Category Archives: bailout
Jet Setter
Chris Wallace famously asked Michelle Bachman if she were a “flake”.
Obama’s been called worse.
Tax breaks for corporate jets were included in the $800 billion stimulus package, right around the time auto execs were being slammed for arriving for congressional hearings in corporate jets. You can read about it here, here, or here.
Not only that, Bloomberg says it’s not even enough money to save student loans.
President’s Council on Crony Capitalism
Chinese President Hu arrived in the U.S. shortly after the unveiling of a Chinese Stealth Aircraft suspiciously like our own. He left with a joint venture agreement with GE for hi tech jet engines.
Yesterday, President Obama announced the appointment of G.E. CEO Jeff Immelt (who axed 18,000 jobs) to chair the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. According to IBD, “GE has received $60 million in federal funds to build a technology center and $55 million to build a hybrid locomotive battery plant.” This is in addition to “a $139 billion bailout in the form of FDIC backing of GE Capital debt”.
Emptywheel at Firedog Lake says, Immelt’s “actions make him the poster child for everything wrong with the U.S. economy right now”.
Here’s a link to Immelt’s op-ed in yesterday’s Washington Post.
Shelter Skelter
Barney Frank, once said he wanted Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to roll the dice for affordable housing. Now, after dusting off billions of dollars of rubble from the collapsed housing market, he wants Fannie and Freddie abolished.
Clunkers
There’s not much question who was in the driver’s seat when the economy first went off-road. Bush careered between the Bear Sterns bail-out, Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac takeover, loans to AIG and GM, and the 700 billion dollar TARP. (Go here for an excellent bail-out timeline by ProPublica.) (And here’s the story in a Nov. 2008 cartoon). Obama then grabbed the wheel and put the pedal to the metal with the 800 billion dollar stimulus. At that point Krauthammer says, “Obama bought the economy”.
