Here's one for GM

Piece of Shit Car ~ Adam Sandler (Language warning)

GM has filed for bankruptcy today. I know it is going to have a huge impact, but GM still does not get it.

Financially, GM is upside-down, GM owes $172 billion.

The guvmnt/ Federal Treasury will throw another $30 BILLION 

bucks at the problem, in addition to the $19.4 BILLION we

already "donated".

The Federal Treasury will own 60% of GM in this bankruptcy 

scheme.

Although the media has been telling us lately we are "in a recovery", the truth is, and in all

fairness, GM made some decent vehicles, but the economy is still depressed, so

people are not buying new cars when they don't have jobs & their homes are

being foreclosed. GM may reorganize in Chapter 11 Bankruptcy, but that will not change

the other facts about the economy. Plus, rightfully so, buyers will be skiddish about purchasing such

a big ticket item from a company that is clearly in financial trouble.

I'm not sure GM USA will recover from this bankruptcy. GM stock dropped to .75 cents a share last week-

the last time it was that low was 1939.

From the NY Times:

The company will also have to shed 21,000 union workers and close 12 to 20 factories, steps that most analysts thought could never be pushed through by a Democratic president allied with organized labor.

Forty percent of the company’s 6,000 dealers will close, the workers’ union will be forced to finance half of its $20 billion health care fund with stock of uncertain value in the restructured G.M., and bondholders, including many retirees, will be forced to take stock worth 10 cents for every dollar they lent the company.

G.M. will also lose its spot on the Dow Jones industrial average, a key stock-market gauge of 30 blue-chip stocks. The car maker had been a member of the closely watched stock index since 1925.

“It is unacceptable to ask U.S. workers to subsidize the exportation of their own jobs,” said Representative Dennis Kucinich, Democrat of Ohio, whose district includes Cleveland. “The taxpayers’ investment should be used to protect American plants so that American workers can build the next generation of automobiles.”

G'day Shareholders!

Economy in recovery? I don't think so.

Toronto's Welcome Wagon

Canadians gave an appropriate welcome to George Bush in Toronto....




Every country BUT the U.S. seems to do such a better job of giving Bush a "proper" reception.
Good job Toronto! We could learn something from our neighbors to the north-- Eh?

Taking it in the shorts

Think this post is about my 401k retirement fund statement?

Well... it kind of is- except it is literally about panties & underwear & the economy.

MSN Money reports:

If you're put off buying replacements -- and your significant other hasn't done it for you -- then guess what? The recession probably ain't over yet.
In fact, right now men's underwear sales suggest that things have bottomed but not started to recover.
Sure, this sounds trivial. But no less an economist than former Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan is a fan of men's underwear sales as an important economic indicator.

Who'd a thunk whiz bang economists were keeping an eye on "Fruit of the Loom"  & "Hanes" sales as important economic indicators? Although most folks I know have said they did indeed take it in the shorts on their 401k's, losing as much as 1/3 to almost of 1/2 of their total retirement savings -or more, thanks to any number of companies that went belly up  in bankruptcy & Wall Street blunders. 

So if you want to help the economy..... buy more panties & whitey tighties, stock up on those boxers & briefs.... preferably, Made in the USA! Maybe we can keep one industry up & running? 

America!! Cover your ass!

GM - IN THE DITCH

It's not looking good for General Motors.
The bondholders rejected an offer of $324 for every $1000 they were owed. 

However, if  (when?) GM does go into bankruptcy, the source said that Treasury believes the bondholders would likely get even less than what was offered.
"In any kind of liquidation scenario, they would get nothing or something unbelievably small," said the source.

It's really too bad  GM, a company that has been in business since 1908- 101 years is on the brink of bankruptcy. 


I came across this tidbit in wiki:

"General Motors is the best selling foreign auto maker in China. The Buick brand is especially strong, led by the Buick Excelle subcompact. Cadillac initiated sales in China in 2004, starting with imports from the United States. GM pushed the marketing of the Chevrolet brand in China in 2005 as well, moving the former Buick Sail to that marque. The company manufactures most of its China-market vehicles locally, through its Shanghai GM joint venture. Shanghai GM, a joint venture between the Chinese company SAIC and General Motors, was created on March 25, 1997. The Shanghai GM plant was opened December 15, 1998, when the first Chinese-built Buick came off the assembly line. The SAIC-GM-Wuling Automobile joint-venture is also successful selling trucks and vans under the Wuling marque (34% belongs to GM).
GM plans to create a research facility in Shanghai for $250m to develop hybrid cars and alternative energy vehicles. This move has been criticized because it pushes outsourcing to the very limit."

We have seen the Airlines go into bankruptcy & recover- i.e. still in business, but I don't know if GM/USA can recover. I don"t know if those Federal Treasury "loan" monies will ever be seen again. Chrysler's bankruptcy reorganization seems to be going well, but that may be a false indicator. So many dealerships were shut down & they must sell off their inventory. If consumers think they can get a hot deal on a new car, they will buy. But GM is more complex. Neither of them have it together on the "green technology" aspect, and in order to get bailout money, GMAC (the lending wing of GM, dealing not only in cars, but mortgages as well), was declared a "bank". The whole GM & GMAC package is much more complex than Chrysler. Things are heating up with General Motors... 

On one hand so many jobs were on the line for the auto industry to fail would have a huge impact, and I really did not want to see the worker bees take the financial hit. 

Kind of a magic act....

GM is now working on pulling some kind financial rabbit out of the hat trick. 

In order for us to understand it, they have broken it down like this:

Old GM/New GM Good GM/Bad GM. The bondholders have until Saturday to approve or reject the plan. If they reject it, Old GM basically goes out of business. 

Dead On Arrival??? 

About 20% of the bonds are held by small investors who probably do not have a chance to reply by the deadline. GM had previously said it needs approval from 90% of these creditors in order for any offer to take effect.

GM faces a June 1 deadline to make $1 billion in interest payments to its bondholders, money the company says it does not have.

Old GM: The old GM would also technically receive the right to buy the 15% stake in the new company that emerges from bankruptcy.

New GM: The assets of GM that would remain in bankruptcy would receive a 10% stake in a "new GM" that would be used to pay bondholders. Workers get a piece of the pie ~ A trust fund run by the United Auto Workers union would also have a 17.5% stake in the new GM.

Good GM: As part of such a filing, GM would emerge with only its more profitable plants, brands, dealerships and contracts.  

Bad GM:GM's unprofitable plants, contracts and other liabilities that the company can no longer afford would be left behind in bankruptcy court. Buh bye Saturn, Pontiac, Hummer. Saab, Opel,

I'm adding Two more categories--

Screw the Taxpayers GM: The filing also disclosed that GM will not repay the loans it has already received from the government or any additional federal aid it will get as part of the bankruptcy. When all is said and done, total assistance to GM is expected to reach nearly $40 billion.

High Stakes GM: Instead, the government will convert that debt into a 72.5% stake in the new company. This means that for taxpayers to make back any of the money loaned to GM, it will have to be because shares of the new GM increase in value following an exit from bankruptcy.

* Various CNN news articles were used for the reference info. 

But GM had made a series of bad choices.... from literally destroying their lead in the Electric car market, to being top heavy in gas guzzling SUV's when gas was the most expensive ever. I worked in the finance wing of GMAC for 4 years. Their whole focus was making money for the Shareholders. I watched then systematically pull the plug on Union staffed (financial) field offices, one by one, until they finally even shut the doors on the non-union Customer Service people, moving that part of the business to *India* a few years ago. So when I see their "rally around America" commercials, I am soured on their false patriotism. They as a corporation did not rally around America as they shipped jobs to whatever cheap outsource out of America,  they could find. 

If we use a car wreck as an analogy, GM is in the ditch. I'm not sure the jaws of life can save them in time. 

The CDC ~ Takin' it easy

I went to check the Center for Disease Control updated Swine flu stats (yes scientists did in fact discover/confirm the virus IS related to actual Swine).

I checked the chart on Tuesday, and it still had the numbers from Monday posted.

Had they taken a little vacation?

Budget cuts?

I thought this was a serious issue!

Then I saw new verbiage they had added, just above the chart "(Updated Mon, Wed, and Fri)"

Previously, they had been updating EVERY day, including weekends- although they were very slow in posting updates.

If this is a test of our ability to handle a pandemic, the CDC updates get a low mark.
Why do we have just one official testing lab location? That slows down the whole process of updating. The more people that were sick & the more samples sent in, the slower they got.

What does not make sense to me is that we now have 15 deaths in the U.S. from Swine flu, & 8,975 cases - officially confirmed.
We really should have daily updates, this being the information age & all.
If there were a sudden rise in deaths from this disease in your state, wouldn't you want to know sooner?

It is not that difficult to update a simple spreadsheet chart. Jeez!

Right now, Texas, Wisconsin & Illinois have the highest number of cases.
Texas, New York & Arizona have the most deaths from the virus.

We all scream for Ice Cream

It is that time of year again, when the weather is warm & ice cream particularly hits the spot. Do you remember those days as a kid when you can hear the Ice Cream truck music in the distance? It was this gut level panic, to stop everything & run to your parents & beg for money. Please can I have some? I would even compile a list of good deeds or chores I'd done in my head, to recite quickly & make my case. Hurry! The truck is coming NOW!!! Sometimes they were slow to respond, so then you really had to hustle to chase down the truck. Do you remember having those agonizing moments, trying to choose one item from the ice cream menu posted on the side of the truck?





Sometimes you knew exactly what you wanted, other times the choice between a Creamsicle, and Good Humor chocolate layered thing, or the multicolored "bullet" was more than you could handle. There you stood, holding up the line, trying to work within your ice cream budget, and make the right choice.


Then kids would just plop down anywhere and savor the delectable sweet, cool delicacy. For that brief moment, all was well with the world. A delicious interlude in a quintessential summer experience, you could literally eat up.

I think I sampled most of the different offerings over the years, perhaps the ice cream truck is to blame for my love of the stuff. It is NOT what the Doctor ordered. They now do have decent variations-- quality soft serve frozen yogurt, and different sorbets. As a kid I had narrowed it down to Chocolate Chip mint ice cream as being my absolute favorite. Now they even make it without the coloring & of high quality stuff.

Pacific NW singer songwriter Laura Love wrote a song about how she wishes life would be--

"bills that pay themselves, and a Haagan Daz that helps reduce"

If only there were such a thing as really rich creamy ice cream that helps you lose weight!

Oh I know about Skinny Cow, etc.... and there are decent alternatives... but the real thing.... Mmmmm.

Any happy ice cream memories you have?

Did you chase down the Ice Cream truck as a kid?

What is your favorite flavor?

Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox

Here it is~ Sheehan's no holds barred thoughts on Memorial Day


Sunday, May 24th, 2009
Day of the Dead ...by Cindy Sheehan

Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox

I was on an airplane flying to Orange County from Sacramento to attend the al-Awda Conference; which is a Palestinian Right's Conference. Al-Awda translates to "The Returning, " when the Pilot voice filled the cabin to make an announcement that I think went unnoticed by most of my fellow passengers, but I heard it.

As the plane was on the approach to John Wayne airport, the Captain came on the intercom to remind us all to "remember our brave troops who have died for our freedom." Even in this post 9-11 paranoid paradigm, if I wasn't belted in for landing, I would have popped out of my seat at 13D and charged up to the cockpit to let the pilot know that my son was killed in Iraq and not one person anywhere in this world is one iota more free because he is dead.

As a matter of fact, the people of Iraq, the foreign country thousands of miles away where my oldest child's brains, blood, and life seeped into the soil, are not freer, unless one counts being liberated from life, liberty and property being free. If you consider torture and indefinite detention freedom, then the Pilot may have been right, but then again, even if you do consider those crimes freedom, it does not make it so.

Here in America we are definitely not freer because my son died, as a matter of fact, our nation can spy on us and our communications without a warrant or just cause and we can't even bring a 3.6 ounce bottle of hand cream into an airport or walk through a METAL detector with our shoes on. Even if we do want to exercise our Bill of Rights, we are shoved into pre-designated "free speech" (NewSpeak for; STFU, unless you are well out of the way of what you want to protest and shoved into pens like cattle being led to slaughter) zones and oftentimes brutally treated if you decide you are entitled to "free speech" on every inch of American soil.

If you watch any one of the cable news networks this weekend between doing holiday weekend things, you will be subjected to images of row upon row of white headstones of dead US military lined up in perfect formation in the afterlife as they were in life. Patriotic music will swell and we will be reminded in script font to "Remember our heroes," or some such BS as that.

Before Casey was killed, a message like that would barely register in my consciousness as I rushed around preparing for Casey's birthday bar-be-que that became a family tradition since he was born on Memorial Day in 1979. If I had a vision of how Memorial Day and Casey's birthday would change for my family, I would have fled these violent shores to protect what was mine, not this murderous country's. Be my guest, look at those headstones with pride or indifference. I look at them, now with horror, regret, pain and a longing for justice.

I can guarantee what you won't see this holiday weekend are images of the over one million Iraqi dead. Say we assign, in an arbitrary way for purely illustrative purposes, an average height of 5 feet for every person killed in Iraq and then lined those people up from head to toe. That gruesome line would stretch from Los Angeles to Portland, Oregon…950 driving miles up Interstate 5. If we count the Iraqis who have been forced to flee, we would have to go back and forth between L.A. and Portland another four times.

There are obscene amounts of people who have been slaughtered for the US Profit Driven Military Empire who do not count here in America on any day. People in Vietnam are still dying from the toxins dumped on their country by the US, not to mention the millions who died during that war. Let the carnage escalate in Afghanistan while we protect our personal images by turning a blind eye to Obama's war crimes. Are you going to feel a lump of pride in your bosom when the coffins start to be photographed at Dover for this imperial crime of aggression? Will you look at those flag-draped boxes of the lifeless body of some mother's child and think: "Now, I am free." Is it better to be dead when Obama is president?

A tough, but real, aspect of this all to consider is, how many of the soldiers buried in coffins in military cemeteries killed or tortured innocent people as paid goons for Empire? To me, it is deeply and profoundly sad on so many levels. If I have any consolation through all of this, I learned that my son bravely refused to go on the mission that killed him, but he was literally dragged onto the vehicle and was dead minutes later before he was forced to do something that was against his nature and nurture.

Casey will always be my hero but he was a victim of US Imperialism and his death should bring shame, not pride, as it did not bring freedom to anyone. I will, of course, mourn his senseless death on Memorial Day as I do everyday.

However, we do not need another day here in America to glorify war which enables the Military Industrial Complex to commit its crimes under the black cloak of "Patriotism."

From Palestine to Africa to South America, our quest for global economic domination kills, sickens, maims or oppresses people on a daily basis and about 25,000 children per day die of starvation. I am not okay with these facts and I am not proud of my country.

I will spend my reflective time on MD to mourn not only the deaths of so many people all over the world due to war, but mourn the fact that they are the unseen and uncared for victims of US Empire.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Here's the thing ~ Cindy Sheehan has walked that walk. Her family has made the ultimate sacrifice, so Cindy does not sugar coat this issue. She is not subscribing to any party line, or double speak, or any political tap dancing.
I know some military families are not in agreement with her perspective.
I have to admire her tenacity-- the camp out by Bush's Crawford ranch.
Her relentless insistence to have the question answered- What IS the noble cause? When Bush spouted off that soldiers have died for a noble cause.
She was not buying his lies, and she has a zero tolerance for any more lies, or wars of choice.
I happen to appreciate entirely honest statements, so as biting and cold /hard factual as it is- her question:

Is it better to be dead when Obama is president?

Is painfully truthful

War is hell. Having your loved one killed in war is a serious and personal matter.
Thank you Cindy, for your complete honesty.

Memorial Day Thoughts ~ Veterans for Peace

The following is a quote from Veterans for Peace Ntl. vice President, Leah Bolger

"When Barack Obama was still running for president, he frequently touted his "no" vote on the Iraq war as an indicator that he was the "peace" candidate. He said that if he were elected president, he would exhaust every diplomatic path before he would turn to the last resort of military force.
Yet his surge of force in Afghanistan didn't come as a surprise to anyone; indeed he spoke about refocusing U.S. efforts there as we drew down from Iraq. Now, Congress approved $91 billion requested by President Obama for continued military operations in Afghanistan.
So how does Obama reconcile his peace persona with his aggressive military policy on Afghanistan? Answer: By portraying it as the "good" war - the "just" war. By continuing to foster the fear of Americans and justify the fatalities of non-Americans as a necessary cost of keeping us safe.
The invasion and occupation of Afghanistan is no more "just" than that of Iraq. Our unmanned drones and aerial bombardments invoke terror in all of the population, not just the "bad guys".
It is immoral to write off the civilian fatalities as an inherent cost of war. It is wrong to say "It's worth it." That's not our call. "

Ms. Bolger stated so well the thoughts I have about the current military situation. 

Where's the Diplomacy that was promised?

Drone planes in Pakistan can not sort out the innocent from the Insurgents. 

The most important question I want answered is when will it end?

How can we justify spending more billions on wars of choice when our country is essentially bankrupt?

What about moral bankruptcy?

How long can we use the excuse of avenging 9-11 to continue to have wars?

What would constitute a "win"?

Our local progressive Eugene Weekly paper posted this notice:

• The war in Afghanistan/Pakistan is heating up, so in our “War Dead” box we are adding statistics from Afghanistan, including U.S. dead, injured and the cost in dollars to taxpayers. The total costs of war cannot be calculated in a box, of course. War costs have to include long-term human suffering in its myriad forms, the destruction of social and political systems, environmental and infrastructure degradation and economic damage from squandered resources and war profiteering.

The paper posts a weekly update on the stats from the Iraq war, and have now added the Afghanistan war info.
There has been so much focus on the Iraq occupation, we hear very little info on the stats of the 8 years we've already spent in Afghanistan.

A sampling of their *just the facts* weekly post:

WAR DEAD

Since the U.S. invasion of Iraq began on March 20, 2003 (last week’s numbers in parentheses):

In Iraq

• 4,296 U.S. troops killed* (4,292)

• 31,256 U.S. troops injured* (31,245) 

• 182 U.S. military suicides* (182)

• 1,123 U.S. contractors killed (accurate updates NA)

• 100,361 to 1.2 million civilians killed*** (100,339)

• $670.7 billion cost of war ($667.9 billion) 

• $190.6 million cost to Eugene taxpayers ($189.9 million)

In Afganistan

• 685 U.S. troops killed* (682)

• 2,828 U.S. troops injured* (2,820)

• $188.2 billion cost of war ($187.7 million)

• $53.3 million cost to Eugene taxpayers ($53.3 million)

* through May 18, 2009; source: icasualties.org; some figures only updated monthly
** sources: icasualties.org, defenselink.mil
*** highest estimate; source: iraqbodycount.org; based on confirmed media reports; other groups calculate civilian deaths as high as 655,000 (Lancet survey, 2006) to 1.1 million (Opinion Research Business survey, 2008)

 

I for one greatly appreciate them keeping this information in the public eye. No analysis, opinion or comment, just the statistics.

In case you missed this video montage made by Veteran for Peace, Gordon Sturrock, check it out--



My Veterans for Peace friend, Gordon Sturrock put together this montage~ in his words:

"A farewell to the 162nd Infantry of the 2nd Battalion. Created from video
footage filmed at the Mobilization Ceremony on May 4, 2009 at the Lane
Country Fairgrounds in Eugene, woven into an audio and video "tapestry of
contrast" by fellow vets who are deeply concerned for all the souls who
will ultimately be touched by this deployment."

Singin' the Blues....

Foreclosure Then~ Credit Crunch Song


Sub Prime Mortgage Blues


What a Ceiling!


Housing Bubble

Sunday Music

Richie Havens~ Freedom/Motherless Child ~ Woodstock