Obama to Sell GM Stock at Huge Loss to Taxpayers

I'd like to share an exchange I had with my friends after posting this article on my Facebook profile:

Josette (Me): Why does he never cease to amaze me?!?! with his supreme idiocy!!!!!! At least have the will power to PROVE US WRONG!!! Oh no, not Obama he knows nothing else. Buy a book about success, about leadership skills, about management at least!!! My gosh... UGGGHHH! :/

David: When it seems these people are just plain stupid don't kid yourselves. They are arrogant. They know exactly what they're doing, and they do what they are told by the puppet masters...they're just rubbing our collective noses in it. It's all part of a bigger scheme for power and control.

David: "Find out just what the people will submit to and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress." ~ Frederick Douglass

Josette: I know you are absolutely right. Obama doesn't want Government Motors on his presidential record while running for another term. He figures his beloved supporters won't give a damn about this transaction and in his mind his beloved supporters wouldn't even understand it anyway.

Russ: Government Motors is going to cost taxpayers billions the way this administration is handling it - hold the stock if it is in negative territory - I am sittin' on a lot of different stocks... right now that I refuse to sell at a loss - this administration should do things for the economy that will facilitate jobs and automotive purchases and then the stock will go up and can be sold at a profit - I can figure that out, so I have got to believe that THEY can and therefore they obviously have another agenda...

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American Thinker

Obama to Sell GM Stock at Huge Loss to Taxpayers

written by J. Robert Smith

Wednesday April 20, 2011

Wasn't the Obama administration supposed to make money back on a sale of GM stock? Or so Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and other administration officials suggested back in 2009. Now taxpayers learn that Mr. Obama wants out of GM and is willing to sell Washington's stockholdings short - to the tune of an estimated $11 billion loss. That's $11 billion in losses to taxpayers.

Why would Mr. Obama want to dump GM stock for a huge loss now? Why not hold GM stock until the government can at least recover taxpayers' money? The answer is that GM stock prices may be heading south, not north, in the coming months. According to a Wall Street Journal report, Mr. Obama may have decided to get out of GM while the getting isn't wholly disastrous.

Government officials are willing to take the loss because the Obama administration would like to sever its last ties to the auto maker, the people familiar with the matter said. A summer sale makes it more likely Treasury could sell all of its stake in GM by year's end, avoiding a potentially controversial sale in the 2012 presidential election year. [Italics added]

For Mr. Obama's presidential re-election effort, a "potentially controversial sale [of GM stock] in 2012" could translate into a damaging political liability. Mr. Obama and his handlers would rather have the bad news of a huge GM taxpayer dollar loss come now. Time and events, the thinking goes, could mitigate the political damage to Mr. Obama.

Washington would have to get about $53 a share to break even on the taxpayers' "investment" in GM. As of yesterday, GM stock was selling for a little less than $30 a share. There's concern that with rising gas prices, among other factors, GM stock prices may fall further as the year progresses.

Mr. Obama has the cheekiness to tell Americans that taxes surely need to rise to help retire the outrageous national debt that he's done so much to incur. And then Americans learn that $11 billion in their hard earned money is about to fly out the window because Mr. Obama chose to rescue an automaker - GM - that, because of mismanagement, union greed, and market forces, should have long been on its way to fossil status.

If - or when - GM hits the skids again, will Mr. Obama seek to rescue the struggling automaker? What's billions of taxpayer dollars more down the drain when stacked against about $12 trillion in national debt? And there are always tax hikes to cover the cost of bailing out GM again. After all, Americans are about shared responsibility, aren't they?