Bailout

Looks like trade wars are not that good or easy to win.

A question no one’s asked out loud with regard to the ongoing Illinois state budget negotiations is what happens if—or when—the state becomes unable or unwilling to pay its bills a few years down the road.

Amid ongoing concern that President Obama will bail out his insurance company allies who've lost money selling Obamacare, his own Justice Department has now effectively admitted that he has no legal authority to do so. In a brief filed in federal court, the Justice Department argues that the…

A new poll finds that 58 percent of likely voters are “more likely” to support members of Congress who vote to stop Obamacare’s taxpayer bailout of insurance companies.  Half of that 58 percent (29 percent) are “much” more likely to do so.  Meanwhile, only 15 percent of likely voters are “less…

Tim Craig of the Washington Post reports that:

Obamacare’s defenders are busy declaring victory again.  Ezra Klein is touting a new survey of Obamacare benchmark premiums in some regions of the country as evidence that the law is defying the predictions of critics and working to cut costs rather than increase them.

The Palm Beach Post reports that Florida Blue CEO Pat Geraghty is characterizing as “unfair” Marco Rubio’s argument that American taxpayers should not be forced to provide a bailout for health insurance companies that lose money under Obamacare.  It’s not entirely clear whether Geraghty thinks it’s…

Publicly, President Obama loves to demonize insurance companies.  But behind the scenes, Big Government and Big Insurance maintain a cozy alliance that the Obama administration actively nourishes, often at taxpayer expense.  Indeed, as emails recently obtained by the House Oversight Committee show,…

This fall, voters will get another chance to register their opinion on Obamacare. President Obama’s signature legislation is causing health costs to spike, federal spending to soar, doctors to leave their profession, millions of Americans to lose their health plans, and millions more to be coerced…

General Motors recalled another 718,000 of its vehicles yesterday to correct defects serious enough to require the action. This puts the number at "nearly 30 million vehicles since the start of the year, by far a record for any automaker and more than half the vehicles recalled by the industry as a…

Most Americans don’t think it’s their job to bail out insurance companies who lose money under Obamacare, but that’s exactly what’s poised to happen. Obamacare’s risk-corridor program — which President Obama has been using as a slush fund to placate his insurance allies and keep them quiet about…

It has been days now (at least two of them) since General Motors has issued a recall on any of its cars.  But then, the law of diminishing returns applies here.  After the first 15 million, there aren’t that many GM vehicles left out there for recalling.

The bailout of GM – at a final cost to the Treasury of $10 billion and change – was a landmark event in evolution state capitalism, American-style.  The company was saved, certain creditors were stiffed, the unions were protected, and the corporate culture, it seems, was not altered in any…

The city that President Obama was credited with “saving” – before it turned out that he hadn’t – is getting a little help from Washington as it struggles through the largest municipal bankruptcy in American history.

The script is familiar. General Motors’ top executive heading down to Washington to be grilled by Congress. As Joseph B. White of Market Watch reports, fifty years after the Corvair controversy that made Ralph Nader a household name:

Vice President Joe Biden addressed the North American International Auto Show in Detroit on Thursday and reminisced about the state of the industry before and after the Obama administration came into office.  He observed that the steep decline in auto sales during President Obama's first year in…

Robert Laszewski—a prominent consultant to health insurance companies—recently wrote in a remarkably candid blog post that, while Obamacare is almost certain to cause insurance costs to skyrocket even higher than it already has, “insurers won’t be losing a lot of sleep over it.”  How can this be? …

Detroit failed after years of one-party rule (guess which one), mismanagement, and corruption. Businesses closed down. Buildings were left derelict until they were torched for the fun of it.  Feral animals roamed the streets as the people fled.  After the usual protestations that it would never…

Detroit mayor Dave Bing tells ABC's George Stephanopoulos that there's no bailout "yet":

On the floor of the Senate today, Harry Reid, a Democrat, praised President Obama's auto bailout:

The American taxpayers stand to lose billions as General Motors today announced a plan to buy back 40 percent of the company owned by the federal government.

The legislation to help those affected by Hurricane Sandy has been turned into something of a mini auto bailout, according to those familiar with the Obama administration's request. The request includes millions of dollars worth of cars, to be paid for by the federal government.

The auto bailout debate, already a triumph of narrative over reality, took another turn for the absurd last week as both presidential campaigns exchanged salvos over what amounted to a misunderstanding about Chrysler's plan to build Jeeps in China. The dust-up began when the Romney campaign…

Today is the first day of the Democratic convention in Charlotte. Coincidentally, GM, the embattled car company that was bailed out by the federal government, has some good news to report.

Not so hot, it seems. First, there is the simple matter of costs.  

Washington Post: "Bloomberg rebukes Obama over collapse of debt talks"

The automobile magazine Motor Trend has awarded the Obama-approved, government-subsidized Chevrolet Volt its annual "Car of the Year" appellation, reports MSNBC:

The Boston Herald reports:

Andrew Ross Sorkin has a very interesting column this week examining the signal sent by GM’s purchase of AmeriCredit.  The short answer: GM looks like it’s trying to revive the old patterns of demand before the recession.  It’s doing so by following some of the same business practices that led to…