Whores.<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 11:53 AM, Nicholas Gier <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:ngier006@gmail.com">ngier006@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><b><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia","serif"">Romney’s Top Funders Made Billions on Auto Bail-Out</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia","serif"">By Greg Palast, Nation of Change, Feb. 23, 2012</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia","serif""><br></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia","serif"">Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney called the
federal government’s 2009 bail-out of the auto industry, “nothing more than
crony capitalism, Obama style... a reward for his big donors to his
campaign." In fact, the biggest rewards – a windfall of more than
two billion dollars care of U.S. taxpayers –– went to Romney's two top
contributors. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia","serif""> John Paulson of Paulson & Co and Paul Singer of
Elliott International, known on Wall Street as “vulture” investors, have each
written checks for one million dollars to Restore Our Future, the Super PAC
supporting Romney’s candidacy.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia","serif""> The two hedge fund operators turned a breathtaking
three-thousand percent profit on a relatively negligible investment by using
hardball tactics against the U.S. Treasury and their own employees.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia","serif""><br></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia","serif"">Gov. Romney last week asserted that the Obama
Administration’s support for General Motors was a, “payoff for the auto workers
union.” However, union workers in GM’s former auto parts division, Delphi, the
unit taken over by Romney’s funders, did not fair so well. The
speculators eliminated every single union job from the parts factories once manned
by 25,200 UAW members. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia","serif""><br></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia","serif"">Under the control of the speculators, Delphi, which
had 45 plants in the U.S. and Canada, is now reduced to just four factories
with only 1,500 hourly workers, none of them UAW members, despite the union
agreeing to cut contract wages by two thirds.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia","serif""><br></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia","serif"">It wasn’t supposed to be quite so bad. The Obama
Administration and GM had arranged for a private equity investor to provide
half a billion dollars in new capital for Delphi, but that would have cut the
pay-out to Singer and Paulson. The speculators blocked the Obama-GM plan,
taking the entire government bail-out hostage. Even the Wall Street
Journal’s Dealmaker column was outraged, accusing Paul Singer of treating the
auto company, “like a third world country.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia","serif""><br></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia","serif"">But it worked. Singer and Paulson got what they
demanded. Using U.S. Treasury funds:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:1.25in;line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Symbol">·<span style="font-family:'Times New Roman';font-size:7pt;line-height:normal">
</span></span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia","serif"">GM agreed to pay off $1.1 billion of
Delphi’s debts,</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:1.25in;line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Symbol">·<span style="font-family:'Times New Roman';font-size:7pt;line-height:normal">
</span></span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia","serif"">Forgave $2.15 billion owed GM by Delphi
(which had been spun off as an independent company)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:1.25in;line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Symbol">·<span style="font-family:'Times New Roman';font-size:7pt;line-height:normal">
</span></span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia","serif"">Pumped $1.75 billion into Delphi
operations, and </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:1.25in;line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:Symbol">·<span style="font-family:'Times New Roman';font-size:7pt;line-height:normal">
</span></span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia","serif"">Took over four money-losing plants that
the speculators didn’t want.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia","serif""> If those plants had been closed, GM factories would
have shut down cold for lack of parts.</span><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:150%"> Then there was the big one: The U.S. government
agreed to take over $6.2 billion in pension benefits due Delphi workers under
U.S. labor law. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia","serif""> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia","serif"">Governor Romney, while opposing the bail-out of GM,
accused Obama of eliminating the pensions of 21,000 non-union employees at
Delphi. In fact, it was Romney’s funders who wiped out 100% of the
pensions and health care accounts of Delphi salaried retirees.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia","serif""><br></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia","serif"">Paulson and Singer paid an average of about 67 cents a
share for Delphi. In November, 2011, Paulson sold a chunk of his holdings
for $22 a share. Paulson’s gain totals a billion and a half dollars
($1,499,499,000), and Singer gained nearly a billion ($899,751,000) ––
thirty-two times their investment.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia","serif""><br></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia","serif"">One-hundred percent of this gain for the Paulson and
Singer hedge funds is accounted for by taxpayer bail-out support. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia","serif""> But, unlike the government loans and worker
concessions given to GM, the U.S. Treasury and workers get nothing in return
from Delphi. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia","serif""><br></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia","serif"">From GM, the U.S. Treasury got warrants for common
stock (similar to options) that have already produced billions in profit.</span><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:150%"> And Delphi? It’s doing well for Paulson and
Singer. GM and Chrysler, still in business by the grace of the U.S.
Treasury, remain Delphi’s main customers, buying parts now made almost entirely
in China and other cheap-labor nations.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia","serif""> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia","serif"">And exactly who are Paulson and Singer?</span><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:150%"> Billionaire John Paulson became the first man in
history to earn over $3 billion in a single year –– not for his hedge fund, but
for himself, personally. At the core of this huge payday was a 2007
scheme by which, via Goldman Sachs, he sold “insurance” on subprime mortgage
loans. According to a lawsuit filed by the Securities Exchange
Commission, Goldman defrauded European banks by pretending that Paulson was
investing in the insurance. In fact, Paulson was, secretly, the
beneficiary of the insurance, reaping billions when the mortgage market
collapsed. </span><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:150%">Goldman paid half a billion dollars in civil fines for
the fraud. While the SEC states that Paulson knowingly participated in
the scheme, he was not fined and denies he defrauded the banks.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-family:Georgia,serif;font-size:12pt;line-height:150%"><br></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia","serif"">Multi-billionaire Singer is known as Wall Street’s
toughest “vulture” speculator. Vulture fund financial attacks on the
world’s poorest nations have been effectively outlawed in much of Europe and
excoriated by human rights groups, conduct Britain’s former Prime Minister
Gordon Brown described as, “morally outrageous.”</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia","serif""><i><br></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia","serif""><i>Greg Palast has been investigating vulture
speculator Paul Singer for BBC Television Newsnight and Britain’s Guardian for
five years. The investigative reporter is author of Vultures’
Picnic: In Pursuit of Petroleum Pigs, Power Pirates and High-Finance
Carnivores and the New York Times bestseller, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.
For reports on Singer and vulture funds, go to <a href="http://www.GregPalast.com" target="_blank"><span style="color:blue">www.GregPalast.com</span></a>
and <a href="http://www.VulturesPicnic.org" target="_blank"><span style="color:blue">www.VulturesPicnic.org</span></a>.</i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia","serif""> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia","serif""> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:150%"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"Georgia","serif""> </span></p>
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