GM's CEO Rejects Repaying Feds for Bailout Losses 356
PolygamousRanchKid writes with news that GM's outgoing CEO doesn't agree with the National Law and Policy Center's call for GM to repay the loss made by the Treasury from their bailout. From the article: "GM CEO Dan Akerson rejects any suggestion that the company should compensate for the losses. He says Treasury officials took the same risk assumed by anyone who purchases stock.
Akerson said that GM repaid all the debt issued by the government beginning in December 2008 when George W. Bush was still president and extending into the first year of Barack Obama's presidency. He added that it was the Treasury's decision ... to take an ownership stake in the form of company shares."
risk? with a printing press? (Score:3, Interesting)
Risk pool payment, not payback. (Score:5, Interesting)
Absolutely right, they shouldn't be forced to pay back government losses. They, along with every other too big to fail corporation, should pay annually in perpetuity into risk pool that will handle all future bail-outs. Not as a tax, but as an insurance pool, that coincidentally, should be required to be held in US treasury bonds.
I'm sure if you presented that idea, they'd rush to substitute the $10b payback.
Re:Wrong use of money these days (Score:3, Interesting)
Because:
a) It's the right thing to do, the money he took belonged to the people.
b) It won't affect him, personally, on any level. His paycheck will be as big as ever.
I guess he just enjoys being a tyrant and saying "no" to people when they come to him with reasonable requests.
Right and wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
He is technically right and morally wrong.
Let the shareholders decide by vote. We the consumers (and the taxpayers) can then decide if we want to continue to buy their products, bail them out, or invest as shareholders. This is a decision that will have very long term effects on GM that will affect them long after the CEO is gone. I know it will affect my future buying decisions.
Re:Risk pool payment, not payback. (Score:4, Interesting)
uh that makes no sense at all.
they should have gone bankrupt - or loaned money backed by their assets... having a pool that's kept only to keep failing companies running belongs to the history of the ussr.
Who should have gone bankrupt? General Motors? They did.
Or at least the previously exisiting corporation known as General Motors did. And the value of the shares of stock in that corporation fell to $0, and that corporation doesn't really exist any more.
A new corporation also known as General Motors came into being, and issued stock, and it is some of that stock which the federal government purchased and then chose to sell for less than what they paid.
Welcome to United State (non)capitalism (Score:4, Interesting)
All the really big players are self serving cartels run for the benefit of the top tier insiders. The stock holders, clients and workforce are short changed and the largest profit goes to the Chief XXX Officers and the Board of Directors.
When the Feds bought GM stock it was poison. No one in the investment world would touch it. If the government didn't take a gamble then GM would have been out of business. Remember that in capitalism larger risk should reap larger rewards for success. However when it comes to bilking the government (and thus the taxpayers), suddenly basic principles of risk and reward no longer apply.
Speaking of rewards, look what happens when CEOs and the like screw everything up. No matter how horrible a job they do, they are always paid vast sums of money. Their performance has nothing to do with their payout.
Look at Mozilo [wikipedia.org], the CEO of Countrywide Financial. Time magazine him one of the "25 People to Blame for the Financial Crisis". He made hundred of millions of dollars. He settled all civil and criminal charges against him for $67.5 million, with Countrywide picking up $20 million. When Countrywide was at it's height, he made loans to all sorts of insiders at Fanny Mae and and Congress members and their families under a program called the "Friends of Angelo (FOA)" VIP program. It's all been swept under the rug.
Another example is that unlocking a smart phone under contract is a federal level felony, like interstate drug dealing or kidnapping. Even though the Obama administration said they would try and change the law, the Trans Pacific Partnership treaty has a provision making this permanent. Since it's an international treaty, there would be no way to overturn this other then renegotiating the treaty will all the other countries. The phone company cartel has their dirty hands all over this. The various carriers only compete on one thing: who gets to take more out of you wallet while delivering the minimal service they can get away with.
No real competition in the US. Move along, nothing to see...
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Welcome to the stock market (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:real socialism (Score:0, Interesting)
When other progressives say stuff like this, it really pisses me off. Your statements are more than a little misleading. Those numbers only work out for you if you don't consider things like social security and medicare part of the social safety net. Including those expenditures pushes government spending on social programs well above combined corporate and DoD spending combined. If you want to have honest conversations with people, you need to be clear what you're talking about. Despite being budgeted differently, most people do consider social security and medicare part of government spending. It's misleading statements like that that turn off moderates (who can easily google the federal budget) from believing in the good intentions of us on the left.
Re:real socialism (Score:1, Interesting)