Tag: GM (page 4)

Political Agenda with Danian Michael

For research, I was watching the movie Casino (a movie by the way that is based on actual events) when I came upon a very popular practice in organized crime. For whatever reason, a small business owner owes money to the mob; perhaps, it is due to a gambling debt or a personal loan. Now in the world of organized crime, they don't send you a thirty day notice, they send a collector. If your debt is due at 11:50 and you still have not paid it, you can expect a knock on your door at 11:51. The Mob runs a pretty effective collection agency, if you know what I mean.

In some instances; however, if the person owing the debt is a business owner, the Mob seizes control of the business (unofficially) and runs through its resources like an aggressive parasite. They would take out big loans against the business, use it to launder money, and basically suck it dry until all that's left is the human devastation of the owner and his family. Bankruptcy for the owner is almost always the conclusion of this unholy partnership.

Me: Michigan's economy is bad.

You: How bad is it?

Me:  It is SOOOO bad that mailmen have to steal stamps just to pay their mortgage.  Oh!

*Ba-Dam-CHING*

That certainly isn't funny and, alas, neither is it a joke.  Michigan's economy is making global headlines again this morning thanks to Macomb County Postman John Auito.  The man is in hot water for swiping nearly $20,000 worth of stamps from his boss, the United States Postal Service, selling them at fifteen percent discount and pocketing the cash.  The Chicago Tribune, CNN and everyone else under the sun report this morning:

Auito told agents that he began taking stamps in September because he feared foreclosure.

That, my friends, is a stunt even Newman and Kramer wouldn't try to pull off, but here in the Granholm-Cherry economy folks are being driven to the absurd. Things aren't going to look any prettier if General Motors picks up her bankrupt headquarters and pulls a Comerica bank on the region, abandoning the Ren Cen for greener pastures.

And as much as Mayor Fouts in Warren would like to see his home town become destination office space for the automaker, the odds that they leave the state entirely seem every bit as plausible.  Still, Fouts is giving it the old college try.  

Read on...

Who'd have ever thunk, for instance, that in the middle of May, well after the emergence of spring and the not-uncommon 70 degree day, with the planet dying and temperatures soaring while the sun turns the surface into a George Foreman grill, melts ice caps and roasts polar bears in their fur, Michigan's LOWER peninsula would suddenly find itself facing a FREEZE warning that threatens to devastate crops.  The Associated Press sounds the alarm!

Summer may be just six weeks away, but the northern half of Michigan's Lower Peninsula faces the threat of a hard freeze that could kill crops and early-season plants.

The National Weather Service has issued a freeze warning from midnight to 8 a.m. Monday for northwest Lower Michigan and from 2-8 a.m. for northeast Lower Michigan and the Thumb. Frost and subfreezing temperatures are expected in the region lying north of Interstate 96.

Brrrr.  Michigan hasn't gotten that cold a reception since the auto execs asked Congress for federal stimulus funding.  (*RIMSHOT* C'mon... that was awesome, wasn't it?)

Oh, and the bailout cash that they finally did convince the Democrats to funnel into the Motor City?  Too little too late.  

Read on...

Add 18,000 more to that list.  The Associated Press reports that that 23 transmission and parts plants will also be closed during that time to help cut down on excess inventory.  

The good news?  Workers will be affected a heck of a lot less than Lansing.  

Laid-off blue-collar workers would still get most of their pay because their United Auto Workers union contract requires the company to make up much of the difference between state unemployment benefits and their wages.

GM also will pay salaried workers 75 percent of their pay if they are furloughed under a new company policy.

I knew I picked the wrong career field.  I should have moved to the D when I turned 18 and scrounged up a UAW job.  I could go for a summer vacation with nothing to do and a negligible dock in pay.  

General Motors winds up saving cash on parts and operational expenses, cuts down on excess inventory and the furloughed workers get to catch some rays.  Talk about a win-win.  Meanwhile, Lansing becomes the Biggest Loser.  Which you could read any number of ways.

Tough to replenish the state's wad of unemployment cash when workers take home less income directly from their employer, the state cuts a bigger overall unemployment benefits check every month and then sees the legislature vote to extend benefits again.

Come August and September, Budget Process 2010 may have Lansing yearning for the good old days of $1.32 billion in red ink.  Going to take more than laying off 100 state troopers to balance those books.

Alas, the good news seems to stop there.  Raise your hands if you DIDN'T see this one coming... General Motors new restructuring plan, the one being proposed this week by the CEO and the Board of Directors President Obama personally appointed, is going to propose nationalizing the company and ceding complete operational authority to the federal government.  Because that management structure worked so well in the old Soviet Union.

The Detroit News reports:

The U.S. Treasury Department would own a majority of General Motors Corp. and have the right to appoint all of its directors, under the company's turnaround plan unveiled Monday -- the latest sign of the government's growing role in the automaker's restructuring.

The administration also told the Detroit automaker it wouldn't support giving bondholders any more than 10 percent equity in the company.

The bondholders, obviously, aren't happy.  And neither should be the Michiganders working at GM plants or relying on those retirement checks.  Many expect this move is a precursor to a bankruptcy filing and a messy round of fire sales and layoffs.

15 percent unemployment, here we come.  Tomorrowish.  And thanks specifically to the Obama administration.  

By this point we should be used to Democrats behaving badly, though.  The locals here in the Great Lakes State aren't exactly going to win citizenship awards any time soon, either.  Over in Flint we've got the former mayor and potential 2010 Democratic gubernatorial candidate Don Williamson making a liar out of himself and demanding $600,000 in back pay from the city.

Read on...

Big week, boys and girls.  Big week for Detroit, for Michigan and for hundreds of thousands of moms and dads and kids and... you get the idea.  With Big 3 restructuring deadlines lurking here and there dominos are already starting to fall in what will probably prove to be a few of the most important days in the history of Motor City.

The bottom line question, after we cut through the filler and the nonsense and the periphery issues... the heart of the matter is whether or not metro Detroit will survive in any meaningful way.  Heading into the weekend there was a serious chance that Chrysler, LLC could be completely liquidated via Chapter 11 bankruptcy which would have put an estimated 300,000 Michiganders out of work.  Friday deadlines lurked in the distance and the company's would-be-"savior," Fiat, continued to insist on significant UAW concessions.

And they got some.  THANK GOODNESS meets OUCH (probably).

Read on...

Yesterday stood poised to offer observers one heck of a big, black thunder cloud but one city's effort (and, largely, one families) wrapped it in a pretty substantial silver lining.

When folks turned on the nightly news yesterday they were treated to the regular chorus of rotten news about Michigan.  On steroids.

The Obama administration is preparing to watch local manufacturing giant Chrysler, LLC go bankrupt next week.  Meanwhile, General Motors announced thirteen summer plant closings including four in the Great Lakes State that are expected to shake the foundation of handfuls of suppliers and other businesses, too.  Oh, and did you hear the news anchor mention that regional unemployment rates were up, again, in March?

On a normal day that'd be enough to make a guy change the channel, even if the only other option was a re-run of  Brett Michaels' Rock of Love Bus.  Except that yesterday it wasn't.  Yesterday the rest of the world was buzzing about Michigan and it had nothing to do with unemployment, job losses or shuttered manufacturing plants.

Rick DeVos's big reveal yesterday, that Grand Rapids would host the world's largest and most unique art competition this September has folks buzzing from Detroit to Charleston to Boston and San Francisco and everywhere in between (Albemarle, North Carolina, anyone?).

Even saw buzz on Twitter yesterday from Scotland.

This is the kind of news Michigan needs hitting the wires.  Our second largest and most vibrant big city is hosting a world class arts competition that invites the public from around the world to stop by, visit and participate.

Already making plans with some friends to spend a day or two this September backpacking and biking around the downtown canvas and daydreaming about the potential energy is exciting.  

Big ups and a big THANKS to Rick and the entire DeVos family for making this happen.  We've had a six-plus year string of rotten news in this state.  Nice to have something so wildly different to hang our hats on for a summer.

The administration's inside men, a CEO and a Board of Directors they hand picked and put in place to run the ship per the administration's specific and explicit guidelines made a series of announcements yesterday and none of them were pretty.

Ugliest was the news that 1,600 white collar workers right here in Michigan would be losing their jobs in the next few days.  The Detroit News reports:

The announcement was made by GM North American President Troy Clarke in an e-mail sent to employees Monday, spokesman Tom Wilkinson said.

"This is part of really restructuring the company to a smaller, leaner company, one that can, as the (Obama) administration requested, be profitable on an ongoing basis," Wilkinson said.

It is like Donald Trump meets Meg Ryan.  "You've got mail... you're fired."  And all courtesy of the President of the United States.  Of course, this is only the tip of the iceberg.  47,000 mostly Michigan jobs are expected to be whacked on the President's say-so, because apparently that's less damaging to the man politically than forcing his special interest pals at the UAW to negotiate down from that $50+ an hour all-in pay scale.

And the alternatives aren't particularly pretty.  President Obama has made it clear... it is his way or the highway.  GM's new leadership team are killing Michigan jobs on his orders and with the threat of forced bankruptcy hanging over their heads.

The Ivory Tower opines about Obama's threat:

"This is truly scary," said John Wolkonowicz, IHS Global Insight senior automotive analyst. "Neither the government nor GM has any control over the outcome if this goes to bankruptcy court."

Probably why, as we find out this morning, the company poured millions of dollars into lobbying the Democrats in DC in just the last three months.  All told, the last nine months have seen GM lobbyists spend $8.8 million to wine and dine and bribe... errr... influence... errr... cajole the power players on the Left into being less hostile.  And hey, I'm not saying there's a direct connection to the $13.4 BILLION in free TARP money the President and Congressional Democrats gave GM, but making a key Senator or three feel like $8.8 million bucks couldn't have hurt.

Maybe they could spend a few of those TARP dollars bribing... errr... lobbying stock holders next.  The Associated Press reports that shares of GM stock plummeted 11 percent yesterday on news of the President's plan to kill those 1,600 jobs.

That's a move even John Cherry wouldn't be proud of.  Who am I kidding.  That man is so tone deaf to the problems of real Michiganders he'll probably send a campaign email embracing the administration's job killing plans.