Steve Rattner Car Czar: Obama Squandered Billions

Former Car Czar Steven Rattner left the Obama administration within five months of signing on. He walked out with little respect for anyone in Obama's inner circle, including Rahm Emanuel and Tim Geithner, according to snippets from his coming tell-all book. But that was likely not the reason for leaving the Treasury. Rattner was in trouble with the New York Attorney General. Maybe the administration wanted him to leave, but official statements of his departure did not lend us to believe that to be the case. While the book is stirring political waters, there is little-trumpeted news of Rattner  claiming Obama's transition team refused to work with Bush advisers - advice that would have saved taxpayers "billions of dollars." That's big news, but the press only slightly mentions this inconvenient bombshell.

Steve Rattner

The accusation of squandering billions trillons is so familiar to the administration, they aren't even bothering to refute the charge. They are, however, upset, that Rahm Emanuel has been accused of saying "f*** the UAW." The administration is frantically scrambling to deny that Rahm would EVER say such a terrible thing about a union member. Not only did he not say it, he didn't think it either, is the White House position. According to the White House "Rahm tirelessly defended and advocated on behalf of the auto workers," all-the-while working to f*** the rest of us.

Rattner admits that he had absolutely no background or interest in the auto industry when he was offered the job as Obama Car Czar. Rattner's background is in journalism (he was a New York Times reporter), communications, investment banking. In Spring 2009, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg gave Rattner and Quadrangle Group (which Rattner co-founded) his $16 billion "blind trust" to manage while Bloomberg considered running for U.S. president. Rattner continued in that capacity even as he entered the Treasury as Car Czar.

Rattner and the Quadrangle Group are now in hot water with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for a pay-to-play scheme. The Quadrangle Group and Rattner separated before he left the Treasury. Cronyism gone wrong - billions gone wrong. Nothing unusual coming from the U.S. Treasury or the White House.

All the News We Need to Know to Remember November

The following Drudge headlines are all the news we need to know to Remember November.

Remember November

Drudge Report

UNEMPLOYMENT JUMPS TO 9.6%...

Economy LOST 283,000 jobs during 'Recovery Summer' months...

NPR: 'Recovery Summer' Ends With Economic Pothole...

Labor Sec. Declares: 'There are jobs out there'...

TREASURY HEAD RUSHES BACK FROM VACATION; AIDES SEARCH FOR OTHER JOBS PACKAGE...

120 Days to Go Until Largest Tax Hikes in History...

President Claims Job Creation; Doesn't Mention Net Job Loss of 54K...

HE NEEDS A VACATION: OBAMA TO CAMP DAVID...

Taxpayers to face initial loss on GM IPO; Treasury to sell first shares below break-even...


Linked by MindNumbedRobot - Thank You!

Obama Thinks He Saved Ford Motors: You and I Lost Faith in America

Obama visited a Ford plant this week and portrayed himself as the uber-patriot for saving the auto industry, all the while suggesting that anyone opposed to his bailout is not a patriot, and lost faith in the ability of Americans. Nevermind that Ford refused to be a part of the Cash for Votes program - the White House, says Ford benefited from the Government takeover because the federal money kept suppliers in business. I'm asking: when will the Government relinquish it's majority ownership of GM?

Barack Obama

Telling his "cheering" audience that Republicans lacked confidence in the resilience of American workers, he regretted that "we" didn't understand the "pride you take in building these great cars...." Of course, Americans like me and many of my friends have taken pride in American cars all of our lives.

The New York Times cheekily says that the bailout began under the Bush administration, without noting that Republicans, including G.W. Bush, denied the use of TARP for the auto industry, until Democrats succeeded in making it happen.

Ford did participate in an Energy Department loan to retool a line to build "energy efficient Explorers." Obama came to Ford with check in-hand: a $250 million dollar loan guarantee from the American taxpayer to finance the export of 200,000 vehicles to Mexico and Canada. Saved again by The One.

Brian Deese is GM Demantler: Deese Rewrites the Capitalism: Glen Beck Video

Brian Deese is 31 years and he works for Barack Obama. Mr. Deese has not graduated Yale Law School yet, and until now has not held a government job, worked for an auto manufacturer, let alone on an assembly line, but he is THE man (make that young man) behind President Obama's "biggest experiment yet in federal economic intervention," as Glen Beck says. See video below.

Brian Deese

Brian Deese, according to the New York Times, is "responsible for the fate of the U.S. auto industry. Brian Deese is the GM demantler, Brian Deese is rewriting the rules of American capitalism, because it was Deese who advised the President not to let the industry fail - this according to the New York Times. Brian Deese is the man who ran the numbers, but he doesn't have a background in economics or business, let alone a degree in either. Nevertheless, Larry Summers, the head of the National Economic Council says Deese "grasps both the economics and the politic about as quickly as I've seen anyone do this." The New York Times muses just a quick tad about Deese's lack of credentials and sums it up with:

Mr. Deese’s role is unusual for someone who is neither a formally trained economist nor a business school graduate, and who never spent much time flipping through the endless studies about the future of the American and Japanese auto industries.

"Unusual" I would say, but reducing a degree down to time spent "flipping through the endless studies???" If it were not so pitiful, it would be downright hilarious. But it isn't hilarious because this is someone instrumental for the $100 million or so the taxpayers have put out on behalf of GM, while getting nothing back and many, in fact, who will be forced into bankruptcy themselves. Read Glen Beck's commentary here but better yet, watch the video commentary below.

Brian Deese - Glen Beck Video

Chrysler dealers slated for closure are GOP Donors: UPDATE

If this is true, and everything is as it seems, it isn't surprising. I hope these dealers, if they were making ends meet and doing business for Chrysler, raise righteous hell. I won't be buying a Chrysler product. by The Lonely Conservative When Chrysler dealership closures were announced there didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to the selection process. Profitable dealerships were told to close while less profitable ones were spared. It seemed kind of odd, to say the least. Thanks to Doug Ross (via Gateway Pundit) the truth may have come out.

To quickly review the situation, I took all dealer owners whose names appeared more than once in the list. And, of those who contributed to political campaigns, every single one had donated almost exclusively to GOP candidates. While this isn’t an exhaustive review, it does have some ominous implications if it can be verified.
However, I also found additional research online at Scribd (author unknown), which also appears to point to a highly partisan decision-making process.

It makes a lot more sense now. So much for living in the land of the free. Welcome to the USSA, comrades.
Update Doug Ross continued digging into this matter and the evidence is mounting that the shuttering of these dealers was politically motivated. Read about it here.
Update 2: Read more at Gateway Pundit. Now that the GOP/red county dealerships have been shut down Chrysler announced they will be adding dealerships. The only thing surprising about this is that it’s so blatant. Didn’t they think anyone would notice? Anyone? Anyone? Buehler?

GM Moves More Jobs Overseas: Thumb-of-the-Nose to Obama

General Motors (GM), post-bailout, took taxpayer dollars to stay alive, but will build even more cars abroad, and create more jobs abroad. Read that as a "thumb-of-the-nose" to President Obama.

GM

Apparently, GM is leaking information to Capitol Hill legislators. The number of GM cars built in Mexico, China and South Korea will "roughly double." Those cars will then be shipped to the U.S. and sold here. GM manufacturing interests abroad is expected to increase from 15 percent to 23 percent over the next five years.

General Motors

A simmering pot is reaching the boiling point. Did GM forget that Barack Obama owns them now? Obama doesn't like those overseas jobs. Obama doesn't care a fig about profits. His plan is to provide jobs and infinite union benefits. Who needs profits. Socialism doesn't need profits. There is speculation about what the COO (Chief Organizing Officer) of GM, President Obama, will do about this: will he yield to GM and try to stave off his union pals here in the U.S., or will he tell GM they will not send these jobs abroad? Isn't it amazing that we need to speculate about a U.S. President wielding such enormous power? I believe it's a no-brainer. Obama will tell the automaker they must keep these jobs in the U.S. even though there is no chance of profitability. This is not a problem for Obama. He has told Governor Arnold that he will snatch-back stimulus dollars unless Schwarzenegger rescinds his pay cuts to unionized state health care workers. Obama enjoys these private-business, in-your-face moments. These are opportunities for Obama. These are joyous moments for this administration. One thing we must understand: Unionization is the Obama program. Unionize everyone. Punish everyone not a union member, punish every company without unions. This is socialism. Unionization, in one form or the other, is how socialism establishes itself. It will be interesting to see how this works with the announcement this week that an American business doing business overseas and paying taxes to the hosting country, will now also pay taxes in the U.S.? I wonder how GM weighs this plan? Hmmmmmm, maybe GM can pay taxes "over there," and "over here" and still be more profitable than in the U.S. where, under the Obama plan, they must toil purely to create union benefits.

The United States is the last major economic power to tax the profits of locally headquartered companies if that income is earned abroad. Other nations, including most recently Japan and Britain, are moving to a territorial system that taxes only corporate profits earned within their borders.

Instead of following that trend, Obama proposes to move in the opposite direction.

Will a thumb-of-the-nose to Obama result in a poke-in-the-eye to GM?