GM meets the Twitter President.
What is it about Obama's public disposal of GM's CEO that bothers so much? It must be the word "public". The man seems utterly incapable of not going before cameras to trumpet his every move. He's the twitter President, forever blasting us with his marginalia. In less than two weeks he's been on Leno, 60 minutes, Face the Nation, held a prime time presser, held a "virtual" town hall - in which the people chosen to be in HIS presence where all hand picked Obama nutters - lined everyone up for his Afghanistan announcement Friday, and today, he made his king like pronouncement about GM. The guy never met a TV camera he didn't like.
I grant you, the GM fiasco is not marginalia. I have no sympathy for Rick Wagoner - or GM for that matter. Obama's dismissal of a company's C.E.O. - a badly run company that is beholden to the American taxpayer - is a startling moment. BHO's power play may be justified. We did bail them out last fall. Still it smacks of a double standard all around -followed by a public "virtual" execution to assuage a citizenry in an increasing state of rage.
Just 2 weeks ago the government went begging for the obscene AIG bonuses to be repaid. Bonuses all the clowns who did the screaming knew about - or should have. The always questionable David Sirota makes a good point today: not only is the president not demanding the resignation of bank CEOs, he's actually hosting them for photo ops at the White House. Sure, I know some bank CEOs resigned a few months ago under shareholder pressure, but the Obama administration has never publicly demanded such resignations of the current management that is making the problems worse, nor the resignation of management at the biggest firms (Goldman Sachs, BofA, etc.) that are still in place.
TARP money thrown down the rat hole amounts to 700 billion so far. Krugman has called the banking trillion "Cash for Trash". That's our cash for their trash. On the other hand, GM got a 14 billion dollar loan. GM actually employs workers. The President is unwilling in the extreme to take over toxic banks but has , in effect, nationalized GM. GM belongs to Obama now.
Wagoner had to go. My questions about this are:
Did Obama need to do the "I'm the Boss Now" dance on television today?
How far into the private sector is the Executive branch going to go?
I grant you, the GM fiasco is not marginalia. I have no sympathy for Rick Wagoner - or GM for that matter. Obama's dismissal of a company's C.E.O. - a badly run company that is beholden to the American taxpayer - is a startling moment. BHO's power play may be justified. We did bail them out last fall. Still it smacks of a double standard all around -followed by a public "virtual" execution to assuage a citizenry in an increasing state of rage.
Just 2 weeks ago the government went begging for the obscene AIG bonuses to be repaid. Bonuses all the clowns who did the screaming knew about - or should have. The always questionable David Sirota makes a good point today: not only is the president not demanding the resignation of bank CEOs, he's actually hosting them for photo ops at the White House. Sure, I know some bank CEOs resigned a few months ago under shareholder pressure, but the Obama administration has never publicly demanded such resignations of the current management that is making the problems worse, nor the resignation of management at the biggest firms (Goldman Sachs, BofA, etc.) that are still in place.
TARP money thrown down the rat hole amounts to 700 billion so far. Krugman has called the banking trillion "Cash for Trash". That's our cash for their trash. On the other hand, GM got a 14 billion dollar loan. GM actually employs workers. The President is unwilling in the extreme to take over toxic banks but has , in effect, nationalized GM. GM belongs to Obama now.
Wagoner had to go. My questions about this are:
Did Obama need to do the "I'm the Boss Now" dance on television today?
How far into the private sector is the Executive branch going to go?
Labels: bailouts, Barack Obama, GM, P.R.
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