Can you imagine the screams of, “COMMUNISM!!!” If Obama or Biden had done this. It’s all we would hear about for an entire election cycle. Fox “News” would play it nonstop.
So if I’m reading that right they set for $700 billion worth of purchase during the Bush admin, it got reduced to 426.4 billion by 2014 and they claimed they made $15.3 billion. It sounds like they made a 3.5% gain on their investment total. A win! Yay… Only if you ignore the fact that if that money went in from 2009-2024, the money averages out on inflation to have been worth 481.29 billion. A loss of $12.15 billion dollars if they would have done anything else with it.
Overall I wouldn’t be mad that they wasted that money if they had focused on structuring the company moving forward in a manner that wouldn’t end up supporting a wealth divide moving forward. The CEO “only” had a salary of $2.1 million in 2024. Which actually sounds mildly alright. Yet her take home was $29.5 million when they got done throwing stocks and bonuses at her. That’s after GM stock started 2024 at $55.50… and ended the year at $35.64.
So the company lost ~36% of its “worth” and she got more than 13x her salary in stock and bonuses.
Ah but a bailout package is different. That’s a display of powerful capitalism. A private company so powerful it can’t be allowed to fail and a government so strong it won’t allow it to fail.
Funny, when Europe does this, it’s called “socialism”.
Can you imagine the screams of, “COMMUNISM!!!” If Obama or Biden had done this. It’s all we would hear about for an entire election cycle. Fox “News” would play it nonstop.
Didn’t Obama do it for GM and a bunch of other companies as part of a bailout package for a period of time?
So did Bush. It’s only bad when their enemies do it. It’s righteous and just when they do it.
So if I’m reading that right they set for $700 billion worth of purchase during the Bush admin, it got reduced to 426.4 billion by 2014 and they claimed they made $15.3 billion. It sounds like they made a 3.5% gain on their investment total. A win! Yay… Only if you ignore the fact that if that money went in from 2009-2024, the money averages out on inflation to have been worth 481.29 billion. A loss of $12.15 billion dollars if they would have done anything else with it.
Overall I wouldn’t be mad that they wasted that money if they had focused on structuring the company moving forward in a manner that wouldn’t end up supporting a wealth divide moving forward. The CEO “only” had a salary of $2.1 million in 2024. Which actually sounds mildly alright. Yet her take home was $29.5 million when they got done throwing stocks and bonuses at her. That’s after GM stock started 2024 at $55.50… and ended the year at $35.64.
So the company lost ~36% of its “worth” and she got more than 13x her salary in stock and bonuses.
Ah but a bailout package is different. That’s a display of powerful capitalism. A private company so powerful it can’t be allowed to fail and a government so strong it won’t allow it to fail.
It was Bush just before he left office.
Yes, but it’s not socialism we’re seeing. It’s fascism. Fascism also has state control of private industry. For a different purpose.
Yes and no. In this context, it’s more of a shakedown-sorta thing.
And when China and Arab states do it, it’s something to aspire.