Archive for the ‘Nugatorium’ Category

General Motors Corp said on Tuesday it reached a tentative deal to sell its Hummer brand to a privately held Chinese heavy machinery maker, part of an effort to drop four unprofitable vehicle lines and leave bankruptcy as a leaner company.

GM, a day after filing for bankruptcy, said in a statement that it reached a memorandum of understanding with Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Co for the sale. Tengzhong said it will retain Hummer’s senior management and operational team.

Stupid.

The President yelled ‘JUMP’, GM and Chrysler asked ‘how high?’. Yesterday, Chrysler jumped as high as the Mr. Obama wanted them too.

Chrysler LLC has reached an agreement on a framework of a global alliance with Italian automaker Fiat SpA (FIA.MI) that has the support of the U.S. Treasury, Chrysler’s CEO Bob Nardelli said on Monday.

“We appreciate the willingness of the (autos) Task Force, along with industry and financial experts, to consult closely with us in order to achieve this significant step,” Nardelli said in a statement.

Chrysler, owned by private equity Cerberus Capital Management, was deemed by the task force to be not viable as a stand-alone company and was given 30 days to complete an alliance with Fiat or be cut off from U.S. government funding.

Sad, sad, sad. Almost as sad as the fact that the U.S. taxpayer is now paying for his/her own GM auto warranty.

Think about this for a moment. The government says it will help your company, but only if the CEo steps down. The government tells a private business how to operate, or else. And they flinch.

General Motors Corp Chief Executive Rick Wagoner will resign from the top job at the struggling automaker, a person familiar with the matter said on Sunday, just a day before the U.S. government makes a key announcement on whether it will extend more aid.

The person, who declined to be identified because the decision has not been made public yet, did not provide further detail.

You may as welcome socialism people, because you voted for it.

The agency that owns the space where the World Trade Center towers stood is freeing itself of the term “freedom” to describe the signature skyscraper replacing the buildings destroyed on September 11, 2001.

The change from Freedom Tower was revealed Thursday at a news conference where the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey announced the signing of the first commercial lease in the building to a Chinese company. The building is expected to be completed in late 2013.

Personally, I think this is a bad idea.

From Powerline:

Wells Fargo didn’t want any TARP money, but the government forced it to take more than $5 billion worth, so Wells Fargo employees who receive bonuses would be subject to Pelosi’s proposed tax. Say you’re a teller at a Wells Fargo branch in Minnesota and you’re married to a lawyer who makes $250,000 this year. You get a $10,000 bonus for your good work during 2008. The government steals it all (90 percent federal plus 8.5 percent state plus, unless it’s included in the 90 percent, 3 percent Medicare). That is simply insane.

If the Pelosi bill is actually enacted into law (which I still think is doubtful) and upheld by the courts, there is no limit to the arbitrary power of Congress. In that event, we have no property rights and there is no Constitution–no equal protection clause, no due process clause, no impairment of contracts clause, no bill of attainder/ex post facto law clause. Instead, we are living in a majoritarian tyranny.

Read that again. Yes, I’ll wait.

The taxes on that “bonus” will amount to more than the bonus itself. Should these people get bonuses when their companies are receiving bailout funds? No, they shouldn’t. But it’s the job of Congress to fix this will future legislation.

It’s their fault this was passed without anyone reading it. I think the repayment of these bonuses should come out of the salaries of the Senators and Representatives that voted for the bailouts in the first place. It’s their fault for not doing their job.

I thought yesterday was busy. It was nothing compared to today.

You can read all of the developments over on my personal blog.

Holding Those Accountable

An Optimistic Outlook

I was finally contacted by someone outside the store, at the corporate level, so hopefully this entire situation will be resolved very, very soon.

My mother-in-law had one heck of a run-in with the sales staff at Best Buy.

They refused to exchange the camera. They informed my father-in-law that the camera was damaged, that it appeared it had been dropped, therefore they could not exchange it. They also tried to convince him that the photos we deleted were nothing but “demo” photos placed on the camera. If those were “demo” photos, I shutter to think what the “real” photos would have included. It was clear those photos were a demonstration of a twenty-something black woman’s body, not a camera’s ability to take photos.

Head on over to my main site, 101 Dead Armadillos, to read the rest.

It’s nice to know that the government in California has their priorities straight.

California’s fiscal future lurched yet another step toward oblivion on Friday as state Controller John Chiang announced he could no longer make payments for services to disabled and blind people who need the money to pay for rent and food.

Chiang said payments would most likely have to be stopped by Feb. 1.

WaMu was dying. WaMu was bleeding cash. JPMorgan Chase steps in and saves WaMu. How do they choose to spend their money? By wasting $375 million to rebrand some of their branches.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. said Tuesday that it will rebrand Washington Mutual’s California branches with the Chase name on March 30.

The overhaul of WaMu’s 708 bank branches will cost $300 million, and another $75 million will be spent opening 20 more Chase branches in California this year.

Genius. Next thing you know JPMorgan Chase will be asking for a bailout.

If you’re going to do something, you should just do it, but not lie about it. Home Depot says their decision “wasn’t based on the economy”, and they were just looking for new ways to reach out to customers and staffers. Sure they were. Nothing says reaching out in new ways than cutting your sponsorship of the Olympics.

After 16 years as an Olympic sponsor, Home Depot is hanging up its rings.

On Wednesday, the world’s largest home improvement retailer informed 98 employees in its Olympic jobs program that it is ending its sponsorship of the Olympics and Paralympics.

The innovative jobs program had allowed Olympic athletes to work part-time at the Home Depot while enjoying full-time pay and benefits, giving them time to train.

Three Georgia athletes will be affected. They live in Morrow, Savannah and Athens, said Home Depot spokeswoman Jean Niemi, who couldn’t immediately provide their names.

Over the course of the retailer’s 16-year sponsorship, more than 660 athletes participated in the jobs program; 300 Home Depot athletes made Olympic and Paralympic teams; and they brought home nearly 150 medals, 95 of them gold.