensured that they would set themselves up with government help, to rob the nation yet again.

Your problem is not with President Trump, or his tone…..or what he says, your problem is with General Motors.