BS: $20 million to create jobs in Ukrania

Subject: BS: $20 million to create jobs in Ukrania
From: Sawzaw
Date: 20 Aug 12 - 11:22 AM

$20 million taxpayer dollars for Ukrainian foreign car dealerships for Bidens crony capitalist friend

In late July, John Hynansky â€" a longtime friend of Vice President Joe Biden, and a major donor to Biden's campaigns as well as President Barack Obama's â€" was awarded a $20 million taxpayer loan to build a foreign-car dealership in Ukraine.

According to a public summary document, the loan, from the federal government's Overseas Private Investment Corporation, is for "[u]p to $20.0 million," and is designed to "expand Winner Import Ukraine's automobile business, [and] construct and operate 'Winner Autocity,' which will have two new, state-of-the-art dealership facilities for Porsche and Land Rover/Jaguar automobiles."

Porsche is a German-made luxury and sports car, and Jaguar Land Rover is a British luxury and sports car company owned by an Indian subsidiary.

Under "U.S. Economic Impact," the summary document says, "This project will have a positive developmental impact on the host country, Ukraine. The project will generate a significant number of new local jobs. Running a dealership for premium automobile brands requires a highly trained sales force, mechanics, accountants, communications and advertising specialists, IT specialists, service personnel, warehouse managers, and customer relations specialists."

Along with his family, Hynansky also owns car dealerships in Pennsylvania and Biden's home state of Delaware.

Since at least 1999, Hynansky and his family have been regular donors to Biden's campaigns, and, later, Obama's. John Hynansky has donated $7,690 to a combination of Biden's Senate campaigns and failed presidential campaign; Michael Hynansky donated $7,690; Alexandra Hynansky donated $7,280; Deanne Hynansky donated $4,645; and Susan Hynansky donated $1,000 â€" coming to a total family donation of $28,715.

During Obama's 2008 run for president, John Hynansky gave $30,800 to the Obama Victory Fund; Alexandra Hynansky gave $2,550; and Deanne Hynansky gave $2,000 â€" totaling $35,350 to that campaign.
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Understandably, during a speech during a diplomatic trip to Ukraine in 2009, Biden described John Hynansky as "my very good friend, John Hynansky, a very prominent businessman from Delaware… I had breakfast with him the other day."

Though the Overseas Private Investment Corporation report says that "the project is not expected to have a negative impact on the U.S.economy or employment," the revelation that Biden's "very good friend" and donor, John Hynansky, received a taxpayer loan to open a business selling foreign luxury cars in a foreign country using foreign labor stands in stark contrast to the Obama-Biden 2012 campaign charges that the Mitt Romney-Paul Ryan campaign stands for breaks for big business and shipping American jobs overseas.

At the time of publication, the White House had not returned requests for comment.

        
Definition of 'Crony Capitalism'
A description of capitalist society as being based on the close relationships between businessmen and the state. Instead of success being determined by a free market and the rule of law, the success of a business is dependent on the favoritism that is shown to it by the ruling government in the form of tax breaks, government grants and other incentives.


Read more: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/cronycapitalism.asp

Subject: RE: BS: $20 million to create jobs in Ukrania
From: Bobert
Date: 20 Aug 12 - 11:27 AM

((((((((((((((((((((((((((((yawn)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

B~

Subject: RE: BS: $20 million to create jobs in Ukrania
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 20 Aug 12 - 11:41 AM

I presume the loan was repaid with interest.
I remember following WW2 my father for a time was an inspector who checked on the results of U.S. government loans to business entrepreneurs.
Business is global nowadays, and loans that further U.S. business enterprises abroad end up making money for the U.S. entrepreneur that gets spent in the U.S.

I am a conservative, but detest the brand of garbage posted in this thread by a (supposed) conservative. The word shitkicker applies.

Subject: RE: BS: $20 million to create jobs in Ukrania
From: Sawzaw
Date: 20 Aug 12 - 11:43 AM

So smoking dope and drinking moonshine make you drowsy?

Subject: RE: BS: $20 million to create jobs in Ukrania
From: Sawzaw
Date: 20 Aug 12 - 01:50 PM

The dealerships are in Ukrania selling foreign made cars, not US made cars.

I think the US taxpayer money should be used here in America to create American jobs.

The treasury owns around 500 million shares of GM stock.
They would have to be sold for $53 to recoup the money. Just break even with no profit.

So what is GM stock worth? Right now it is worth $21.76

It is very true that the companies or entrepreneurs will bring back a profit to the US but they are demonized as being the 1% that do not pay their fair share of taxes and companies receiving corporate welfare and tax breaks for the wealthy.

Part of the Obama GM bailout was $45.4 billion in taxes on future profits. Is that crony capitalism?

I think all US money should be used here in the US to create US jobs.

(Reuters) - U.S. car maker General Motors (GM.N) on Thursday committed to invest $1 billion (26% belonging to US taxpayers) in its Australian operations over the next decade after securing Australian government support to help it keep its car plant open until at least 2022...

..The funding will secure the jobs of 12,000 people employed by GM Holden's Adelaide car plant and engine manufacturing plant in Victoria, and shore up thousands more manufacturing jobs in the components sector.

"SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: One of the principles that the President established early on that we have very much intimated as part of this is that U.S. taxpayer dollars should stay within the U.S. And that is not intended to sound protectionist -- I think it's a principle that every country follows. And so we do not intend to use U.S. taxpayer dollars to support foreign subsidiaries."

Subject: RE: BS: $20 million to create jobs in Ukrania
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 20 Aug 12 - 01:52 PM

Er... where exactly is this Ukrania? I know where Ukraine is...

Subject: RE: BS: $20 million to create jobs in Ukrania
From: Sawzaw
Date: 20 Aug 12 - 02:20 PM

Yep, You are right. It is The Ukraine.

Although it is sometime referred to as Ukrania

Subject: RE: BS: $20 million to create jobs in Ukrania
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 20 Aug 12 - 03:52 PM

GM completed the repayment of its loans from the U.S. and Canadian (Whoopee!) governments by paying the outstanding balances of $4.7 billion and $1.1 billion respectively.
The U.S. government is part owner of GM through the stock.
GM operates worldwide, Factories in Canada, Australia, UK, EU. Profits made by GM eventually will permit them to redeem their stock or governments owning the stock can sell.
(I don't know how much the German government put into Opel to keep that GM branch afloat. Australia? UK? into their branches).

Better than expected progress at GM (and Chrysler) have "materially improved" chances the U.S. government will sell its stake in the companies sooner than expected (L. Summers, White House economic advisor).

"Overall bailout investments in GM, Chrysler and financing by GMAC by the Bush (forgot about, eh?) and Obama administrations will "likely result in some loss.""
The jobs of many GM, Chrysler employees, and countless others whose jobs indirectly depend on these root companies of the U.S. economy, were saved by the bailouts. If they had failed, U.S. and Canadian industry would have been in chaos.
In Canada, Magna and other corporations would have folded.

The auto industry would have become wholy owned by Asian and European interests.

Subject: RE: BS: $20 million to create jobs in Ukrania
From: Sawzaw
Date: 20 Aug 12 - 04:14 PM

General Motors Is Headed For Bankruptcy -- Again

President Obama is proud of his bailout of General Motors. That's good, because, if he wins a second term, he is probably going to have to bail GM out again. The company is once again losing market share, and it seems unable to develop products that are truly competitive in the U.S. market.

Right now, the federal government owns 500,000,000 shares of GM, or about 26% of the company. It would need to get about $53.00/share for these to break even on the bailout, but the stock closed at only $20.21/share on Tuesday. This left the government holding $10.1 billion worth of stock, and sitting on an unrealized loss of $16.4 billion.

Right now, the government's GM stock is worth about 39% less than it was on November 17, 2010, when the company went public at $33.00/share. However, during the intervening time, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has risen by almost 20%, so GM shares have lost 49% of their value relative to the Dow.

It's doubtful that the Obama administration would attempt to sell off the government's massive position in GM while the stock price is falling. It would be too embarrassing politically. Accordingly, if GM shares continue to decline, it is likely that Obama would ride the stock down to zero.

GM is unlikely to hit the wall before the election, but, given current trends, the company could easily do so again before the end of a second Obama term.

In the 1960s, GM averaged a 48.3% share of the U.S. car and truck market. For the first 7 months of 2012, their market share was 18.0%, down from 20.0% for the same period in 2011. With a loss of market share comes a loss of relative cost-competitiveness. There is only so much market share that GM can lose before it would no longer have the resources to attempt to recover.

To help understand why GM keeps losing market share, let's look at the saga of the Chevy Malibu.

The Malibu is GM's entry in the automobile market's "D-Segment". The D-Segment comprises mid-size, popularly priced, family sedans, like the Toyota Camry and the Honda Accord. The D-Segment accounted for 14.7% of the total U.S. vehicle market in 2011, and 21.3% during the first 7 months of 2012.

Because the D-Segment is the highest volume single vehicle class in the U.S., and the U.S. is GM's home market, it is difficult to imagine how GM could survive long term unless it can profitably develop, manufacture, and market a vehicle that can hold its own in the D-Segment. This is true not only because of the revenue potential of the D-Segment, but also because of what an also-ran Malibu would say about GM's ability to execute at this time in its history.

GM is in the process of introducing a totally redesigned 2013 Chevy Malibu. It will compete in the D-Segment with, among others, the following: the Ford Fusion (totally redesigned for 2013); the Honda Accord (totally redesigned for 2013); the Hyundai Sonata (totally redesigned for 2011); the Nissan Altima (totally redesigned for 2013); the Toyota Camry (refreshed for 2013); and the Volkswagen Passat (totally redesigned for 2012).

Automobile technology is progressing so fast that the best vehicle in a given segment is usually just the newest design in that segment. Accordingly, if a car company comes out with a new, completely redesigned vehicle, it had better be superior to the older models being offered by its competitors. If it is not, the company will spend the next five years (the usual time between major redesigns in this segment) losing market share and/or offering costly "incentives" to "move the metal".

Uh-oh. At this point, it appears that the 2013 Malibu is not only inferior to the 2012 Volkswagen Passat, it's not even as good as the car it replaces, the 2012 Chevy Malibu.

If you follow the automobile enthusiast press, you know that, under the leadership of then product czar Bob Lutz, GM went all out to develop a competitive D-Segment car for the 2008 model year. The result was the 2008 Chevy Malibu, which managed to get itself named by Car and Driver magazine as one of the "10 Best Cars" for 2008.

However, when tested head to head against six other D-Segment sedans in the March 2008 issue of Car and Driver, the 2008 Malibu came in third, behind the Honda Accord and the Nissan Altima. Adjusted to the points scale that Car and Driver uses today, the 2008 Malibu scored 187 points, 6% lower than the winning 2008 Honda Accord's 198 points.

Still, third was a respectable showing. The previous generation of the Malibu, a darling of rental car fleets, would have come in dead last in any D-Segment comparison test.

Acknowledging the importance of the D-Segment to the company's future, GM's CEO, Dan Akerson, ordered that the introduction of the redesigned 2013 Chevy Malibu be advanced by six months, from the fall of 2012 to the spring of 2012.

In their March 2012 issue, Car and Driver published another D-Segment comparison test, pitting the 2013 Chevy Malibu Eco against five competing vehicles. This time, the Malibu came in dead last.

Not only was the 2013 Malibu (183 points) crushed by the winning 2012 Volkswagen Passat (211 points), it was soundly beaten by the 2012 Honda Accord (198 points), a 5-model-year-old design due for replacement this fall. Worst of all, the 2013 Malibu scored (and placed) lower than the 2008 Malibu would have in the same test.

Uh-oh.

Digging deeper, the picture just gets worse. Despite its mild hybrid powertrain, which is intended to provide superior fuel economy (at the cost of a higher purchase price and reduced trunk space), the 2013 Malibu Eco delivered the same 26 MPG in Car and Driver's comparison test as the Passat, the Accord, and the Toyota Camry.

In a recent speech, Dan Akerson admitted that GM's powertrain technology had fallen behind that of competitors in some cases. This is illustrated by the Malibu Eco's EPA gas mileage ratings. At 25 MPG City/37 MPG Highway, the Malibu Eco is not as fuel-efficient as the conventionally-powered 2013 Nissan Altima (27 MPG City/38 MPG Highway).

It might be possible for GM to give the Malibu a better powertrain during its five-year-product life cycle. Unfortunately, there is no way that they will be able to correct its biggest design flaw, which is its short wheelbase.

For years, automobile companies have been trying to design cars with the longest possible wheelbase (distance between the front and rear axles) for a given overall vehicle length. A longer wheelbase provides advantages in the areas of styling, ride, and legroom.

In developing the 2013 Malibu, GM decided to shorten the wheelbase by 4.5 inches from that of the previous-generation Malibu, from 112.3 inches to 107.5 inches. This gave the 2013 Malibu the shortest wheelbase in the entire D-Segment.

The Car and Driver comparison-test-winning Passat has a wheelbase of 110.4 inches, which gives it a "unique selling proposition", the roomiest back seat in the D-Segment. The Passat has combined front and rear legroom totaling 81.5 inches, 3.5 inches more than the Malibu.

This may not sound like a lot, but, like baseball, automobile design is "a game of inches".

For a 6'1" tall man, sitting in the back seat of the 2012 Passat behind a similar-sized driver is like sitting in a limo. His knees will be nowhere near the back of the front seat. In contrast, the same sized man would have to struggle to get into the back seat of the 2013 Malibu, and would have to sit with his legs splayed once he did.

Rear seat legroom is important in the family sedan market, not only for the comfort of adult passengers, but also for the ease of using children's car seats. The 2013 Nissan Altima also has longer wheelbase and more rear seat legroom than does the Malibu.

Chevrolet is not a premium brand, like Mercedes or BMW. Since the 1920s, Chevy's essential market positioning has been "more car for your money". Unfortunately, the 2012 Volkswagen Passat is more car for the money than is the 2013 Malibu. There will not be anything that GM will be able to do about this for the next five years other than to reduce the price of the Malibu by offering "incentives". This will eat into the company's profitability, which is already weak.

As a company, General Motors peaked in 1965, when it commanded 50.7% of the U.S. market, and made a stunning-for-the-time $2.1 billion dollars in after-tax profits. Adjusted by the GDP deflator to 2011 dollars, GM made $12.1 billion in after-tax profits on $117.9 billion in revenue.

In 1965, Volkswagen was tiny compared to GM. It produced only 1.6 million vehicles, about 22% of GM's 7.3 million. VW's total revenues were only 11% of GM's. The most powerful engine you could get in VW's volume family car, the Beetle, had 40 horsepower. The biggest engine you could get in GM's equivalent, the 1965 Chevy Impala, had 425 horsepower.

In the first half of 2012, Volkswagen sold almost as many vehicles as GM did, 4.6 million vs. 4.7 million. And, its total revenues were much higher, $119.2 billion vs. $75.4 billion for GM. Part of this is the result of currency exchange rates, but VW had a significantly higher operating profit margin than GM, 6.8% vs. 5.7%.

Under the leadership of Ferdinand Piech, who is kind of like a German-speaking, automobile industry version of Steve Jobs, Volkswagen is determined to become the biggest and most profitable car company in the world. And, right now, they are eating GM's lunch.

Not only has Volkswagen taken an important share of the U.S. D-Segment with their new Passat, but they are pulling away from everyone in the troubled European market, where GM is losing money on its Opel subsidiary. The headline in the current edition of Automotive New Europe's "Global Monthly" is, "Buried: VW Uses Europe's Crisis to Crush Rivals". In this case, GM is one of the "crushees".

Will GM be able to turn itself around, and save American taxpayers from losing $26.5 billion on Obama's bailout?

One way to answer that question is to compare the 2013 Chevy Malibu against the 2012 Volkswagen Passat, as Car and Driver did. Results: VW, first out of six; GM, dead last. However, additional insight can be obtained by looking at how GM's CEO, Dan Akerson (63), stacks up against Professor Doctor Martin Winterkorn (65), the man handpicked by Ferdinand Piech in 2007 to be his replacement as CEO of Volkswagen AG.

Akerson has an engineering degree, but he also has a Master's Degree in Economics, and his first big job was as CFO of MCI. Akerson was CEO of General Instrument, and then of Nextel, and then of XO Communications, which went bankrupt in June 2002. He joined the private equity firm, the Carlyle Group, in 2003.

Akerson got his first job in the automobile industry when he was named CEO of GM in late 2010. Recently, he has been hiring and firing top GM executives at an alarming pace, and he is understood to be working on a major reorganization of the company. Akerson recently gave a televised speech to GM employees on the need for "integrity".

Martin Winterkorn has a PhD in Metallurgical Engineering, and he has spent his entire career in the automotive industry. At the 2011 Frankfurt Auto Show, Winterkorn was caught on amateur video sitting in, and studying Hyundai's newly introduced i30, a competitor to VW's best-selling family car, the Golf. Here is an excerpt from a story about this incident published along with the video by The Truth About Cars, an auto industry blog:

    "(Martin Winterkorn) pulled on the adjuster of the steering column, and heard â€" nothing. At Volkswagen, there is an audible ("klonk!) feedback whenever the steering column is adjusted.

    Immediately, Klaus Bischoff, head of Volkswagen Brand Design was summoned. He pulled on the adjuster: No sound. "Da scheppert nix," exclaimed Winterkorn in his heavy Bavarian accent. "There is no rattle!"

Winterkorn was livid: "How did he pull that off?" He, the blasted Korean. "BMW doesn't know how. We don't know how." He, the blasted Korean, must have found out how to battle the dreaded Scheppern.

Tension is high. This could affect careers. Someone quickly explains that there had been a solution, "but it was too expensive." That gets Winterkorn even more enraged. "Then, why does he know how?" For less money. He, the Korean. There is no answer. Hyundai has beaten Volkswagen at the Scheppern front.

Winterkorn measures the A-pillar, runs his hands over the plastic. He walks away, his entourage trots after him. Deeply in thought and very worried."

Uh-oh. While Dan Akerson is busy rearranging the deck chairs on GM's Titanic, Martin Winterkorn is leading VW to world domination via technical excellence.

"The game isn't over until it's over", but if President Obama wins reelection, he should probably start giving some serious thought to how he is going to justify bailing out GM, and its unionized UAW workforce, yet again. And, during the current campaign, Obama might want to be a little more modest about what he actually achieved by bailing out GM the first time.

Subject: RE: BS: $20 million to create jobs in Ukrania
From: Bill D
Date: 20 Aug 12 - 04:57 PM

Sawz... you really need to post synopses... not huge copy & pastes.

And you **really** need to give credit & use quotation marks at the proper places!!!!

Give us a link... not a diatribe.

Subject: RE: BS: $20 million to create jobs in Ukrania
From: Sawzaw
Date: 20 Aug 12 - 05:34 PM

My Bad

Subject: RE: BS: $20 million to create jobs in Ukrania
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 20 Aug 12 - 06:13 PM

Could have saved a lot of mudcat space by simply indicating that the colored heading was a link to that spiel in Forbes.
Not linking the Forbes article, Sawzzz perhaps is trying to claim the material as his own thoughts.

Subject: RE: BS: $20 million to create jobs in Ukrania
From: pdq
Date: 20 Aug 12 - 06:22 PM

"Better than expected progress at GM (and Chrysler) have "materially improved" chances the U.S. government will sell its stake in the companies sooner than expected (L. Summers, White House economic advisor)." ~ Q

Larry Summers is being quated as an expert????? He is a White House spin doctor.

Subject: RE: BS: $20 million to create jobs in Ukrania
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 20 Aug 12 - 06:56 PM

Fuck me Sorearse, if you don't even know the name of the place allegedly subsidised, what else don't you know?

Subject: RE: BS: $20 million to create jobs in Ukrania
From: Sawzaw
Date: 21 Aug 12 - 11:50 AM

In an unguarded moment earlier this year, the president commented that the private sector of the economy was "doing fine." Certainly, the stock market is well up (by 74 percent) relative to the close on Inauguration Day 2009. But the total number of private-sector jobs is still 4.3 million below the January 2008 peak. Meanwhile, since 2008, a staggering 3.6 million Americans have been added to Social Security's disability insurance program. This is one of many ways unemployment is being concealed.

In his fiscal year 2010 budget—the first he presented—the president envisaged growth of 3.2 percent in 2010, 4.0 percent in 2011, 4.6 percent in 2012. The actual numbers were 2.4 percent in 2010 and 1.8 percent in 2011; few forecasters now expect it to be much above 2.3 percent this year.

Unemployment was supposed to be 6 percent by now. It has averaged 8.2 percent this year so far. Meanwhile real median annual household income has dropped more than 5 percent since June 2009. Nearly 110 million individuals received a welfare benefit in 2011, mostly Medicaid or food stamps.

Welcome to Obama's America: nearly half the population is not represented on a taxable return—almost exactly the same proportion that lives in a household where at least one member receives some type of government benefit. We are becoming the 50–50 nation—half of us paying the taxes, the other half receiving the benefits.

And all this despite a far bigger hike in the federal debt than we were promised. According to the 2010 budget, the debt in public hands was supposed to fall in relation to GDP from 67 percent in 2010 to less than 66 percent this year. If only. By the end of this year, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), it will reach 70 percent of GDP. These figures significantly understate the debt problem, however. The ratio that matters is debt to revenue. That number has leapt upward from 165 percent in 2008 to 262 percent this year, according to figures from the International Monetary Fund. Among developed economies, only Ireland and Spain have seen a bigger deterioration....

...On paper it looked like an economics dream team: Larry Summers, Christina Romer, and Austan Goolsbee, not to mention Peter Orszag, Tim Geithner, and Paul Volcker. The inside story, however, is that the president was wholly unable to manage the mighty brains—and egos—he had assembled to advise him.

More Here

Subject: RE: BS: $20 million to create jobs in Ukrania
From: Sawzaw
Date: 30 Aug 12 - 09:17 AM

BHO: "Let's invest in American workers so that they can make products with those three proud words: Made in America."

Yer doin' a heckuva job there Barry

Subject: RE: BS: $20 million to create jobs in Ukrania
From: Sawzaw
Date: 31 Aug 12 - 07:41 PM

"you don't even know the name of the place allegedly subsidised"

Ukrania - definition of Ukrania by the Free Online Dictionary ...
www.thefreedictionary.com/Ukrania
A country of eastern Europe bordering on the Black Sea. Inhabited in early times by Scythians and Sarmatians


What else don't you know?