We interrupt the planned blogging with a question ...
What part of "buy low, sell high" does the Obama Administration not understand? An NPR "Morning Edition" announcer mused about White House cheering at the sale of the U.S. government's 8% stake in Chrysler. This is at a loss of $1.3 billion; or about 10%.
What are they celebrating?
If you'll recall, in March 2009 Obama announced that the U.S. government bought an 8% stake in Chrysler (in large, publicly held corporations a 5% stake usually gets you a seat on the board) as part of a deal involving the United Auto Workers, Canada, an "alliance" with Fiat, and writeoffs on the part of Chrysler creditors.
Now, Obama is selling that stake at a loss to Fiat — which already has plenty to lose if it walks away. What are "We, the People" getting for all of this subsidizing of U.S. and foreign megacorporations? Zip, zilch, zero, nada.
We're losing $1.3 billion. Rest assured that some politician will make up that by eliminating nutrition for infants or some such.
If this is such a great deal, why aren't the federal government of Canada and the Province of Ontario selling their combined 2% stake, acquired in 2009 as part of the same deal?
“We’ve never believed the government of Canada should be in the automotive business,” said Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty at a news conference in Toronto. “But we have to look out for good value for Canadian taxpayers.”
Flaherty is a Tory, a cabinet member in a majority Progressive Conservative government. This is no flaming pinko member of the New Democratic Party, the socialist party that overtook the Liberals in the last election.
Why doesn't Obama care about "good value" for U.S. taxpayers?
Hello! The unemployment rate just went up this past month for the second month in a row. This is a smokescreen for predicted bad economic news. It's just as fake as "change you can believe in."
Here's the real Obama motto: soft, subsidized, all-expenses-paid socialism for corporations and the wealthy; hard-scrabble, you're-on-your-own capitalism for the rest of us.
