How familiar does this sound? Washington bails out an enormous industry with tens of billions of (borrowed) dollars, tells that industry to tighten its ship to become self-sustaining and viable, and then blasts the industry when it starts doing just that.
We’ve seen this with the banks — which More…
You might have heard that Detroit’s automakers have been struggling recently, and also that the federal government has stepped in with offers to help the dying companies weather the storm if only they’ll revamp their business models and make some concessions regarding employee compensation.
Well, it seems that some industry More…
Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) just told reporters that he doesn’t know.
That cash, gifted to General Motors ($13.4 billion) and Chrysler ($4 billion) in December was intended to keep the companies from going bankrupt before April, when they would require more.
As Detroit waits anxiously for the Obama administration to decide whether to grant more TARP funding to the ailing automakers, the White House today announced $5 billion in federal help for a related sector: the auto-parts suppliers who are struggling right alongside the Big Three. From The More…
For Detroit’s automakers, the bad news just got worse. Just hours after Chrysler announced a request for $5 billion more in federal help to prevent bankruptcy, General Motors indicated it might need as much as $16.6 billion more. Combined, the two companies have already received $17.4 billion in emergency loans More…
Spencer sends over the story that General Motors has tried to keep quiet.
Following Sunday’s Super Bowl, the automaker — keeping with a marketing tradition — awarded the game’s MVP with the car of his choice. Santonio Holmes, the Steelers wide-out who caught the game’s winning touchdown, chose a More…
In his fifth press conference in as many days this week, President-elect Obama completed his cabinet appointments, tapping Rep. Hilda Solis (D-Calif.) as secretary of labor and Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Ill.) as secretary of transportation. He also named former Dallas mayor Ron Kirk as the U.S. trade representative, a cabinet-level More…
When Senate Republicans last week killed a $14-billion bailout of Detroit’s sputtering automakers, they reduced the debate to what they consider its essence: the power of organized labor.
Earlier sticking points involving oversight, emission standards and the source of the rescue money had More…
The news coverage today is all about how the greedy auto workers and their unions refused to accept the oh-so-reasonable compromise proposed by Senate Republicans that would require them to quickly drop their wages and benefits to match those of foreign-owned plants.
But none of the mainstream news coverage I’ve More…
As the nation’s automakers near collapse, global temperatures rise, and consumers and government wallow in debt, there might be a one-stop remedy for all three: raise the gas tax.
The chief boosters of the idea are not Washington policymakers. Instead, they are some of the nation’s top economists, environmentalists and More…
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