Auto Bailout: Another Example in Endless Instances of American Taxpayers Being Taken

 In February 2009, General Motors requested another gift of taxpayers money that would total approximately $30 billion. That request came just months after receiving $18 billion that the American taxpayers had to borrow. That gift was made with the provision that by Feruary General Motors would have cut its costs to become a viable corporation. Instead:

• Employees who had been furloughed from their jobs continued to receive nearly full wages.
   
• General Motors continued to pay the full cost of  health benefits for their active employees, those receiving pay who were not working, and of the retirees and their families for the remainder of their lives.
   
• Continued the benefits that far exceeded those of the taxpayers borrowing to keep General Motors present and former employees  with the lifestyle that the average taxpayers could only dream about.
   
• Labor unions continued to demand rules that prevent the auto makers from using their employees in the most economical manner.
• General Motors offered to pay huge amounts for employees to leave the company's employment.
   
• Remember that many of the corporations financial problems resulted from these lavish perks that were obtained in the past by blackmailing their employer by a series of costly strikes.

The money borrowed by the American taxpayers from communist nations (remember the old bugaboo about communist countries being our enemies!) was to cover the several month period until the two automotive companies could get their costs down. Instead, the labor unions blocked the needed changes, and they are now demanding that the American taxpayers pay an additional $12. Since the current cost structure does not provide for the companies to break even, the American taxpayers are on the hook for billions more. Who would be foolish enough to lend American additional money! And with the present structure in place, the declining car sales, the billions needed when the $30 billions are exhausted will continue to rise.

All this while the taxpayers paying or on the hook for these costs were losing their jobs; lacked health care benefits; were losing their homes and some families living in cars, and other human tragedies.

GM said it could need up to $30 billion from the Treasury Department, up from a previous estimate of $18 billion. That includes $13.4 billion the company has already received. The world's largest automaker said it could run out of money by March without new funds and needs $2 billion next month and another $2.6 billion in April. The only answered is a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing with the government providing the funds for an orderly restructuring of business.

More information mat www.defraudingamerica.com. And also in such books as  Congress and Other Cesspools; America's Housing and Financial Frauds, and other books by the same author.