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The Obama Timeline: Part II

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Harconen
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« Reply #15 on: July 31, 2009, 02:59:38 pm »



The General Motors tentative restructuring deal would give the GM pension fund 39 per cent of the company, in exchange for the $20 billion GM owes the retiree fund. Those secured creditors who hold $27 billion in GM Bonds (mutual funds, 401(k) accounts, insurance companies) will get 10 per cent of the company. Obama is thus giving a greater stake in the company to those who are owed less, as a political payoff to the United Auto Workers Union. Investors who bought GM bonds are being treated the worst by Obama—but they didn’t contribute to his campaign coffers as did the UAW did. Some of the organizations forced to accept the raw end of the deal include Fidelity Management and Research, Franklin Advisers Inc., and Pacific Investment Management Co. (which collectively manage the retirement savings of millions of Americans). The federal government and the UAW—the union, not the workers—will end up owning almost 90 per cent of GM; those bondholders who put up the money that has kept GM In business for the least decade will get only 10 per cent. (Retirees who depend on the interest from their GM bonds have Obama to thank for taking that income away from them.) The Treasury Department told GM its bondholders could not receive more than 10 per cent of the company’s equity, even though they are secured creditors whose investments are protected by contracts. There is no legal basis for the government’s actions. (The government refused to allow GM to work out a deal that would have kept it in business without a government stake in its operations.) Bonds are loans to GM; they are not stock certificates. Americans may now consider thinking twice before buying bonds from U.S. companies if they cannot be certain that Obama will force them to take a 90 per cent hit on their investment. Precisely at the time when the economy is struggling, Obama is giving investors reasons not to invest in American companies. [2805, 3023]

 

It is reported that Obama’s auto industry car czar, Steven Rattner, plans to save Citibank and JP Morgan Chase from losing $6 billion on General Motors loans—while everyone else in the GM deal is losing their shirts. Rattner’s plan is to stiff enough people in the GM deal so that the two banks can get their $6 billion in loans repaid in full. By replacing cash GM owes to the UAW union pension fund with GM stock, he can divert the money to the banks. Of course, the stock is essentially worthless. The Obama-Rattner move is illegal under the Employee Retirement Incomes Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), which prohibits the misuse and abuse of pension fund assets. It is illegal for any American company to take cash out of its pension fund to pay for any other expenses—but Obama and Rattner are poised to do it to keep Citibank and JP Morgan Chase from losing money on their GM loans. If the UAW pension fund runs out of money, General Motors retirees will then lose their benefits. Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase, says this will be the bank’s “finest year ever.”  (Rattner is no stranger to wheeling and dealing. He is worth roughly one-half billion dollars, partly from running the Quadrangle Hedge Fund. He also invested in Cerberus Capital, which got paid billions by Daimler Corporation to take Chrysler off its hands and then dumped it on the taxpayers.) [3180]

 

Congressman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) signs onto Congressman Bill Posey’s (R-FL) proposed amendment to the Federal Election Campaign Act. The amendment (H.R. 1503) would “…require the principal campaign committee of a candidate for election to the office of president to include with the committee’s statement of organization a copy of the candidate's birth certificate, together with such other documentation as may be necessary to establish that the candidate meets the qualifications for eligibility to the Office of President under the Constitution.” The amendment will go nowhere in a Democrat-controlled Congress, but it indicates that at least two Congressman take seriously the U.S. Constitution’s requirement that the president must provide proof that he is a natural born citizen. Posey spokesman George Cecala states, “When 7-year-olds play soccer in Brevard County, to be in Little League they have to prove their residency. To be president there are three requirements: one is citizenship, two is the age of 35, and three, you have to have been a resident for 14 years. We’re simply saying when you file your statement of candidacy with the FEC, you should also file documentation that you fulfill the three requirements to be president.” The Certification of Live Birth that Obama’s campaign posted on the Internet would not be accepted as proof of birth for many Hawaiian legal processes, which require a certified copy of the standard long form birth Certificate of Live Birth—not the short form. [2806, 3137, 3402, 3426]

 

Remarks made in 2004 by Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) are emphasized to remind the public that Democrats were not always opposed to harsh terrorist interrogation techniques. Schumer had told the Senate Judiciary Committee on June 8, 2004, “And I’d like to interject a note of balance here. There are times when we all get in high dudgeon. We ought to be reasonable about this. I think there are probably very few people in this room or in America who would say that torture should never, ever be used, particularly if thousands of lives are at stake. Take the hypothetical: If we knew that there was a nuclear bomb hidden in an American city and we believed that some kind of torture, fairly severe maybe, would give us a chance of finding that bomb before it went off, my guess is most Americans and most senators, maybe all, would say, ‘Do what you have to do.’ So it’s easy to sit back in the armchair and say that torture can never be used. But when you're in the foxhole, it's a very different deal.” [2807]

 
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