Let me say at the outset that the GM bailout was far, far better handled than the bankster bailouts. And as a Michigan resident whose family still has ties to the auto business, I am tremendously grateful for that bailout. That said, this is why I have not declared mission accomplished, in spite of the [...]

As promised over the weekend before I realized I had forgotten my Toobz, I wanted to compare the behavior of two bailout recipients, the UAW and the banksters. A number of people have pointed to this intriguing interview about the Korea Trade deal with the UAW’s President Bob King. In addition to confirming my math [...]

When Steven Rattner published this piece on the GM IPO in HuffPo, he had not yet been sued by NY’s Attorney General for allegedly being “willing to do whatever it took to get his hands on pension fund money including paying kickbacks, orchestrating a movie deal, and funneling campaign contributions,” nor had he yet settled–with [...]

Wall Street and the Administration are hailing the GM IPO and claiming victory. General Motors Co GM.UL pulled off the biggest initial public offering in U.S. history on Wednesday, raising $20.1 billion after pricing shares at the top of the proposed range in response to huge investor demand. GM sold 478 million common shares at [...]

For some reason, Andrew Ross Sorkin felt the need to weigh in on the debate over whether Rick Wagoner or Team Auto should get credit for GM’s turnaround. He probably shouldn’t have, seeing as how some of his evidence against Wagoner is that “he wasn’t able or willing to cull failing brands like Pontiac, for [...]

In Steven Rattner’s book, he describes newly elected Barack Obama asking his advisors “Why can’t [the US automakers] make a Corolla?” Implicitly, of course, he was asking “why can’t they make a Corolla in the United States.” His economic advisors, according to Rattner, admitted they didn’t know: “We wish we knew.” The correct answer to [...]

I’m going to have a few follow-up posts about Steven Rattner’s Overhaul generally and Saturday’s book salon on it. But for the moment, I wanted to add something to two excellent reviews of it by Malcom Gladwell and Felix Salmon. Together, they both distinguish between the product GM makes and the debt it had. Here’s [...]

I wanted to return to a detail I mentioned in yesterday’s book salon. As I noted, in his book on the auto bailout, Steven Rattner described Citi as being worried during the Chrysler negotiations that retail customers would retaliate if Citi played hard ball. Bankers for Goldman and Citi had advised [JP Morgan Chase VP [...]

The White House was okay with Robert Gibbs attacking the Professional Left and their Catfood Commission Co-Chair attacking, well, everyone. But they wouldn’t let Steven Rattner’s claim that Rahm Emanuel had attacked the UAW go unanswered. Rattner depicts White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel as a force to be reckoned with who disparaged unions [...]

In honor of Steve Rattner’s revelation that Rahm Emanuel wandered around during the auto bailout saying “fuck the UAW,” I’ve renamed the “Cadillac tax” the “Fuck the UAW” tax. Which is appropriate timing given that the Kaiser Family Foundation is out with a study today they should have done during the health care debate, showing [...]