Detractors of capitalism decry that it caters to special interests. The opposite is actually true. Just look at what’s happened in the last year.

Most of Wall Street came to government asking for a bailout when the government-created housing bubble popped.

The Big Three automakers also went to Washington for largesse when their customers came to prefer Toyotas and Hondas.

Health insurance companies stand to make a killing if Obamacare passes.

T. Boone Pickens and Al Gore would make millions from environmental legislation.

Ludwig von…

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Considering the enormous amounts of cash that the federal government has hurled at the auto industry since the start of the financial crisis, recipients of government largess in Detroit should at least have the common courtesy of telling taxpayers what they’re doing with their money. Unfortunately, United Auto Workers boss Ron Gettelfinger doesn’t seem to think that applies to him or his union. So kudos are in order to Rep. Jeb Hensarling for calling out Gettelfinger and the UAW on this:

The…

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If anything could make finding yourself out of business overnight any worse, it is to have to pay a penalty for it. That’s what now threatens some GM and Chrysler dealers whose factory agreements are not being renewed as part of those companies’ government-led restructuring. Many of those soon-to-be-defunct dealers may find themselves exposed to having to pay withdrawal penalties into the union pension funds into which they will no longer pay.

Now, the Detroit automakers overextended their dealer networks —…

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Your faithful host Richard Morrison welcomes back special guest co-hosts William Yeatman and Michelle Minton for Episode 46 (listen HERE!). We start with the investors that are getting worked over by the politically-distorted bankruptcy of Chrysler, the ascension of the Swedish Pirate Party to the European Parliament and the Great Porn Wall of China. We then move on to proof that beer is better for you than water, a sign that airline travel may get more expensive, and an example of how voters deal…

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Most of the $800 billion stimulus package has yet to be spent, but it’s already harming the economy, both by triggering trade wars that have cost at least 40,000 jobs, and by driving up interest rates for businesses that need to borrow money to expand or create jobs. (The government is keeping down interest rates on its own debt by printing vast sums of money to buy its own bonds, in order to finance the exploding national debt, which will result…

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Even the liberal Washington Post, which endorsed Obama and has not backed a Republican for president since 1952, is getting fed up with the Obama Administration’s wasteful and politicized bailouts of General Motors and Chrysler. Today, it laments the
“imminent transformation of General Motors into a government-owned company, infused with upward of $50 billion in federal money.” “It doesn’t take much imagination to forecast the political pressures that will buffet the government-as-auto-executive. We’ve seen one effect already in the preferential treatment of the autoworkers’…

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The Obama Administration is now seeking to give the United Auto Workers Union a big chunk of General Motors, at the expense of taxpayers and bondholders (including non-union retirees). If Obama gets his way, the UAW will receive at least ten times as much value ($10 billion plus 39 percent of the company) as the bondholders (who get no money and 10 percent of the company) even though the bondholders are owed more ($27 billion vs. $20 billion). This is neither legal…

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Today’s Wall Street Journal further drives home the difficult position in which the United Auto Workers, Chrysler, and General Motors are likely to find themselves as a result of the UAW becoming part owner of GM and majority shareholder of Chrysler. First, the lead editorial notes the political risks inherent in the arrangement:

Some Treasury officials have told the media that 50% government ownership is important to ensure that taxpayers get repaid for the $16.2 billion in Treasury loans. But this…

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The United Auto Workers’ (UAW) loud complaining that they’re being asked to bear a disproportionate share of the costs of restructuring the Big Three begs the question: How much is their fair share to bear? As Holman Jenkins notes, in his Wall Street Journal column, the UAW may not like the answer.

The two parties that turned the Big Three into a perennially limping freak of unwritten industrial policy now will take formal ownership of their handiwork. The United Auto Workers…

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Your hosts Richard Morrison and Cord Blomquist are joined by special guest co-host Jeremy Lott for a very swashbuckling Episode 38 of LibertyWeek. We start with the rescue of Capt. Richard Phillips from Somali pirates by the U.S. Navy and Special Forces, look into the murky finances of AIG CEO Edward Liddy in Scandal Watch, and figure out what ISPs are up to in Technology News. We also get an update on how West Virginia is about to become even more Wild and Wonderful, and finally we…

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The ouster of General Motors CEO Rick Wagnoner by the Obama administration isn’t the first time in the recent history of bailouts that the government has forced out a CEO. That first happened in September when Bush admnistration Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson forced out American International Group CEO Robert Willumstad in favor of Paulson’s friend Edward Liddy.

The lesson from AIG is that replacing a CEO is no panacea. There is no love lost for the poor managment of Rick Wagoner. He…

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A study by Carnegie Mellon finds that the Chevy Volt, GM’s rechargeable battery-driven car designed to go 40 miles on electricity,  is “not cost effective in any scenario,” Bloomberg reports.  

There appear to be two main problems, cost and durability. Says Bloomberg:

A battery big enough to propel a car for 40 miles, such as the 400-pound pack for Volt, may cost $16,000, based on current industry and academic estimates. The price of the car isn’t set, though GM backed off last year from an initial…

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Throughout the Detroit automakers’ bailout saga, the United Auto Workers’ leadership has claimed that the union has made enough major concessions to date, and that demands for it to make more, from company and government officials, are attempts “to make workers shoulder the lion’s share of the costs of any restructuring plan.”

If the UAW leadership is so concerned about the union’s rank-and-file bearing the costs of the Detroit automakers’ restructuring, there’s one item on which it could easily save millions for…

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The Bush administration’s outline of its automaker bailout package lists some seemingly sensible changes in labor practices that GM and Chrysler need to make. (Ford, to its credit, is seeking private financing instead.)

Targets: The terms and conditions established by Treasury will include additional targets that were the subject of Congressional negotiations but did not come to a vote, including:

Reduce debts by 2/3 via a debt for equity exchange.
Make one-half of VEBA payments in the form of stock.
Eliminate the jobs…

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If there’s one provision in the GM/Chrysler bailout that I just don’t get, it’s the suggestion that the automakers must be financially viable by March 31st next year or they will have to repay the loans.

Unless I’m missing something, if you’re not financially viable, repaying $17.4 billion will be just a tad difficult. This will presumably force those automakers into Chapter 11, which is what the bailout was meant to avoid, at least partly to avoid the “ripple effect” that the…

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In early 2007, the economy was humming along and General Motors was considered to be in the process of a turnaround. To help stabilize itself, the company was considering buying its smaller, money-losing rival Chrysler.

But it faced a stumbling block in the form of antitrust law. According to analysts looking at a potential merger, the government would consider a combined GM and Chrysler too big and powerful with the ability to drive competition out of the market. The Wall Street…

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Last night, the Detroit Big Three bailout package crashed and burned for the best of reasons. To their credit, Senate Republicans refused to abide the United Auto Workers’ cavalier attitude toward further, drastic concessions. Reports The New York Times:

Late Thursday, the Senate did not take up an assistance measure passed by the House, after hours of negotiations between Senate Republicans with the auto companies and the U.A.W. The sticking point apparently was the union’s refusal to agree to lower wage and…

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In the debate about bailing out the Big 3 automakers, it is said that we just can’t allow a bankruptcy. Despite the fact that Chapter 11 bankruptcies have taken place for retailers such as Circuit City and many airlines such as U.S. Airways, autos are said to be different because of the duration of time that people hold on to their cars for.

Horrific senarios are painted of consumers not being able to get parts for their automobiles if manufacturers…

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