GM profitable? So was Whitey Bulger

Whitey and Catherine hiding out from the feds

Now that crack federal gumshoes have finally located Whitey Bulger in his California condo, and just in time for the presidential election, Americans who get their news from the mainstream media have been inundated with the "General Motors Turns a Profit" story: all praise to Barack Obama for rescuing Detroit. Let's check in with Jerry Hirsch at one of the house organs of the Democrat party, the Los Angeles Times.

Three years after nearly collapsing into liquidation, a resurgent General Motors Co. has posted its best annual profit, surpassing what it earned during its heyday in the mid-1990s.

In earning $7.6 billion last year, the automaker demonstrated how it has capitalized on its 2009 bankruptcy reorganization and federal bailout to shed brands, slash debt, rewrite union contracts and close surplus factories.

The record annual earnings represented "a remarkable turnaround from what appeared to be a hopeless situation," said Jesse Toprak, an analyst with automotive information company TrueCar.com.

But there's a problem with  Comrade Hirsch's rosy analysis.  In a comment posted on that article, Teresa Trujillo fills in the missing pieces.

The only reason Chrysler and GM are profitable today is because the government allowed them the discharge huge amounts of debt. Vendors, shareholders--including many retirement acount vehicles like mutual funds--were forced to take HUGE losses on their GM stock holdings when the previous version of GM, was for all intent and purpose, dismantled.

The American taxpayer has assumed a very large burden for the GM "reorganization." Anyone can see what the individual federal deficit burden is by visiting usdebtclock.org 

The U.S. federal debt is now $15.4 trillion dollars, and the debt per citizen is nearly $50,000. Rather than bailing out the "too big to fail" organizations, the government could have written a check for $10,000 to every social security number that appeared on a 2007 tax return. The federal bailouts that were authorized by congress only bailed out the tycoons and oligarchy--they could have chosen to bail out families. 

Think how much faster the economy would have recovered, how many homes would have been saved, how many jobs would have been created.  I'm still waiting to see those "shovel ready" jobs get rolling.

The Times has neglected to tell the story of how a few people are benefiting on the backs of all Americans in this story. This story is a testament to the power of the autoworkers' union.

The celebrated "recovery" of GM is really part of the largest organized crime heist in American history.  You, dear reader, your children and your grandchildren are the victims.