Presumptive Republican nominee for the U.S. presidency Mitt Romney could speak about any number of issues… you know, like healthcare, the country’s dependance on foreign oil, or the country’s decreasing amount of students enrolling in engineering; but he instead decided to resurrect the three-year-old auto industry bailout, dragging the U.S. Treasury Department through the mud for not having dumped its 26.5 percent ownership stake in General Motors and blaming the department for holding back on selling the stock to avoid a multi-billion loss.
As was the case a few months ago, the Treasury would lose about $16 billion if it were to sell its remaining 500 million shares today; GM is trading $21.22 a share as of this writing. But that doesn’t matter to Romney, who says there’s “no reason” for holding on to the shares and that “he’d sell the stock quickly if he wins the White House” according to the Detroit News. A Treasury spokesman was quick to respond by saying “we have to balance maximizing recovery for the taxpayers with the speed of exit.”
On the other hand, Romney said that if he becomes President, he’d revisit Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards with the notion that “The best approach is to try and build vehicles that people want, rather than having the government telling the companies what they must make.” We tend to be supporters of that idea while fully understanding that the amalgamation of the various aspects that make people buy certain kinds of cars is a complex and elaborate subject matter… but that’s neither here nor there.
Our question to you is whether you agree with the potential POTUS about his stance regarding the Treasury. The comments, below, are wide open for your civil dialogue.
Comments
The only reason Willard wants the DOT to sell the shares is so he can point the finger at Obama and say: “Look, this guy used your hard-earned money to bail out an industry that should have gone through a private bankruptcy, and now it cost taxpayers billions of dollars in stock losses.”
Well, Romney may not get me as tingly as Reagan and Bush 43, but any Republican is better than……. Anyway, would really suck to see the stock dumped but would love to see CAFE treated the same as Kyoto (hopefully resting comfortably next to the curb). Thank God someone would actually like to see people get what they want instead being allowed to have what liberal bureaucrats think they should have.
Yes they should dump 500 million shares this will help drive the price down. Than I will buy more. Stocks are a long term investment if you want some quick cash try Black Jack. And dump CAFE let’s have free market. Why worry about foreign oil. We never worry about any other imported product. How often do you here ” IT’S A GLOBAL ECONOMY”
Hate to go political, but good lord is this all you republicans got, help us all…
If The US Government dumps its shares now it will have lost. At present it has not yet lost anything at all. But Romney wouldn’t know anything about economics would he? Now, as MW alluded, investor confidence would diminish if the government were to sell its shares, causing more bottoming. Still, I don’t see why it is that the government spending money keeping American workers in their jobs is a sin, but spending the SAME amount EVERY MONTH on an endless war in Afghanistan where Americans are maimed and killed is lauded as heroic. These politicians need to get their priorities straight.
@ Richard I agree with you they should end this war in Afghanistan but they’ll just start another one in Iran and come up with some BS reason why you should support the war or you’re not patriotic. The only reason they have war is the banks that finance the war well make a shit load of money. And they don’t care who has to die for that profit.
I would like the government to sell the shares as soon as they can…make a profit from it. If they are going to bailout GM, they should make the most out of it, not run away as soon as possible. My beliefs are totally against the bailout, and that is why I hate to see my favorite brands in Chevrolet and Cadillac run by a company that is now on my spit list.
Do you guys really enjoy knowing that every Ford and foreign car fan has the “Government Motors” card? As for Romney, would you really want to walk away from the situation with a failure, even though GM is growing again, and we can potentially profit from this?
Not every foreign car fan has the government motors card. VW fans would not do that. As the state of Lower Saxony owns 20.1% of VW
True, in principle, bailing out a company by the Government is wrong, the market should decide which company lives or dies, not the Gov, but I have to convince myself that this was a special catastrophic time that required drastic decisions that had to look past ideology and principle to save the Auto Industry and millions of jobs, but if GM ever needs a bailout again, then they deserve to go bankrupt.
Before I give you my two cents, I should point out that I havent been a fan of the idea of the bailouts, I’m a Republican and a Romney supporter.
I’m not sure what the effect on the stock price would be if Treasury would dump all its shares on the market (I’m no economist) but if youre going to start selling off your stake, wouldnt be better, given how much debt the government was in, wouldnt it better to let the stock price get above break even point for the government before they should sell so they could at least make some money? It might be chump change in the grand scheme but profit is still profit. Romney is a way better business man than I am, and for that matter the POTUS, so I think he any way you look at it, he knows what hes doing. So either hes posturing with his talk of selling off the governments share of GM or his experience leads him to believe this is a good move… either way, all we can do here is play the wait and see game.
I look forward on a daily basis the latest on GM vehicles from GM Authority. I think GM Authority should stay away from all political controversy.
The closest thing to politics could be an update on the next generation Suburbans / Yukons that will carry government officials around Washington DC.
Wayne, we don’t make the news… we report it. And sometimes break it (with our exclusive stories). Our goal is to be — as the tagline states — The Ultimate Destination for Everything GM. Covering anything and everything GM is our job, if you will.
So if it’s relevant and worthy of discussion, no matter whether it has a political angle, we will report on it. If that’s not to your liking, you can always elect to not read that particular piece. Does that make sense?
Yes, while I would caution GMA from getting overly political, anything that has to do with GM is an article that could be posted.
And if I dont want to read an article for any reason, I wont click on it.
Thank you Alex… We appreciate your hard work…
Hi Alex,
in some way I agree with you (unfortunately, GM gets bashed unfairly by my side of the political spectrum way too often), but Romney and Obama are involved in a political battle, using GM as a pawn (Republicans bashing the bailout, even though Bush initiated it and Romney would have saved GM just as much as Obama. And Obama used GM to reward his Union friends at the expense of suppliers and bond holders, and GMs reputation).
And reporting on that battle just does not advance our cause of learning about GM and enjoying our cars.
Love the site, keep up the good work, Hart Fischer, Sierra Madre.
Damn straight they got NO reason,But damn time GM should be private and not be run by Govt Fat cats and UnionThugs and that goes for Saic Commie scum too.
Governments around the world subsidize there industries, GM needed an extra special subsidy, so what fools… Give me a break…
Light to moderate subsidizing is fine as long all their competitors have the same benefits, but multi billion dollar bailouts should only be a one time deal.
The Gov should have the same approach to the Auto industry that they have with Aviation, I think right now the Gov just matches to Boeing whatever the EU does to Airbus. Nothing less, nothing more.
No I agree, I was being sarcastic… But GM needed the help and many people could have lost there jobs.
So we had 8 years of Bush, we know how that turned out; Romney is Bush part 2 (actually Bush part 3) folks… A puppet for the far right people who are actually running the the republican Blimp. Its a disaster waiting to happen… If you claim to be a conservative, tell me what brand of conservative are you; why not be an independent and stop ridding the “republican” bull @%&* train to no where… Sorry… Wow I had to go there… ugh… I am so glad GM had a second chance and I love GMA (This site) and the opportunity to discuss cars…
I have a bet going with my brother, that honest Obama was not taking over GM to nationalize the auto industry and control GM to start a Marxist utopian new society. I assured him that Obama merely wanted to do what is good for our country and rescue our auto industry, and justifiably so since the Europeans do that all the time when their key industries loose to ours ( e.g. Airbus, Symbian, coal, … )
And therefore I bet that within 3 years ( on June 21, 2012 ) Obama will have divested out of GM.
I can t believe I am going to loose that bet. 🙂
And here comes Mitt Romney to my rescue, and if he could magically become President within the next couple of weeks, he could help me win my bet by selling GM, and save Obama s reputation prooving that after all he is not a Marxist. 🙂
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We should just all take politics with a grain of salt. I disagree with Obama, but I still don t believe he is a Marxist, even though I will owe my brother an expensive bottle of Champagne in the next couple of weeks.
Let us just all focus on cars and GM, and forget about politics while we are enjoying information about cars on GMA.
This is my most favorite site on the internet. Hart Fischer, Sierra Madre