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Almost there after all the damning evidence coming out
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What damning evidence? What exactly was said to these finance people? This whole thing reads like typical Drudge/Newsmax right-wing sensationalism.
Let's go back to a quote from Tom Lauria in the first Clusterstock blog that was linked:
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"One of my clients was directly threatened by the White House and in essence compelled to withdraw its opposition to the deal under threat that the full force of the White House press corps would destroy its reputation if it continued to fight...That was Perella Weinberg," Tom Lauria, the head of the bankrutpcy department for top New York City lawfirm White & Case, told a WJR 760 radio host.
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What exactly was the 'direct threat'? I don't believe for a minute that someone from the Obama administration said to someone from Perella Weinberg, "Get on board or we'll have the White House press corps destroy your reputation."
Now, someone might have said something like, "If your intractability on this leads to Chrysler's bankruptcy and a lot of jobs lost, it's going to reflect negatively on your public image." But frankly, I doubt even that was said. Perella Weinberg doesn't
have a public image, and within its own professional circle, forcing Chrysler into bankruptcy to recover as much of its investment as possible would reflect favorably, not negatively.
And as we get in to the follow-up posts, we still don't know exactly what was said, or if Lauria was present when it was said. And the fact that he's now backpedaling doesn't help his credibility, either. And if we go back to the quote I just posted, there are the weasel words 'in essence,' which I suspect translates roughly to 'didn't.'
The 'economic fascist' article is similarly loopy.
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First, Obama stated that Chrysler’s product had to be revamped -- and that he knew how best to do it. “For too long,” Obama said, “Chrysler moved too slowly to adapt to the future, designing and building cars that were less popular, less reliable, and less fuel efficient than foreign competitors. That’s part of what has brought us to a point where they sought taxpayer assistance.”
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Does anyone here want to disagree that Chrysler 'moved too slowly to adapt to the future,' and that it designed and built cars 'that were less popular, less reliable, and less fuel efficient than foreign competitors'?
Anyone here want to stick up for Chrysler technology? Anyone here want to say with a straight face that Chrysler builds better cars than Toyota, Honda, Volkswagen or whoever?
Did you know the only new car Chrysler debuted this year was an SUV? Hello?
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And yet Obama wants control of the car industry.
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"I would love to get the U.S. government out of the auto business as quickly as possible." - Barack Obama, last Wednesday
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Posing as a populist, Obama undermined the very basis of free enterprise in this country: the power of investors to lend money at return.
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This is the very basis of free enterprise only if you happen to be a lender. I quote Republican speechwriter and commentator Kevin Phillips here frequently, but he was the one who warned twenty-odd years ago where America was headed by making finance the center of the economy, as Holland, Spain and Great Britain had done previously. And the events of the past ten months or so have proven him right. Our economy is not built solely around lenders, or as this guy would apparently prefer, the even more narrow class of senior debt holders of US automakers.
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We are living in momentous times. There are many who question whether American capitalism will survive Obama. The verdict is in. It will not. It has not. We are already living under the rule of economic fascism. The jackboots are already in charge of Washington D.C. Obama’s dictatorial command and control of the economy spell disaster for our principles and our prosperity.
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If you take the Forbes 500 list, and subtract Chrysler and GM, you are left with 498 large companies for which the government has not replaced the CEO's. If you take out the big banks, you're still left with about 475 big companies for whom the government has not tried to limit executive compensation.
That's because CEOs of companies like Disney, Apple, Microsoft, Time Warner, Chesapeake, ExxonMobil, GE, etc., etc., ad infinitum, haven't come to the government with their hands out saying 'give us money,' and then, having received the money, stood there with their thumbs up their butts and no plan to do anything but what they'd been doing all along.
And let's not forget the tens of thousands of smaller companies that are out there, with no one from Washington trying to fire their CEOs or limit their bonuses.
As George W. Bush was fond of saying, "I took an oath to protect America." Obama took the same oath, and the America he's sworn to protect is not just senior debt holders, hedge fund managers and multinational bankers.
This seventh most popular talk show host in America needs to get a grip.