GM Failure

FWIW -- it does not appear that GM was an especially egregious, albeit highly effective, lobbying practitioner nor did they "push the envelope," but the financial services and energy/mining industries "let 'er rip." .............following added .............. FWIW -- an example of how the financial services sector "let 'er rip" on a bipartisan basis. In fairness, the ROI [return on inventement] for this sponsorship was exceptionaly good.

-------- Before handouts, big firms bankrolled conventions Dec 10 01:09 PM US/Eastern By PETE YOST Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - Financial giants now being bailed out by the government spent millions underwriting the Democratic and Republican conventions last summer, just weeks before coming to Washington begging for multibillion-dollar handouts.

The big donors included AIG, Ford Motor Co., Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Freddie Mac.

In all, major corporations, labor unions and individual millionaires dumped $118 million into the nominating conventions for Barack Obama and John McCain, according to reports from the Campaign Finance Institute and the Center for Responsive Politics. The private groups compiled the numbers from filings required under federal law.

Private financing of the national political conventions is among the last avenues for corporations, unions and wealthy individuals to curry favor through big-bucks political contributions. Congress banned the giving of six- and seven-figure donations to the political parties, offerings known as "soft money," in a 2002 law that revamped campaign financing in response to concerns that large sums of money could give donors undue influence and lead to corruption.

Together, all the donors spent $61 million on the Democratic convention and $57 million on the GOP convention.

Among the corporate contributors:

_American International Group Inc. gave $1.5 million, split down the middle between the Democratic convention in Denver and the Republican convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul. The government now is providing AIG a $150 billion financial-rescue package.

_Citigroup, receiving tens of billions in bailout funds, spent $600,000, including $250,000 for the Democratic convention.

_Goldman Sachs, the recipient of $10 billion in bailout money, spent $505,000 on the political conventions, including $255,000 for the Republican gathering.

_Bank of America is receiving $15 billion in bailout funds and its newest acquisition, Merrill Lynch & Co., is getting $10 billion. Bank of America spent $100,000 on the Democratic convention, none on the Republican.

The corporate donors also include Freddie Mac, the financially stricken mortgage housing giant which the government took over in September along with its sister company, Fannie Mae. Freddie Mac gave $250,000 to each convention. The company is asking for an injection of $13.8 billion in government aid after posting a huge quarterly loss.

Wall Street hedge fund operators got into the act as well. The GOP convention got $2 million from Raymond Dalio of Bridgewater Associates. The Democratic convention received $500,000 from James Chanos of Kynikos Associates.

The individual donors included billionaire Kirk Kerkorian, whose fortune has been stung by the plight of Ford Motor Co. and an economic downturn that has damaged his other investments.

Kerkorian gave $2 million to help underwrite the Republican convention and $1.5 million for the Democratic convention. He gave the money through a foundation that he controls.

Ford spent $200,000 on the conventions, divided evenly. Ford could benefit from the proposed auto industry bailout being worked out in Washington. Ford wants a $9 billion standby line of credit in case a competitor fails.

The Federal Election Commission has continued to allow large contributions to flow to local committees set up to host the political conventions, and those host committees promise donors special access to each party's top leaders.

----------- for complete article [well worth reading] click on

Unka' George [George McDuffee]

------------------------------------------- He that will not apply new remedies, must expect new evils: for Time is the greatest innovator: and if Time, of course, alter things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the end?

Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher, essayist, statesman. Essays, "Of Innovations" (1597-1625).

No. And one is about to take office as President of the US.

Seen the new gun control laws his cronies are starting to push?

Coded ammunition..must destroy your own personal stocks of "uncoded" stocks, including handloads....

Read Unintended Consequences recently? It may become true soon.....

I haven't, and at 46 years of age you don't have "cronies".

Why don't you go ahead and post actual legislation - or even proposed legislation?

I've see some of it.

There was a link posted here a few days ago.

It's pretty much a dead issus - for anyone who wants to be reelected.

http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/2142368/posts

Yeah, State laws, not federal. What State has Obama been elected President of?

"Dick 'Tater" wrote in news:jy20l.11166$ZP4.5574 @nlpi067.nbdc.sbc.com:

Chaos

"Dick 'Tater" wrote in news:jy20l.11166$ZP4.5574 @nlpi067.nbdc.sbc.com:

Denial - he denies people/things faster than anyone else.

Confusion.

Id say the State of "Leftist Denial"

Which is not in Egypt.

Confusion is the first stop on that journey.

that article gives national security as the main reason, actually a new leaner meaner competitor would do better at providing the vehicles needed because the thinking would be entirely along new lines; with new companies and new suplliers breaking their backs to deliever new product and ideas; the first article cited says the ponderous size of gm has made it unable to adapt to the necessary changes, and I agree with that, but I am saying that I think obamas hands are just tied to bailing out gm regardless. I don't want to change the focus of the thread to what he should or shouldn't do, but what seems to be an inevitable determination of his administration has already been cast and how his choice in the matter is merely illusionary at best. the march of history is being foretold.

----------------- With enough time and enough money most anything can be accomplished. ==>Unfortunately, neither the time nor the money appears to be available.

"F. George McDuffee" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

LOL Somebody mentioned this exchange earlier and I just now came across it.

(COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedlycompared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated: "If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving twenty-five dollar cars that got 1000 miles to the gallon."

In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release stating (by Mr Welch himself): If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:

1. For no reason whatsoever your car would crash twice a day. 2. Every time they repainted the lines on the road you would have to buy a new car. 3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason, and you would just accept this, restart and drive on. 4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn, would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine. 5. Only one person at a time could use the car, unless you bought "Car95" or "CarNT." But then you would have to buy more seats. 6. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, reliable, five times as fast, and twice as easy to drive, but would only run on five per cent of the roads. 7. The oil, water temperature and alternator warning lights would be replaced by a single "general car fault" warning light. 8. New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt. 9. The airbag system would say "Are you sure?" before going off. 10. Occasionally for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key, and grab hold of the radio antenna. 11. GM would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of Rand McNally road maps (now a GM subsidiary), even though they neither need them nor want them. Attempting to delete this option would immediately cause the car's performance to diminish by 50% or more. Moreover, GM would become a target for investigation by the Justice Department. 12. Every time GM introduced a new model car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car. 13. You'd press the "start" button to shut off the engine.

JC

ews: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

gates was just trying to cover the vista debacle- comparing apples and oranges- hardly a valid comparison.

I don't remember the context, just happened upon the tit for tat between Gates and Welch. Pretty funny.

JC