2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumGreg Palast exposes Mitt's "Bailout Bonanza" in The Nation magazine. MUST READ
This has to get picked up by MSM...people have to know how this guy operates.
Mitt Romneys opposition to the auto bailout has haunted him on the campaign trail, especially in Rust Belt states like Ohio. There, in September, the Obama campaign launched television ads blasting Romneys November 2008 New York Times op-ed, Let Detroit Go Bankrupt. But Romney has done a good job of concealing, until now, the fact that he and his wife, Ann, personally gained at least $15.3 million from the bailoutand a few of Romneys most important Wall Street donors made more than $4 billion. Their gains, and the Romneys, were astronomicalmore than 3,000 percent on their investment.
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It all starts with Delphi Automotive, a former General Motors subsidiary whose auto parts remain essential to GMs production lines. No bailout of GMor Chrysler, for that mattercould have been successful without saving Delphi. So, in addition to making massive loans to automakers in 2009, the federal government sent, directly or indirectly, more than $12.9 billion to Delphiand to the hedge funds that had gained control over it.
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Altogether, in direct and indirect payouts, the government padded these investors profits handsomely. The Treasury allowed GM to give Delphi at least $2.8 billion of funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to keep Delphi in business. GM also forgave $2.5 billion in debt owed to it by Delphi, and $2 billion due from Singer and company upon Delphis exit from Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The money GM forgave was effectively owed to the Treasury, which had by then become the majority owner of GM as a result of the bailout. Then there was the big one: the governments Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation took over paying all of Delphis retiree pensions. The cost to the taxpayer: $5.6 billion. The bottom line: the hedge funds paydays were made possible by a generous donation of $12.9 billion from US taxpayers.
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Romney has slammed the bailout as a payoff to the auto workers union. But that certainly wasnt true for the bailout of Delphi. Once the hedge funders, including Singera deep-pocketed right-wing donor and activist who serves as chair of the conservative, anti-union Manhattan Institutetook control of the firm, they rid Delphi of every single one of its 25,200 unionized workers.
Of the twenty-nine Delphi plants operating in the United States when the hedge funders began buying up control, only four remain, with not a single union production worker. Romneys job creators did create jobsin China, where Delphi now produces the parts used by GM and other major automakers here and abroad. Delphi is now incorporated overseas, leaving the company with 5,000 employees in the United States (versus almost 100,000 abroad).
http://www.thenation.com/article/170644/mitt-romneys-bailout-bonanza#