GM to pay off $5.8B bailout loans early. Move seen as important step for company to go public again

Source: The Detroit News

David Shepardson / Detroit News Washington Bureau

General Motors Co. is repaying its remaining $5.8 billion in bailout loans to U.S. and Canadian taxpayers two months ahead of schedule. It's another promising milestone for post-bankruptcy GM, which last month reported better-than-expected earnings for the last quarter of 2009.

GM Chairman and CEO Edward Whitacre Jr. will make the official announcement Wednesday at at the automaker's Fairfax plant in Kansas City, Kan., two people briefed on the plans said Monday. The actual payment could be made as early as today.

The Detroit-based automaker also will announce a new investment at the Kansas plant, which could include adding jobs, a person familiar with the matter said.

The final loan repayment will total $4.7 billion to U.S. taxpayers and about $1.1 billion to the governments of Canada and Ontario.

Read more: http://www.detnews.com/article/20100420/AUTO01/4200366/1148/GM-to-pay-off-$5.8B-bailout-loans-early

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See also:

G.M. Said to Repay Government Loans This Week

DETROIT — General Motors, hoping to build confidence in its turnaround and move toward becoming an independent public company again, plans to repay the balance of its government loans this week, a person with direct knowledge of the plans said Monday.

The automaker is expected to pay off $4.7 billion to the United States Treasury and the $1.1 billion it borrowed from the Canadian and Ontario governments, said this person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the plans have not been made public. The repayments do not affect the equity stakes held by the United States and Canada.G.M.’s chief executive, Edward E. Whitacre Jr., will announce the repayment Wednesday during a visit to the company’s assembly plant in Kansas City, Kan., this person said. Mr. Whitacre will meet with lawmakers in Washington later in the day.

The plans to repay the loans early were first reported Monday by CNBC.

G.M. originally had until 2015 to pay off its loans, but executives said earlier this year that it would do so by June. The company made payments of $1 billion to the United States and $200 million to Canada in December and March.

More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/20/business/20auto.html?src=busln


"So, then Bush asks, 'How many is a Brazilion?"

Bravo!! :applause:

Right to Work States: Kansas
KANSAS
CHAPTER 44. -- LABOR AND INDUSTRIES
ARTICLE 8. -- EMPLOYEE AND EMPLOYER RELATIONS
RIGHT TO WORK AMENDMENT

Kan. Const. art. 15, § 12

§ 12. Membership or nonmembership in labor organizations. No person shall be denied the opportunity to obtain or retain employment because of membership or nonmembership in any labor organization, nor shall the state or any subdivision thereof, or any individual, corporation, or any kind of association enter into any agreement, written or oral, which excludes any person from employment or continuation of employment because of membership or nonmembership in any labor organization. (Adopted November 4, 1958.)

More:
http://www.nrtw.org/c/ksrtwlaw.htm

Still, jobs are good. Union jobs are better.

And as long as people are stupid enough to let these situations (i.e. right to work states) established in their states, companies will take advantage of them.

Julie

;)

If I were in Kansas I'd be feeling pretty smart right now for making my state the attractive place for investment and jobs.

They may not be able to de-value their currency (like China) but by god they can sell workers down the river and help with the giant effort to roll back the clock on workers rights and wages!

Bravo!

That's what I'd be saying if I was unemployed in Kansas.

...or do you think GM owes Michigan the jobs by default?

of that community. Where they have people who are so grateful for a job that they will eat shit and tell their boss how much they like it. I can hear it now, "Please Sir, can I have another plate of shit?"

I'd rather determine and validate my own value and not pay dues to people who want to pretend my value depends only on my job title and seniority.

I return more value to my employer than I am paid, but would be unable to sell that value on a discrete absis without said employer. As such I need the employer as much as they need me. I save X money for them. They pay me an acceptable ratio of X based on my own opportunity costs and expectations. How is that exploitation? How would collective bargaining help?

You and everyone who works in your industry will lose more and more to profiteering billionares because of you and passive weak people like you.

I'm neither losing more and more nor in a declining industry nor working for profiteering billionaires ( I suppose it's possible some company stock is owned by billionaires but they have zero influence on how much I "lose". The rest is obvious projection if you think you can't create enough value to get by in the labor force on your own merits.

Why this mania for libertarians such as yourselves to glom onto the Democratic party? Laissez faire economics has nothing to do with the Party's platform. :hi:

I mentioned nothing at all to do with laissez faire or libertarianism. I am perfectly fine with regulations and workplace safety laws, as well as almost all the party platform. There is no connection whatsoever betrween preferring to sell my labor on my own terms and preferring to dismantle any and all regulation is there?

for many of the benefits "millions of people like you" take for granted. Things like getting paid for OT, Things like the 40 hour work week. Things like child labor laws . Things like paid vacation time and safe work environments. But no, it's all about you and as long as you have what you want/need, then it's fuck everyone else, huh? That's not a democratic value and I suspect your reason for posting here.

I said nothing about "those people" at all. I made no implication at all that anyone should be fucked. I said what working conditions I prefer. Can I not decide that for myself now?

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

I do not want to be assumed to be only as valuable as my job title and tenure. If you do then by all means go for it. Never said a word against anyone who wants to join a union and never will - I just personally prefer not to. Is that not OK?

:sarcasm:

Why would I be afraid if I choose NOT to seek out a big organization to speak for me as one identical component of its membership and pay them for the privilege?

I'll happily share non-confidential data on what rights I have and lack, without a union.

for you and keep stepping up. You are limited in the resources available to you. You don't have access to the company's finances that would aid in whether they can afford to increase your wages. Relying on the whim of the employer or decision by your direct boss for non-related employment reasons. Work rules are more likely to change from day to day, when you have a different boss, or change department.

Yet businesses have the resources with human resources trained to know how to twist any requirements of the law to their advantage in a confusing manner to their employees. And they have access to resources from the Chamber and law firms with pro employer labor management attorneys.

If you have a dispute with management you have to do it on your own. You don't have the experience or resources that your union rep would have working on other issues in the company.

Now if you work in any position that you can hire or fire someone than you are not provided the right to belong to a union. If you are in a position that gives you access to finances such as accounting you are not provided the right to belong to a union. The same applies to any upper management positions.

when I read people readily throw workers, civil rights, and the environment down the river I have to look up and read the site I'm on....


DISGUSTING.

Never thought I'd see it.

No that anyone would give him credit or anything.

Have you been watching yow dogged Obama's administration has been in firing union teachers to help billionares replace them in their non-union profit syphoning charter schools?

It makes sense since GM is a big manufacturer in Canada, but I must have missed that in all the hoopla of the time.

Which is why it will be too late before we notice their dogsleds pouring over the border to invade us for our Strategic Maple Syrup Reserves in Vermont.

............our McDonald's and Wal Mart jobs too!:sarcasm:

Here's how they pass on messages:

off of the Greatest page...

The unrec assholes are more likely to cheer on the failure of TARP II than its obvious success.

and all those jobs and at the same time the TARP is costing less and less money:applause:

The bailout was difficult to push through at the time but clearly it was right thing to do.

Traitors wanted to put under an American company that was important to National Security and in so doing, put hundreds of thousands out of work just to benefit Toyota and Hyundai.

So many on DU were gleeful about the possibility of GM going under. These posters probably just unrec and move along to another thread.

I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you. :)

BTW, I was for the auto bailouts all along. :)

so apologies can hold off for a few more years.

Any company would do well with Billions of $$$ at the lowest point in the economy in 50 years. What still has to be seen is whether or not they keep doing the stuff that lost them all that money in the first place and whether or not they will take some initiative in the auto industry to make better, more reliable, more fuel efficient cars to compete with the foreign manufacturers again. If they do that...THEN you'll get your apology. On the other hand, if we have to bail them out again in 5-10 years just because "it's GM!" then that will truly suck.

Your post reads like a George Will Op-Ed: i.e. you are self-consciously ignoring the context of the trillions given to Wall Street in an effort to scold Detroit over the mere billions it received. But the present bailouts establish beyond any reasonable doubt that the so called "free market" to which you appeal is as phony as the tooth fairy.

So you (like George Will) must simply ignore the gorilla in the room (bankster bailouts) in order to wag your finger. :hi:

Just because the banks are a-holes and got Trillion$$ does not mean that every other industry should get Billion$$ no questions asked.

You seem to be ignoring, or maybe you just don't know why GM was in the position it was in where it needed a bailout to begin with. It wasn't the same reason the banks needed one, if that's any indication in pointing you in the right direction.

"But it's different!" is a 5 year old's answer to hypocrisy. :hi:

I haven't said anything about one set of rules or anything else about bankers. You said that. I'm not even sure who you're arguing with because you don't seem to know anything about GM or the banks. You don't give any facts or insight. Let me know when you have something helpful to add to the discussion or else go put words in someone else's mouth.

Again "that doesn't have anything to do with it" is a child's rejoinder. At any rate, the auto companies received their initial government funding via TARP. So, childish "that doesn't count!" gibberish aside, the two subjects most certainly have something to do with one another. :eyes:

and the reasons GM needed a bailout are completely different than the reasons Wall Street "needed" a bailout.

If you think the reasons are same, you don't know enough about either subject for me to be able to explain it to you in a way you would understand.

Do some research on GM and look at their annual reports for the past 10 years. Then tell me how that relates to what happened with Wall Street. GM didn't fail because of Wall Street and the problems with the investment banks.

Quick question: Is this meant to be a zen koan or is it merely a half-hearted denial of reality? :silly:

they never have to return, never have to account for. They are using that money to run up stock prices once again -- moving toward another boom based on absolutely nothing, not on jobs, not on real prosperity, nothing.

And of course some of that money is now being used to privatize General Motors, to make it go "public." Translate, Wall Street will arrange to have a few rich corporations, holding companies, hedge funds and even maybe some identifiable fat cats buy stock in General Motors. But really, the money being used to buy the stock is taxpayer money, money that was given to the Wall Street fat cats, I repeat by the taxpayers during the bailout. It's s sham. The country will not be a bit richer. But the currency will be worth less -- and that will make commodities like oil and food more expensive. It's all smoke and mirrors.

A few of the jobs that were lost will be brought back. But we won't really see new jobs. We won't be able to count jobs as new until we have replaced the many, many jobs that have been lost since Bush took office. That we may never do.

Here is a chart of employment between 1970 and 2008.

The population, of course, has risen in the U.S. since 2000. Remember that a lot of the jobs created in the Bush years were in housing construction -- the bubble.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0104706.html

I'd like to read your explanation. One of the good things about the internet is that the exchange of ideas forces each of us to actually think our ideas through. Tell me why it "doesn't matter." Please.

You initially responded to my challenge to this poster: "This analysis is not credible when divorced from the context of the TRILLIONS gifted to Wall Street..."

The response to which you replied was sarcastic.

That has not happened.. still waiting for the appologies.

That damn socialist Obama, GM to pay back their loans early and w/ interest so they can go public again.


One more teabagger talking point gone ...... Obama wants to have a centralized control over the economy.

I wonder if that shit Sen Shelby is going to say he is sorry.

:sarcasm:

that was part of my husbands compensation package.

Their benefits costs was the biggest differentiator between their cost structure and that of their competitors.

with 3rd world labor. :hi:

Or are you saying benefit costs at GM were NOT a difference with competitors?

Never seen ads for Toyota, Honda, Subaru, Mercedes etc built here? Or is the simplicity charge projection?

Enlighten me Oh wise one who has the idea!

Just asking.

or will it still be Governmet Motors.
:sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm:

:think:

Obama---> Right again.

Freepers and Teabaggers-----> Complete idiots.

hehehe

I would not have predicted this 6 months ago.

fuck the naysayers

:sarcasm:

Sarcasm is not needed as your answer is obvious.

they would just pay off all the bond holders (including pension funds) that they and the Obama administration shafted that would be great!