United Liberty
auto industry
Our Government Declares (Economic) War On Japan?
Fri, 01/29/2010 - 11:18am | posted by Peter Quinones
General Motors announced this week that anybody that owns a Toyota vehicle will receive a $1,000 “incentive” to trade said vehicle in for a GM product.
Editor’s Note: Ford has since matched the $1000 offer.
“We decided to make this offer after receiving many e-mails and calls from our dealers, who have been approached by Toyota customers asking for help,” GM said in a statement. The offers will run through the end of February.
The supposed e-mails and calls mentioned are in relation to the recent widespread recall on many Toyota products due to a faulty gas pedal that has led to at least one death. Toyota is working feverishly to find a fix but has yet to do so which has stopped production and sales of their most popular models including the Camry and Corolla.(as of this writing, a fix has been announced)
If this were General Motors declaring “war” on Toyota at their most vulnerable I would say go for it. I’m all about free markets and the best product usually succeeds. Hence Toyota outsells most if not all GM car models. But that is not what is happening here.
General Motors is now majority-owned by the Federal Government and Barack Obama is essentially the C.E.O. To believe that GM “CEO” Edward Whitacre Jr. didn’t get a thumbs up from President Obama on this is far beyond naive, it borders on gullible.
New Year Predictions by the UL Staff
Thu, 01/01/2009 - 6:19am | posted by United Liberty Staff
John Killian
National
* Barack Obama will realize that Congress is not ready to go along with his progressive agenda. Many Southern and rural Midwestern Democrats were elected as pro-life conservative Democrats. Hence, his Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) will never see the light of day.
* With nervousness on the economy, Obama will not push for Nationalized Health Care. You will see some adding around the edges, but no major increases in federal programs. Obama’s advisers will warn him about the effect of more spending and especially, more taxes on our fragile economy.
Lessons from the Auto Bailout Controversy
Mon, 12/15/2008 - 5:50am | posted by Dr. John Killian
This past week, the US Senate failed to concur with the House of Representatives in passing a bailout package for the nation’s large domestic automakers. This bailout had the support of the Democratic leadership in Congress as well as the Bush White House. Already, doomsayers are bemoaning this lack of financial infusion from an already depleted federal budget. However, I applaud this decision as a victory for principle over pragmatism. Hoping that conservatives will learn from this effort to continue enlarging government, consider some lessons from the bailout controversy.
Bailing Out the Auto Industry: A Perspective
Fri, 12/12/2008 - 2:40am | posted by Charles Kennedy
Thursday evening I posted on my Facebook profile the speech that Congressman Ron Paul gave on the House floor, opposing the auto industry bailout (the so-called “bridge loan”), along with the following comment:
“This speech on the auto bailout speaks for itself. Congressman Paul really puts it all into perspective. Were that there were more in Congress like him.”
Chrysler didn’t pay back its bailout
Tue, 06/07/2011 - 12:20pm | posted by Jason Pye
Remember when President Barack Obama told the nation that Chrysler had paid back bailout financed through taxpayer money? Suprise! It’s not true, says FactCheck.org:
President Barack Obama visited a Chrysler plant in Toledo, Ohio, on June 3 to discuss the recent announcement that the Chrysler Group LLC repaid $5.1 billion in outstanding loans. That brought the total repayment, as of May 24, to $10.6 billion — about $1.9 billion less than the $12.5 billion the company borrowed under the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.
In his speech, the president said:
Obama, June 3: And today, I’m proud to announce the government has been completely repaid for the investments we made under my watch by Chrysler because of the outstanding work that you guys did. Because of you. Chrysler has repaid every dime and more of what it owes the American taxpayer from the investment we made during my watch. And by the way, you guys repaid it six years ahead of schedule.
Notice the president — sounding very much like a used-car salesman — used the phrases “during my watch” and “under my watch” when describing the TARP loans as being “completely repaid.” That’s because Chrysler received $4 billion on Jan. 2, 2009, (18 days before Obama took office) and $8.5 billion on April 30 (when Obama was president), according to this Government Accountability Office report (page 9) on TARP.
[…]
In its May 24 announcement touting Chrysler’s final repayment, Treasury acknowledged that it is “unlikely to fully recover” about $1.9 billion.
Mitt Romney’s House To Be Razed
Sat, 05/15/2010 - 9:01am | posted by Michael O. Powell
This story puts a little bit of perspective onto how far Detroit, Michigan has degenerated over the last few decades:
Plagued by a glut of abandoned homes, Detroit is looking to demolish some 3,000 buildings by the end of September. Among them: Mitt Romney’s childhood home at 1860 Balmoral Drive, a 5,000 square foot house in an upscale neighborhood. According to the Wall Street Journal, the house’s demolition is a symbolic part of a new push to deal with Detroit’s longtime blight issues—the city hosts roughly 90,000 abandoned or vacant homes and residential lots by one nonprofit’s count.
Detroit was once a city that attracted the very well to do and created new classes of the well to do. Now it’s empty.
They Still Don’t Get It!
Sat, 12/20/2008 - 5:44am | posted by Dr. John Killian
I suppose that credit should be due to Senate Republicans who made the difference in defeating the Auto Bailout. I also believe that President Bush’s brazen act of shifting money to the automakers is shameful operation.
But then Senate Republicans release a letter pleading with President Bush not to usurp the decision of Congress on the automakers bailout.
So far, so good.
But then these Senate Republicans gave their reason for opposing the bailout as the refusal of the United Auto Workers to agree to a cut in wages.
These folks still don’t get it!
American Automakers Could Learn From Marvel Comics
Thu, 12/18/2008 - 1:30pm | posted by Michael O. Powell
While searching through the comic book section at a Barnes and Noble in Emeryville, California, I was unsurprised to see that there were about five shelves dedicated to manga (the term for Japanese comic books) compared to only three for American graphic novels.
Pat Buchanan on “Who Killed Detroit”
Fri, 11/28/2008 - 5:56am | posted by Michael O. Powell
In his weekly column, conservative commentator Pat Buchanan illustrates how the lack of regulations in developing countries gave them a clear competitive advantage that crippled American industry:
How did Big Government do in the U.S. auto industry?
Washington imposed a minimum wage higher than the average wage in war-devastated Germany and Japan. The Feds ordered that U.S. plants be made the healthiest and safest worksites in the world, creating OSHA to see to it. It enacted civil rights laws to ensure the labor force reflected our diversity. Environmental laws came next, to ensure U.S. factories became the most pollution-free on earth.
