Car Stuff
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
By Gary [email protected]
At the risk of sounding like some sop to the captains of industry, this stuff with Toyota is really a bit much.
Comes now the government and an all-too compliant media that says SUVs can roll over. Specifically one made by Lexus (Toyota) and we're not supposed to buy it.
No kidding? Really? SUVs can roll over?
Ask my insurance agent about that. My daughter had a Explorer Sport. It hydroplaned and wound up on its side along U.S. 6.
My wife had an Explorer Limited. It hit some ice and wound up on its top on CR 900N. We're two for three in Explorer rolling in my family alone.
Thankfully, (insert sign of the cross here) no one was injured.
But the point is, nobody ever issued any "Do Not Buy" orders or any other such stuff. I seem to recall a problem with a certain brand of tires, but nobody - not the government, not the auto industry, not some consumer magazine - ever warned me off of buying anything.
But that was then and this is now.
Honestly, this whole thing with Toyota seems a little weird to me.
The U.S. government bailed out which car companies? So having a vested interest in these two U.S. automakers, it would certainly be nice if a whole bunch of Americans would buy cars from those companies, right?
But in order for that to happen, the government really needs American car buyers to stop buying cars from other companies, like, oh, I don't know, maybe the number one car seller in the world, Toyota.
You know the gas pedal problem has been around for a long time. Seems kind of weird that this all surfaced with regard to Toyota right after the government sank billions of tax dollars into GM.
A cursory glance at data at the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration is interesting.
They have a chart there that shows "unintended acceleration complaints per 100,000 vehicles sold for model years 2005-2010.
There were complaints against 117 models of cars.
To be sure, Toyota was well-represented 23 models on the list.
But Ford came in a close second with 20 models on the list.
Honda, Jeep, Volvo, Nissan, Dodge, Saturn, Pontiac, Infiniti, Chrysler, Chevrolet, GM, Acura, Buick, Scion and Cadillac all had models on the list.
It's worth noting that that there was a 53 percent jump in complaints against Toyota after the September, 2009 floor mat recall.
Of course I want cars to be safe, but I want the government to be fair about it, too.
*****
Speaking of cars, I saw a commercial last week about GM paying off its Troubled Asset Relief Program loans.
They paid back "every penny" according to the CEO talking in the commercial. They made a "final" payment of $5.8 billion.
But when I saw it, a couple things didn't add up.
First, I seemed to recall them getting a lot more from the government than $5.8 billion.
Well it seems the payments GM is talking about don't include the loans made to the company when it was going through bankruptcy - around $50 billion.
For that $50 billion the government got roughly 61 percent of GM's common stock and another $2.1 billion in preferred stock.
There are great expectations that the government will get its $50 billion back when GM goes public later this year. But the experts say GM's market cap has never even been $50 billion.
Second, I recalled reading earlier in the week that GM lost $4.3 billion in the last half of 2009. So, where did are they getting all this money to pay back the government?
According to CBS News, the answer came Thursday in Washington from Wall Street bailout watchdog Neil Barofsky. He told Sen. Tom Carper, a Democrat from Delaware, that GM is reducing its debt "by taking other available TARP money."
Then, in a letter to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa said that the source of the funds for the repayment is not GM earnings, but rather a Treasury escrow account - TARP money.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Grassley also wrote that GM's early repayment of the federal loan is aimed at diverting attention from a separate uncomfortable issue.
You see, part of President Obama's financial overhaul plan is the imposition of a TARP tax on large financial institutions that took bailout money.
GM would get a big break here.
Even though GM is expected to generate some of the biggest losses in the TARP program, it won't have to pay any money under the Obama administration's TARP tax.
As for that loan repayment, Treasury and GM officials don't dispute that the money is coming from TARP funds.
The long and short of all this is that GM is using bailout funds - taxpayer dollars - to pay off their taxpayer-supported government loans.
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At the risk of sounding like some sop to the captains of industry, this stuff with Toyota is really a bit much.
Comes now the government and an all-too compliant media that says SUVs can roll over. Specifically one made by Lexus (Toyota) and we're not supposed to buy it.
No kidding? Really? SUVs can roll over?
Ask my insurance agent about that. My daughter had a Explorer Sport. It hydroplaned and wound up on its side along U.S. 6.
My wife had an Explorer Limited. It hit some ice and wound up on its top on CR 900N. We're two for three in Explorer rolling in my family alone.
Thankfully, (insert sign of the cross here) no one was injured.
But the point is, nobody ever issued any "Do Not Buy" orders or any other such stuff. I seem to recall a problem with a certain brand of tires, but nobody - not the government, not the auto industry, not some consumer magazine - ever warned me off of buying anything.
But that was then and this is now.
Honestly, this whole thing with Toyota seems a little weird to me.
The U.S. government bailed out which car companies? So having a vested interest in these two U.S. automakers, it would certainly be nice if a whole bunch of Americans would buy cars from those companies, right?
But in order for that to happen, the government really needs American car buyers to stop buying cars from other companies, like, oh, I don't know, maybe the number one car seller in the world, Toyota.
You know the gas pedal problem has been around for a long time. Seems kind of weird that this all surfaced with regard to Toyota right after the government sank billions of tax dollars into GM.
A cursory glance at data at the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration is interesting.
They have a chart there that shows "unintended acceleration complaints per 100,000 vehicles sold for model years 2005-2010.
There were complaints against 117 models of cars.
To be sure, Toyota was well-represented 23 models on the list.
But Ford came in a close second with 20 models on the list.
Honda, Jeep, Volvo, Nissan, Dodge, Saturn, Pontiac, Infiniti, Chrysler, Chevrolet, GM, Acura, Buick, Scion and Cadillac all had models on the list.
It's worth noting that that there was a 53 percent jump in complaints against Toyota after the September, 2009 floor mat recall.
Of course I want cars to be safe, but I want the government to be fair about it, too.
*****
Speaking of cars, I saw a commercial last week about GM paying off its Troubled Asset Relief Program loans.
They paid back "every penny" according to the CEO talking in the commercial. They made a "final" payment of $5.8 billion.
But when I saw it, a couple things didn't add up.
First, I seemed to recall them getting a lot more from the government than $5.8 billion.
Well it seems the payments GM is talking about don't include the loans made to the company when it was going through bankruptcy - around $50 billion.
For that $50 billion the government got roughly 61 percent of GM's common stock and another $2.1 billion in preferred stock.
There are great expectations that the government will get its $50 billion back when GM goes public later this year. But the experts say GM's market cap has never even been $50 billion.
Second, I recalled reading earlier in the week that GM lost $4.3 billion in the last half of 2009. So, where did are they getting all this money to pay back the government?
According to CBS News, the answer came Thursday in Washington from Wall Street bailout watchdog Neil Barofsky. He told Sen. Tom Carper, a Democrat from Delaware, that GM is reducing its debt "by taking other available TARP money."
Then, in a letter to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa said that the source of the funds for the repayment is not GM earnings, but rather a Treasury escrow account - TARP money.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Grassley also wrote that GM's early repayment of the federal loan is aimed at diverting attention from a separate uncomfortable issue.
You see, part of President Obama's financial overhaul plan is the imposition of a TARP tax on large financial institutions that took bailout money.
GM would get a big break here.
Even though GM is expected to generate some of the biggest losses in the TARP program, it won't have to pay any money under the Obama administration's TARP tax.
As for that loan repayment, Treasury and GM officials don't dispute that the money is coming from TARP funds.
The long and short of all this is that GM is using bailout funds - taxpayer dollars - to pay off their taxpayer-supported government loans.
Only in America.[[In-content Ad]]
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