Mitt Romney-- A Car Guy?

Mitt Romney blurted out a fatuous statement a few weeks ago about being "a car guy." Well... his father was. And owns lots of them (cars, not guys)-- and even an elevator for some-- but the closest he is to being a car guy is that he kind of resembles a used car salesman-- in the worst sense of the term. The most recent polling in Michigan shows him losing, 52-46%. That's not unexpected. But the polls have also shown Obama consistently ahead in Ohio-- and Romney has always known that that would be a death knell for his campaign. Tuesday they either steal Ohio or they have zero chance to win. And a lot of the explanation for why Ohio voters haven't bought into Romney has to do with cars. "Let Detroit go bankrupt," Romney's OpEd in the NY Times on November 18, 2008 plays badly in a state where so many jobs depend on the auto industry. That editorial is killing Romney's chances. and so are a slew of newspaper editorials reminding Ohio voters of it-- and of Romney's dishonest attempts to flip flop around the issue. Let's start with the editorial from the Akron Beacon yesterday, False Facts. It cuts Romney's credibility to shreds and shows why Ohio voters see him as a slimy, untrustworthy used care salesman:

The television ad launched by the Romney campaign this week about the auto rescue is accurate-- at least technically. President Obama did take General Motors and Chrysler into bankruptcy. Fiat did buy Chrysler, and Chrysler does plan to build Jeeps in China. Missing is the helpful context, the component that exposes just how misleading the Romney campaign has been in the way it has chosen to arrange its three facts.

That context has been provided in recent days by media fact-checkers, editorial pages, even executives at GM and Chrysler. Worth emphasizing is that Romney himself (at other turns in the race) has embraced the bankruptcy route, arguing it was his idea in the first place. In early 2009, the Obama White House weighed whether even to rescue Chrysler, its finances in such deep trouble. The conclusion was: Let’s proceed-- if favorable terms can be reached to make a sale to Fiat.

Chrysler will build in China, reflecting, if anything, the company gaining strength in the wake of the rescue, and more, a global firm doing the logical thing, building in markets where it sells. As the company stressed, that will not affect American operations, including Jeep production here, which has nearly tripled since the rescue.

The past three years, Chrysler has added more than 11,000 American jobs. General Motors reports that it has “brought nearly 19,000 back to work.” Remember, the Center for Automotive Research projected in November 2008 the loss of nearly 2.5 million jobs, many in Ohio, if one or more of the American automakers failed.

And that was a real prospect, GM and Chrysler running out of money, unable to secure private financing to keep operating in bankruptcy. Then, the Obama White House stepped up, the money coming as long as the automakers developed a credible plan for restructuring.

The barrage of criticism hardly caused the Romney team to flinch. It upped the ante with a radio ad suggesting the auto rescue helped China at the expense of auto workers here. The argument is as lame as its earlier contention that the bailout was all about favoring the United Auto Workers, a form of “crony capitalism.”

Actually, the auto workers joined others in getting a haircut, losing wages, benefits and job security. An independent trust fund with the job of managing the health benefits of auto worker retirees received a stake in both GM and Chrysler because the companies were broke and couldn’t meet their contractual obligation.

In other words, the trust took a risk. So did the president, and it has paid off for Ohio and other states heavily invested in making autos.

The day before, the Toledo Blade pounded Romney with a double whammy. Their editorial Auto Toxin was lethal: "In the final few days of the presidential contest, Mitt Romney evidently recognizes that his opposition to the federal rescue of General Motors and Chrysler is costing him voter support he needs in Ohio and Michigan. So the Republican nominee is conducting an exercise in deception about auto-industry issues that is remarkable even by the standards of his campaign." The Blade editors go on to explain to their readers that Romney's claims, simply put, rest on a tissue of boldfaced and purposeful lies. A business news story in the same paper the same day nails the point home, with hard facts about how well Jeep is doing in Toledo. (Of course, Romney-owned companies made a habit-- and still are today-- of shipping jobs to China and other low-wage hellholes even when companies were doing well, so Romney and his sleazy plutocratic partners could fatten their already bulging wallets regardless of what it did to working families-- or the American economy.

Chrysler, which owns Jeep and in which the Italian automaker Fiat has a majority stake, quickly denied the report. A company spokesman said Mr. Romney’s rhetorical leap “would be difficult even for professional circus acrobats.” But the Romney campaign launched an ad in Ohio that claimed that President Obama, who presided over the auto bailout, “sold Chrysler to Italians who are going to build Jeeps in China.”

Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne removed all doubt about his company’s intentions this week in an email to employees: “Jeep production will not be moved from the United States to China,” he said. “Jeep assembly lines will remain in operation in the United States and will constitute the backbone of the brand. It is inaccurate to suggest anything different"

He acknowledged that Chrysler intends “to return Jeep production to China, the world’s largest auto market, in order to satisfy local market demand, which would not otherwise be accessible.” The company also wants to avoid heavy import duties. But that’s a long way from Mr. Romney’s insinuation that the automaker is shipping jobs from Toledo to China.

Mr. Marchionne noted that Chrysler is investing $500 million in its Toledo assembly complex and plans to add 1,100 jobs there by next year, largely to build a successor to the Jeep Liberty sport-utility vehicle. He vowed “that the iconic Wrangler nameplate, currently produced in our Toledo, Ohio, plant, will never see full production outside the United States.”

And Romney's been lying about General Motors as well-- the same lies to the same audiences and executives in that company-- who have also tried to stay out of politics-- are steaming mad at the Republicans now. GM, which has hired 4,500 new hourly workers and thousands more new salaried workers at plants across the country since being bailed out by Obama, finally spoke out about Romney's calumny: “At this stage, we're looking at Hubble telescope-length distances between campaign ads and reality.” GM spokesman Greg Martin said. “GM's creating jobs in the U.S. and repatriating profits back to this country should be a source of bipartisan pride.”

Turns out, of course, it isn't just auto executives who are angry about Romney's campaign of lies and deception. Greg Palast reported Thursday on how poorly that crap is going over with the UAW. They're going to sue him-- for profiteering from the auto bailout!

For Mitt Romney, it's one scary Halloween. The Presidential candidate has just learned that tomorrow afternoon (November 1) he will be charged by the United Automobile Workers (UAW) and other public interest groups with violating the federal ethics in government law by improperly concealing his multi-million dollar windfall from the auto industry bailout.

At a press conference in Toledo, Bob King, President of the United Automobile Workers, will announce that his union and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW)  have filed a formal complaint with the US Office of Government Ethics in Washington stating that Gov. Romney improperly hid a profit of $15.3 million to $115.0 million in Ann Romney's so-called "blind" trust.

The union chief says, "The American people have a right to know about Gov. Romney’s potential conflicts of interest, such as the profits his family made from the auto rescue. It’s time for Gov. Romney to disclose or divest.”

“While Romney was opposing the rescue of one of the nation’s most important manufacturing sectors, he was building his fortunes with his Delphi investor group, making his fortunes off the misfortunes of others,” King added.

The Romneys' gigantic windfall was hidden inside an offshore corporation inside a limited partnership inside a trust which both concealed the gain and reduces taxes on it.

...According to ethics law expert Dr. Craig Holman of Public Citizen-- who serves as an advisor on the charge-- Ann Romney does not have a federally-approved blind trust.  An approved "blind" trust may not be used to hide a major investment which could be affected by Romney if he were to be elected President. Other groups joining the UAW and CREW include Public Citizen, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Public Campaign, People for the American Way and The Social Equity Group.

President Obama's approved trust, for example, contains only highly-diversified mutual funds on which presidential action can have little effect.  By contrast, the auto bail-out provided a windfall of over 4,000% on one single Romney investment. In 2009, Ann Romney partnered with her husband's key donor, billionaire Paul Singer, who secretly bought a controlling interest in Delphi Auto, the former GM auto parts division. Singer's hedge fund, Elliott Management, threatened to cut off GM's supply of steering columns unless GM and the government's TARP auto bailout fund provided Delphi with huge payments. While the US treasury complained this was "extortion," the hedge funds received, ultimately, $12.9 billion in taxpayer subsidies.

As a result, the shares Singer and Romney bought for just 67 cents are today worth over $30, a 4,000% gain.  Singer's hedge fund made a profit of $1.27 billion and the Romney's tens of millions.

The UAW complaint calls for Romney to reveal exactly how much he made off Delphi-- and continues to make. The Singer syndicate, once in control of Delphi, eliminated every single UAW job-- 25,000-- and moved almost all auto parts production to Mexico and China where Delphi now employs 25,000 auto parts workers.

What about President Obama? Are you wondering if he's finally calling Romney on his bullshit. He sure is! He was in Ohio yesterday... and the glovers came off. About time!

[C]hanging the facts when they’re inconvenient to your campaign-– well, that’s definitely not change. But that’s exactly what Governor Romney has been doing these last few weeks. Right here in Ohio, you’ve folks who work at the Jeep plant who have been calling their employers, worried, asking if their jobs were being shipped to China. And the reason they’re been making these calls is because Governor Romney has been running an ad that says so. Except it’s not true. Everyone knows it’s not true. The car companies themselves have told Governor Romney to knock it off. GM said, “we think creating jobs in the United States… should be a source of bipartisan pride.” And I couldn’t agree more.

   And I understand that Governor Romney has had a tough time here in Ohio because he was against saving the auto industry. And it’s hard to run away from that position when you’re on videotape saying the words “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt.” And I know we’re close to an election but this isn’t a game. These are people’s jobs. These are people’s lives. These car companies are put a lot of effort to make great product but also to make sure everybody in America knows how committed they are to making cars here in America. And so you don’t scare hardworking Americans just to scare up some votes. That’s not what being President is all about. That’s not leadership.

When I first made the decision to rescue the auto industry, I knew it wasn’t popular. Despite the fact that one out of eight jobs in Ohio are connected to the auto industry in someway, it wasn’t even popular in Ohio. But I also knew it was the right thing to do. I knew betting on American workers was the right thing to do. Betting on American ingenuity and know how was right thing to do. That bet paid off. It paid off in Lordstown, where GM is investing hundreds of millions of dollars in their auto plant. It paid off in Toledo, where Chrysler is adding more than 1,000 new jobs on a second shift-- not in China, right here in Ohio. Right here in the United States of America.

When Democrats brought up the auto bailout it passed the then Democratically-controlled House 237-170. All the Republican leaders-- Boehner, Cantor, McCarthy, Sessions-- and many who find themselves in tight electoral battles today-- like Buck McKeon (R-CA), Mary Bono Mack (R-CA), Patrick McHenry (R-NC), Ed Royce (R-CA), Todd Akin (R-MO), Steve King (R-IA), Connie Mack (R-FL), Joe Pitts (R-PA), Jim Matheson (Blue Dog-UT), Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Dan Lungren (R-CA), Brian Bilbray (R-CA), John Kline (R-MN), Mike McIntyre (Blue Dog-NC) and Heather Wilson (R-NM)-- voted with Romney against bailing out the auto industry. They were on the wrong side of history. Every one of them should be defeated at the polls Tuesday.

   I think it's almost funny that the 32 Republicans who did the right thing and voted with the Democrats against their own leadership are 100% silent on the issue now. You don't hear Paul Ryan, Fred Upton, Dave Camp, Peter King, Joe Barton, Don Young or Mike Rogers bragging today that they weren't with their sociopathic leadership on this one. They're all laying low-- even though they made the right decision for a change.

A Different Approach To Making America Work: Cars

Today Republicans are angry that Obama didn't fail & that the auto bailout worked

There was a lot of celebrating in Detroit yesterday-- not to mention at the White House-- when it was announced that Chrysler had repaid, with interest, the $5.9 billion loan it got from the U.S. Treasury to keep afloat. “The loans gave us a rare second chance to demonstrate what the people of this company can deliver,” Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne said. “We owe a debt of gratitude to those whose intervention allowed Chrysler Group to re-establish itself as a strong and viable carmaker.” That would be President Obama + 205 Democrats and 32 House Republicans. The Auto Industry Financing And Restructuring Act passed 237-170 on the evening of December 10, 2008. Led by Boehner and Cantor, 150 Republicans (+ 20 sleazy Blue Dogs, most of whom were defeated in the next election) voted against rescuing the auto industry. Don't they look foolish today?


The total Chrysler returned to the Treasury, including interest and other loans, was $10.6 billion-- which represents a full recovery of all the money the Obama Administration put towards rescuing the company and saving all the jobs, ancillary businesses and communities involved-- six years ahead of schedule. And this comes just a few weeks after GM’s announcement of a $2 billion expansion, which will result in the creation or retention of 4,000 jobs spread across 17 facilities in eight states. We’re starting to see second shifts and stronger sales all across the country. In Michigan, as well as in Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Missouri, since GM and Chrysler emerged from bankruptcy, the auto industry has added 115,000 jobs-- the fastest pace of job growth in the auto industry since the 1990s. This is what President Obama said just about one year ago (April 30, 2009):

"Chrysler has not only been an icon of America's auto industry and a source of pride for generations of American workers; it's been responsible for helping build our middle class, giving countless Americans the chance to provide for their families, sending their kids to college, saving for a secure retirement. It's what hundreds of thousands of autoworkers and suppliers and dealers and their families rely on to pay their bills in communities across our industrial Midwest and across our country."

That didn't appeal to Republicans and notorious vulture-capitalist Mitt Romney led the way with a horrific editorial in the NY Times just before the House vote: Let Detroit Go Bankrupt. Americans today can see how wrong he was in 2008 when he wrote that "If General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye. It won’t go overnight, but its demise will be virtually guaranteed." Because Romney's nasty and predictable anti-worker message was widely ignored, the auto industry is getting back on its feet today and helping lead the nation out of the Bush-Republican Recession. Romney, who is best known in American politics as the ultimate values-free flip-flopper is trying to re-write history today-- but the NYTimes caught him red-handed:

In 2009, Mr. Romney said Mr. Obama’s plans for rescuing the automobile industry were “tragic” and “a very sad circumstance for this country.”

A Romney spokesman said on Tuesday that the president’s plan was modeled after one Mr. Romney advocated in 2008.

“Mitt Romney had the idea first,” said Eric Fehrnstrom, a Romney spokesman, citing the Times opinion article. “You have to acknowledge that. He was advocating for a course of action that eventually the Obama administration adopted.”

...“Mitt Romney must think that the entire country has fallen into a state of amnesia if he believes he can get away with this revisionist history,” said Brad Woodhouse, a spokesman for the Democratic National Committee. “The record is clear. Mitt Romney would have let G.M. and Chrysler go bankrupt without extending them a dime of federal assistance.”

Democratic officials noted that Chrysler and General Motors received the federal aid only after they entered bankruptcy — not before, as Mr. Romney’s spokesman asserted.

And they said the bankruptcy’s success depended on the federal money.

“Mitt Romney is doing circuslike contortions to get out from under the damaging words he uttered in 2008,” said Jennifer M. Granholm, a former Democratic governor of Michigan.

Here's what the President said yesterday, Republicans still jeering his decision to save the American auto industry:

Chrysler’s repayment of its outstanding loans to the U.S. Treasury and American taxpayers marks a significant milestone for the turnaround of Chrysler and the countless communities and families who rely on the American auto industry. This announcement comes six years ahead of schedule and just two years after emerging from bankruptcy, allowing Chrysler to build on its progress and continue to grow as the economy recovers. Supporting the American auto industry required making some tough decisions, but I was not willing to walk away from the workers at Chrysler and the communities that rely on this iconic American company. I said if Chrysler and all its stakeholders were willing to take the difficult steps necessary to become more competitive, America would stand by them, and we did. While there is more work to be done, we are starting to see stronger sales, additional shifts at plants and signs of strength in the auto industry and our economy, a true testament to the resolve and determination of American workers across the nation.

Chrysler's sales rose 22.5% in the first quarter, ahead of the overall auto industry, which was up by 19.6%. Chrysler made a profit of $116 million in the quarter, their first since 2006, when Republican economic policies had started to kick in and devastated the auto industry and the entire economy.

What's Behind The Chrysler Deal Hold Up? Ever Hear Of Far Right Loon Richard Mourdock?

Richard Mourdock (R-IN), batshit crazy

Last time we caught up with Gary Peters (D-MI) he was trying to help his congressional colleagues understand that the excuse for paying out millions and millions of dollars in bonuses to failed corporate executives-- the sanctity of contracts-- never seem to apply when anyone is talking about the employment contracts regular working Americans have... like the auto workers, for example. But no sooner did that die down-- corrupt members of the Senate moving the protect their corporate paymasters-- when Gary took on General Motors in a way that I would have thought the Obama Administration would have-- demanding that they do not take American taxpayer bailout money and build cars in China.

You see, that was General Motors plan and they announced they were going to build a new subcompact car in China and re-import it here. Addressing GM management, Gary was very clear. “I am extremely concerned with the affect this plan will have here in Michigan. Our state has been hit hard enough already and we cannot afford to be disproportionately impacted by GM job losses. The purpose of providing General Motors taxpayer funded loans was not just to keep GM in business, but to preserve American jobs and bolster the U.S. economy.  We all know that GM must make cutbacks, but preserving as many American jobs as possible must be the primary goal of all restructuring efforts.” And GM paid attention, scrapping their plans to build the cars at a Chinese factory and promising to build them here in the U.S.

That hardly gave Oakland County's most proactive Representative ever a chance to relax. Suddenly the Chrysler deal started to unravel-- and Chrysler world headquarters sits right in the middle of Gary's district. Today's Washington Post explained the ruling from Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg that is holding up, at least temporarily, the sale of Chrysler to Fiat.

Fiat can back out of the deal if it is not finalized by Monday, and the government has warned that the only alternative would be to force the nation's third-largest automaker into liquidation, throwing the industry in turmoil and leaving tens of thousands of people without jobs.

The stakes may be higher for the Obama administration: If the court backs some of the claims, it could disrupt plans to rescue General Motors and weaken the government's hand in stabilizing the troubled economy.

"Every day that Chrysler remains in bankruptcy without consummating the sale threatens to postpone the resumption of production even further and to prolong the period of $100-million-per-day losses" financed by taxpayers, Elena Kagan, the U.S. solicitor general, said in a 26-page filing with the high court.

Behind the trouble, an extreme right-wing ideologue from the Rush Limbaugh fringe of the GOP, Indiana state Treasurer Richard Mourdock, who's as crazy as they come and sees more than willing to put his lunatic fringe ideologue ahead of the best interests of the people of his state (and the rest of the states). Chrysler debt was trading at 20 cents on the dollar.  Moody’s estimated it was worth 20 cents in liquidation.  The government offered secured lenders nearly 30 cents on the dollar, and most took it.  It was a good business decision.  Mourdock is making a really egregious business decision, at the expense of his state and his people. Bankruptcy law requires the court to ensure that secured lenders receive at least as much as they would in liquidation-- and in this case they likely get more. So, as the bankruptcy court and appeals court have said, the Indiana Treasurer’s case does not hold water and should not stop Chrysler from emerging from bankruptcy.

Mourdock says he represents working peoples’ pension funds-- why were those funds buying highly speculative securities at a discount?  These pension funds were turned into one of the vulture funds hoping to profit off of Chrysler’s demise.  Now he's pushing them towards liquidation.  Knowing Gary would be more in touch with this looming catastrophe than anyone else in Congress, we called him and got this response:

“What we have here is a State Treasurer who doesn’t know how to count.  He is willing to give up tens of millions of dollars in a fight over less than five million, and put four thousand workers out of a job in the process.  The legality here is clear; the bankruptcy judge and the appeals court are in agreement on that, and experts expect the Supreme Court to follow suit.  His actions are based on ideology rather than the best interest of his state and his country.  His case is wrong on the legal merits, it’s a bad business decision and it’s bad for the people he’s supposed to be representing.”

UPDATE: Supreme Court Tells Mourdock To Go Back And Study Economics 101

Gary was on Bloomberg today. He predicted the Supreme Court would end this delay immediately. And they did: "The U.S. Supreme Court lifted the stay on the Chrysler-Fiat deal on Tuesday, ending its role in the case. Earlier in the day, a bankruptcy judge on Tuesday approved Chrysler’s plan to terminate 789 of its dealer franchises."



Gary's response to the fast Supreme Court action was one of greta optimism. "Today’s decision is good news for the country. Chrysler’s swift emergence from bankruptcy has put the company in position to become more globally competitive and continue to support hundreds of thousands of American jobs. These proceedings were able to move so swiftly because Chrysler, the president’s auto task force, autoworkers, majority debt holders and others worked to help Chrysler undergo extraordinary restructuring prior to the bankruptcy filing. Major stakeholders realized that shared sacrifice was in their best interest, as a Chrysler liquidation would have caused massive job losses and ultimately cost secured lenders far more. The legally sound decisions of the U.S. district court and court of appeals provide an encouraging sign that General Motors can also emerge from bankruptcy quickly and continue supporting hundreds of thousands of jobs across the country.”