Tag: GM (page 3)

In Detroit, where good deeds rarely go unpunished, Mayor Dave Bing is still trying to cobble together a deal to keep General Motors Corp. in its downtown Renaissance Center headquarters.

Problem is, how to do it without gutting the very agencies that run the city's business attraction and retention efforts, the Detroit Economic Growth Corp. and Downtown Development Authority?

Here's the GM-RenCen dilemma.

A week ago Friday, amid growing hysteria over whether GM might vacate the RenCen and leave Detroit as part of its crash slim-down plan to enter and exit Chapter 11 bankruptcy rapidly, Wayne County Executive Bob Ficano made Bing a tantalizing proposal.

Wayne County could offer its one remaining renaissance zone designation to the RenCen, thus exempting it from a host of property, income and utility taxes, saving GM $10 million or more.

Bing and GM President Fritz Henderson liked the idea. Even President Barack Obama called Bing to voice support for keeping GM downtown.<

Hallelujah, GM would stay put!

But alas, this is Detroit, where nothing comes easy.

Soon some unintended consequences of the ren-zone plan reared their ugly heads. Taxes that would be waived to help GM are the very taxes that bankroll the DEGC and the DDA, which in turn help finance city projects large and small, from the Comerica Park and Ford Field stadiums to Campus Martius office buildings and residential lofts.

Art Papapanos, vice president of the DEGC and officer of the DDA, said Friday that staffers were still calculating the exact impact, but he estimated that one-third or more of his agencies' annual budgets come from RenCen taxes. "That's a big chunk," he said.

This is bad. And it shows that the leadership in the Oval Office is an illusion. A mirage. A figment of the MSMs imagination. An empty suit sits there making things up as he goes along. Not ready to lead. Looks like Hillary was right. From NewsBusters (HT: memorandum):<span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span>Shotgun Wedding: Court Docs Reveal Govt. Likely Forced Chrysler Deal With Minimal Knowledge of Fiat.

Even if they ultimately lose their last-minute court battle, the Indiana pension funds defending their rights as secured first-lien creditors of Chrysler have done a valuable deed.

We have learned, among many other things, how at least one government lawyer characterized the funds' lawyer, Thomas Lauria.

A $10,000 Democratic Party donor, Lauria, despite clear evidence of intimidation of his originally larger pool of clients by Barack Obama himself (in his April 30 speech announcing the company's bankruptcy filing) and his car guys, has nonetheless bravely pursued the important contract law and fiduciary duty issues involved in the shortchanging of his clients for several weeks.

Wait until you see the word the government lawyer used to describe Lauria.

"It'll never be the same. That's a given. This (bankruptcy) makes the climb even steeper to ... get out of this local depression," said Jacobs, who has delivered the annual economic forecast for Macomb County for 25 consecutive years.

The former longtime professor's prediction was based on jobless rates in the county that exceeded expectations even before Chrysler and General Motors filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

The Macomb County unemployment rate fell from 15.0 percent in March to 14.4 percent in April. But analysts say the decline was due to a large number of jobless people who stopped looking for work.

Political Agenda with Danian Michael

In January of this year, Democrats everywhere declared that fiscal conservatism was the devil reincarnated. Big greedy corporations and wealthy white men needed to be put in their place, in jail or at the bottom of our society. This denigration of big corporations is only restrained by the threat that they will take their business elsewhere. We were also told that top-down economics does not work. As a matter of fact, wealth redistribution is being offered as the antidote to that failed policy.

Via Climate Depot and Gateway Pundit is this piece from serial liar Michael Moore on his own website: Goodbye, GM. Some of you will undoubtedly feel dumber for having read such drivel, but Moore hailing from Michigan and supposedly supporting union workers here in the state, is gleeful regarding GMs demise, and it is thus worth noting here.

I write this on the morning of the end of the once-mighty General Motors. By high noon, the President of the United States will have made it official: General Motors, as we know it, has been totaled.

 As I sit here in GM's birthplace, Flint, Michigan, I am surrounded by friends and family who are filled with anxiety about what will happen to them and to the town.

So here we are at the deathbed of General Motors. The company's body not yet cold, and I find myself filled with -- dare I say it -- joy.

We are now in a different kind of war -- a war that we have conducted against the ecosystem and has been conducted by our very own corporate leaders. This current war has two fronts. One is headquartered in Detroit. The products built in the factories of GM, Ford and Chrysler are some of the greatest weapons of mass destruction responsible for global warming and the melting of our polar icecaps. The things we call "cars" may have been fun to drive, but they are like a million daggers into the heart of Mother Nature. To continue to build them would only lead to the ruin of our species and much of the planet.

Amidst filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Monday, General Motors announced positive news regarding Arnold Schwarzenegger's choice vehicle, the Hummer.

The all-terrain military tank-like HUMVEE was originally produced by AM General. However the Hummer brand was later purchased by General Motors who has since expanded the line up to include several specialized sport utility beasts and pickup trucks (M.C. Keegan).

For years, the Hummer has been an icon of status and style. Many of Hollywood's elite celebrities have owned a Hummer including Paris Hilton, Mike Tyson, and of course Arnold Schwarzenegger (who at one point owned eight).

In contrast, some celebrities, including green-guru Al Gore and his "greenwashed" worshipers, have long since desired Hummer's demise. Their green-cultic-dream nearly became reality, but General Motors announced a tentative agreement with the Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Company of China which would acquire the touted brand.

According to Fox News the "Sichuan Tengzhong deals in road construction, plastics, resins and other industrial products, but Hummer would be its first step into the consumer automotive business."