?
- Thread starter trendlover
- Start date
maybe ebonics is his native tongue.
Lucrum and Phoenix, you have nothing to say about the link in the English language?
After the hedge fund takeover of Delphi, the squeeze on workers intensified through attacks on their pensions. During its years of economic trouble, Delphi had been chronically shorting payments to its pension fundsâand by July 2009, they were underfunded by $7 billion. That month, Singerâs hedge fund group won the bid for control of Delphiâs stock and made clear they would neither make up the shortfall nor pay any more US worker pensions. Checkmated by the hedge funders, the governmentâs Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation agreed to take over Delphiâs pension payments. The PBGC would eat the shortfall.
With Delphiâs new owners relieved of its healthcare and pension obligations, its debts to GM and its union contractsâ
and now loaded with subsidies from GM funded by TARPâthe companyâs market value rose from zero to approximately 
$10.5 billion today.
* * *
But there was still a bit of unfinished business: President Obama needed to be blamed for the pension disaster. In a television ad airing in swing states since September, one retired Delphi manager says, âThe Obama administration decided to terminate my pension, and I took a 40 percent reduction in my pension.â
Another retiree, Mary Miller, says, âI really struggle to pay for the basicsâ¦. I would ask President Obama why I had no rights, and he had all the rights to take my pension awayâand never ever look back and say, âNot only did I take it from Mary Miller, I took it from 20,000 other people.ââ
These people are real. But itâs clear that these former workers, now struggling to scrape by, were hardly in the position to put together $7 million in ad buys to publicize their plight. The ads were paid for by Let Freedom Ring, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit advocacy organization partially funded by Jack Templeton Jr., a billionaire evangelical whose foundation has sponsored lectures at the Manhattan Institute (the anti-union think tank whose board of directors includes not only Singer but Loeb). The ads also conveniently leave out the fact that the law sets specific ceilings on what the PBGC is allowed to pay retireesâregardless of what they were originally owed.
In June 2011, Charles and David Koch hosted a group of multimillionaires at a retreat in Vail, Colorado. In secret recordings obtained by investigator Brad Friedman, the host, Charles Koch, thanks Singer and Templeton, among others, for each donating more than $1 million to the Koch brothersâ 2012 anti-Obama election war chest.
Of course, it wasnât Obama who refused to pay the Delphi pensions; it was Paul Singer and the other hedge funds controlling Delphi. The salaried workersâ pensions were, after all, an obligation of Delphiâs owners, not the government. Delphiâs stockholdersâthe Romneys includedâhad one easy way to rectify the harm to these pensioners, much as GM did for its workers: just pay up.
Making good on the full pensions for salaried workers would cost Delphi a one-time charge of less than $1 billion. This year, Delphi was flush with $1.4 billion in cashâ
meaning its owners could have made the pensioners whole 
and still cleared a profit. Instead, in May, Delphi chose to use most of those funds to take over auto parts plants in Asia at 
a cost of $972 millionâpurchased from Bain Capital.
* * *
That leaves one final question: Exactly how much did the Romneys make off the auto bailout? Queries to the campaign and the Romneysâ trustee have gone unanswered. And Romney has yet to disclose the crucial year of his tax returns, 2009. But whatever the tally, it was one sweet deal. The Romneys were invested with Elliott Management by the end of 2010, before Delphi was publicly traded. So, in effect, they got Delphi stock at Singerâs initial dirt-cheap price. When Delphiâs owners took the company public in November 2011, the Romneys were inâand they hit the jackpot.
http://www.thenation.com/article/170644/mitt-romneys-bailout-bonanza#
After the hedge fund takeover of Delphi, the squeeze on workers intensified through attacks on their pensions. During its years of economic trouble, Delphi had been chronically shorting payments to its pension fundsâand by July 2009, they were underfunded by $7 billion. That month, Singerâs hedge fund group won the bid for control of Delphiâs stock and made clear they would neither make up the shortfall nor pay any more US worker pensions. Checkmated by the hedge funders, the governmentâs Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation agreed to take over Delphiâs pension payments. The PBGC would eat the shortfall.
With Delphiâs new owners relieved of its healthcare and pension obligations, its debts to GM and its union contractsâ
and now loaded with subsidies from GM funded by TARPâthe companyâs market value rose from zero to approximately 
$10.5 billion today.
* * *
But there was still a bit of unfinished business: President Obama needed to be blamed for the pension disaster. In a television ad airing in swing states since September, one retired Delphi manager says, âThe Obama administration decided to terminate my pension, and I took a 40 percent reduction in my pension.â
Another retiree, Mary Miller, says, âI really struggle to pay for the basicsâ¦. I would ask President Obama why I had no rights, and he had all the rights to take my pension awayâand never ever look back and say, âNot only did I take it from Mary Miller, I took it from 20,000 other people.ââ
These people are real. But itâs clear that these former workers, now struggling to scrape by, were hardly in the position to put together $7 million in ad buys to publicize their plight. The ads were paid for by Let Freedom Ring, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit advocacy organization partially funded by Jack Templeton Jr., a billionaire evangelical whose foundation has sponsored lectures at the Manhattan Institute (the anti-union think tank whose board of directors includes not only Singer but Loeb). The ads also conveniently leave out the fact that the law sets specific ceilings on what the PBGC is allowed to pay retireesâregardless of what they were originally owed.
In June 2011, Charles and David Koch hosted a group of multimillionaires at a retreat in Vail, Colorado. In secret recordings obtained by investigator Brad Friedman, the host, Charles Koch, thanks Singer and Templeton, among others, for each donating more than $1 million to the Koch brothersâ 2012 anti-Obama election war chest.
Of course, it wasnât Obama who refused to pay the Delphi pensions; it was Paul Singer and the other hedge funds controlling Delphi. The salaried workersâ pensions were, after all, an obligation of Delphiâs owners, not the government. Delphiâs stockholdersâthe Romneys includedâhad one easy way to rectify the harm to these pensioners, much as GM did for its workers: just pay up.
Making good on the full pensions for salaried workers would cost Delphi a one-time charge of less than $1 billion. This year, Delphi was flush with $1.4 billion in cashâ
meaning its owners could have made the pensioners whole 
and still cleared a profit. Instead, in May, Delphi chose to use most of those funds to take over auto parts plants in Asia at 
a cost of $972 millionâpurchased from Bain Capital.
* * *
That leaves one final question: Exactly how much did the Romneys make off the auto bailout? Queries to the campaign and the Romneysâ trustee have gone unanswered. And Romney has yet to disclose the crucial year of his tax returns, 2009. But whatever the tally, it was one sweet deal. The Romneys were invested with Elliott Management by the end of 2010, before Delphi was publicly traded. So, in effect, they got Delphi stock at Singerâs initial dirt-cheap price. When Delphiâs owners took the company public in November 2011, the Romneys were inâand they hit the jackpot.
http://www.thenation.com/article/170644/mitt-romneys-bailout-bonanza#
Lucrum and Phoenix, please comment on the link quote.
"Of course, it wasnât Obama who refused to pay the Delphi pensions; it was Paul Singer and the other hedge funds controlling Delphi. The salaried workersâ pensions were, after all, an obligation of Delphiâs owners, not the government. Delphiâs stockholdersâthe Romneys includedâhad one easy way to rectify the harm to these pensioners, much as GM did for its workers: just pay up."
http://www.thenation.com/article/170644/mitt-romneys-bailout-bonanza#
"Of course, it wasnât Obama who refused to pay the Delphi pensions; it was Paul Singer and the other hedge funds controlling Delphi. The salaried workersâ pensions were, after all, an obligation of Delphiâs owners, not the government. Delphiâs stockholdersâthe Romneys includedâhad one easy way to rectify the harm to these pensioners, much as GM did for its workers: just pay up."
http://www.thenation.com/article/170644/mitt-romneys-bailout-bonanza#
Romney didn't vote for the bailout AFAIK so the point is irrelevant.
obama is the one going around saying he saved the auto industry isn't he?
obama is the one going around saying he saved the auto industry isn't he?
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Romney is against the money from the taxpayers to go to save the automobile company, true?
But his investment make big money but they can not pay the middle class people pensions? If Romney really in his heart against taking the taxpayer money, he should be against this too.
("The salaried workersâ pensions were, after all, an obligation of Delphiâs owners, not the government.')
"Of course, it wasnât Obama who refused to pay the Delphi pensions; it was Paul Singer and the other hedge funds controlling Delphi. The salaried workersâ pensions were, after all, an obligation of Delphiâs owners, not the government. Delphiâs stockholdersâthe Romneys includedâhad one easy way to rectify the harm to these pensioners, much as GM did for its workers: just pay up.
Making good on the full pensions for salaried workers would cost Delphi a one-time charge of less than $1 billion. This year, Delphi was flush with $1.4 billion in cashâ
meaning its owners could have made the pensioners whole 
and still cleared a profit. Instead, in May, Delphi chose to use most of those funds to take over auto parts plants in Asia at 
a cost of $972 millionâpurchased from Bain Capital."
("The salaried workersâ pensions were, after all, an obligation of Delphiâs owners, not the government.')
http://www.thenation.com/article/170644/mitt-romneys-bailout-bonanza#
I know this will be an exercise in frustration, having dealt with trendlover before on the Zimmerman issue. Incidentally, I believe trendlover said she was female, not that that matters.
The key quote above is "just as GM did for its workers: just pay up."
Only GM didn't pay up. The U.S. taxpayers did, and no one asked our opinion. So yes, the government could have done the same thing with Delphi, but they weren't about to waste money on non-union pensions. Those workers got screwed, compared to the UAW royalty at GM and Chrysler.
The article, from the marxist publication The Nation, makes a big deal about the bondholders profiting after tough negotiations. They don't seem to be shedding any crocodile tears for the bondholders in GM and Chrysler who had their rights swept away by obama.
The only thing unusual about this deal was that obama was so desperate to pay off the UAW that he stupidly gave the Delphi bondholders leverage they wouldn't have otherwise had. If GM and Chrysler had gone through normal bankruptcy, like Delphi did, they would all have been in the same boat.
Vulture investing is a tough business, but there is nothing illegal about it. Someone was very happy to sell those busted bonds to some hedge firms who had the experience and risk tolerance to play high stakes poker with them. Now Obama and his lackeys are whining because they got outplayed. Tough.
Romney has nothing to apologize for. He invested with some very savvy managers. So who would you rather have running the country's finances, Romney or the guy who blew 90 bill on "green" energy?
