I demand the freedom to pursue any opportunity, and should it fail....

.... I can just turn to the taxpayers and suck them dry.

General Motors Corp.'s last-ditch, Hail Mary bid to avoid bankruptcy fell with a thud Wednesday as its bondholders overwhelmingly rejected a deal to swap their debt for equity in the company.

That offer was a central element in the automaker's efforts -- guided by the federal government -- to restructure outside of court. Without it the company appears almost certain to file a Chapter 11 petition by Monday.

Let's face it. This is not a Keynesian approach. This is not even Orwellian. This is a clueless libertarian shoveling our money into gross failures of a system in which we unwillingly become the owners of poorly regulated, poorly managed enterprises. In short: We don't like Keynesian style control when we're making buckets of money, but when we fuck up.... well Keynes is way cool!

General Motors Corp.'s bid to have its bondholders exchange their holdings for company stock failed to attract enough support, the company said Wednesday, making a bankruptcy filing all the more likely.

[...]

The failure of the debt-for-equity plan means the U.S. government could wind up with more than the 50-per-cent stake that was originally envisioned. The U.S. government's stake could now grow to 69 per cent.

The government of Canada is also in line to get a small equity stake in GM in return for lending the company money.

And this... is a Harper sycophant desperately grasping at a falacy in defence of his Dear Leader.

"Profound ignorance of industrial economics"? Give us all another fucking lesson, Charlie.

I'm sure it will be just, like, totally awesome.

Hat tip CC.

It isn't free and it isn't a market

"The American International Group, which has received more than $170 billion in taxpayer bailout money from the US Treasury and Federal Reserve, plans to pay about $165 million in bonuses to executives in the same business unit that brought the company to the brink of collapse last year. The payments to A.I.G.’s financial products unit are in addition to $121 million in previously scheduled bonuses for the company’s senior executives.

A.I.G.’s main business is insurance, but the financial products unit sold hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of derivatives, the notorious credit-default swaps that nearly toppled the entire company last fall.
A.I.G. had set up a special bonus pool for the financial products unit early in 2008, before the company’s near collapse, when problems stemming from the mortgage crisis were becoming clear and there were concerns that some of the best-informed derivatives specialists might leave.
Edward M. Liddy, the government-appointed chairman of A.I.G., argued that some bonuses were needed to keep the most skilled executives."

AIG loss in 2008 was $99.3 billion.

Fin. Times : "Goldman Sachs Group Inc and 22 European banks were the major beneficiaries of US$93-billion in payments from AIG -- more than half of the U.S. taxpayer money spent to rescue the massive insurer."

Goldman Sachs was formerly led by Henry Paulson who was treasury secretary at the time of the original AIG bailout.
Obama is apparently "outraged".

Michael Parenti : "They don't mind recessions. Recessions are fine. It allows them to buy up smaller companies at bargain prices. It disciplines labor. It humiliates and beats back people. And this, I think, is what we're facing.And it's not merely because of a number of wicked personalities, because these personalities are brought to the fore. Those are the people who get the rewards.
The free market does not work. It's not free. It's not really a market; it's a plunder. And it has to be done away with."

Cross-posted at Creekside

When you're $45-billion into federal taxpayer bailout funds

there's nothing like sponsoring a five day multi-million dollar Super Bowl funfest with "850,000 square feet of sports games and interactive entertainment attractions" to take the edge off. Call it a "growth strategy" if you have to.

Or you could just buy yourself a nice $1,400 trash can for your office.

Bail! Bail! . . . .

In honour of what appears to be an impending Big Three bailout, this ad may come in handy:


H/T Dana

Blindfolds, not Bailouts

First against the wall when the revolution comes: AIG executives.

Dec. 9 (Bloomberg) -- American International Group Inc., the insurer whose bonuses and perks are under fire from U.S. lawmakers, offered cash awards to another 38 executives in a retention program with payments of as much as $4 million.

The incentives range from $92,500 to $4 million for employees earning salaries between $160,000 and $1 million, Chief Executive Officer Edward Liddy said in a letter dated Dec. 5 to Representative Elijah Cummings. The New York-based insurer had previously disclosed that 130 managers would get the awards and that one executive would get $3 million.

“I remain concerned, as do many American taxpayers, that these retention payments are simply bonuses by another name,” Cummings said in letter responding to Liddy. AIG, which received a U.S. rescue package of more than $152 billion, has been criticized for saying it will eliminate bonuses for senior executives while still planning to hand out “cash awards” that double or triple the salaries of some managers. The payments are designed to keep top employees at AIG while Liddy seeks to sell units and pay back the federal government, which owns 79.9 percent of AIG.

...AIG’s managers have overseen a record $37.6 billion in net losses so far this year. Cummings has called for Liddy’s resignation and said AIG should provide names of those getting retention pay and explain why the awards are needed. Firms accepting taxpayer money shouldn’t enrich employees, he said..

Yeah, because when the senior management of the company steers the firm in losses of nearly $40 billion and forces the firm to seek a $150 billion bailout from the government, the last thing you want them to do is jump ship and work for someone else.
While I understand the importance of propping up all those struggling Porshe dealerships, caviar importers and executive country club operators that provide much needed greenskeeping and caddying jobs in these dark economic times, frankly I'd have a lot more respect for these people if they just drove up to Fort Knox in a convoy of trucks with masks and guns and cleaned the place out like honest thieves.

CNN Dec. 5

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- A record 1.35 million homes were in foreclosure in the third quarter, driving the foreclosure rate up to 2.97%, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Friday.

That's a 76% increase from a year ago, according to the group's National Delinquency Survey.At the same time, the number of homeowners falling behind on their mortgages rose to a record 6.99%, up from 5.59% a year ago, the association said. This means that one in 10 borrowers in America are either delinquent or in foreclosure

What would Woody Guthrie say?

"Yes, as through this world I've wandered
I've seen lots of funny men;
Some will rob you with a six-gun,
And some with a fountain pen.

And as through your life you travel,
Yes, as through your life you roam,
You won't never see an outlaw
Drive a family from their home."

-Woody Guthrie
The Ballad of Pretty Boy Floyd

$7.7 trillion bail-out? Holy crap!

Earlier today I saw this handy click-to-enlarge pie chart at Boing Boing from Voltage Blog
The pie on the right includes the Marshall Plan, the Louisiana Purchase, the moonshot, the S&L crisis, the New deal, NASA, and the Korean, Vietnam, and Iraq wars, for a total of $4.6 trillion.
On the left we have the somewhat larger 2008 bailout pie.

But then tonight I read at Bloomberg : Nope, it's not $4.6 trillion, it's $7,700,000,000,000.
At $24,000 for every man, woman and child in the US, it could pay off more than half their mortgages.
Bob Eisenbeis, economist for the Atlanta Fed for 10 years, on the lack of government oversight : "They got snookered."

But these are just loans, right? The companies will pay the taxpayers back when ... when ....
Holy crap! Isn't this the part in the movie where the seasoned old cop/FBI/CIA guy tells the anxious victim not to submit to blackmail/ransom/terrorist's demands because they will never stop their demands no matter how much you pay them and besides if you give in they're just gonna kill you/your wife/your country afterwards anyway?

Commenter Frank W at Boing Boing : "Money is a meme. It consists of the belief in it. That does not mean it does not exist, just that it consists of the belief in it. So, here's a pretty picture of a unicorn."

Cross-posted at Creekside

Fair Enough . . . .

From Reuters today:

IRS to start economic stimulus payments May 2
Mon Mar 17, 2008 1:05pm EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Internal Revenue Service said on Monday it would begin sending out the first of more than 130 million economic stimulus payments on May 2 and expects to complete the first round of payments by early July.

The IRS said the payments -- tax rebates of about $600 for most middle-income individuals and $1,200 for middle-income couples -- will be sent out in the order of the last two digits of the taxpayer's Social Security number. Taxpayers must file a 2007 tax return in order to receive a payment.

Let's see now.

The average Joe Schmoe gets $600.

The hedge funds, banks, lending institutions, financiers, etc., will no doubt get bailed out to the tune of billion$ or even trillion$ for their pie-in-the-sky shenanigans. Plus the CEO's of same keep their outrageous salaries,bonuses and options.

Sounds fair enough . . . .

(Cross-posted from Moving to Vancouver)