NEWS: How “Son of Detroit” Mitt Romney Shipped 25,000 UAW Jobs To China

CULTURE: How “Son of Detroit” Mitt Romney Shipped 25,000 UAW Jobs To China

by Greg Palast


"I would do nothing to harm the US auto industry"
...except ship 25,000 jobs off to China.



He's kidding, right? Did I just hear Mitt Romney say, "I would do nothing to hurt the US auto industry"

Really? REALLY?

Here's the facts, ma'am:

As I reported in this week's Nation magazine cover story "Mitt Romney's Bail-out Bonanza," the Romneys are in a special partnership with the vulture fund that bought Delphi, the former GM auto parts division.

The Romney vulture fund investment syndicate shipped every single UAW production job – EVERY job – to China.

Just after The Nation broke the story, Washington newsletter The Hill received the Romneys admission of profiteering:

The truth? On June 1, 2009, the Obama Administration announced that Detroit Piston's owner Tom Gores, GM and the US Treasury would buy back Delphi. The plan called for saving 15 of 29 Delphi factories in the US.

Then the vulture funds pounced.

The Nation discovered that, in the two weeks immediately following the announcement of the Delphi jobs-saving plan, Paul Singer, Romney's partner, secretly bought up over a billion dollars of old Delphi bonds for pennies on the dollar.

Singer and partners now controlled the company...and killed the return of Delphi to GM.

These facts were revealed in a sworn deposition of Delphi's Chief Financial Officer John Sheehan, confidential, but now released on the web.

Sheehan said, under oath, that these speculators threatened to withhold key parts (steering columns), from GM. This would have brought the auto maker to its knees, immediately forcing GM's permanent closure.

The extortion worked. The government money that was supposed to go to save jobs went to Singer's hedge fund Elliott and its partners, including the Romneys.

Once Singer's crew took control of Delphi, they rapidly completed the move to China, sticking the US taxpayers with the bill for the pensions of the Delphi workers cut loose.

Dan Loeb, a million-dollar donor to the GOP, who made three-quarters of a billion dollars off the legal scam, proudly announced that, once he and Elliott took control, Delphi kept “virtually no North American unionized labor”

In all, three hedge funds run by Romney's million-dollar donors have pocketed $4.2 billion, a return on their "investment" of over 3,000%, all care of the US taxpayer. The Romneys personally earned minimum $15.3 million, though more likely $115 million – a range their campaign does not dispute.

Frankly, I'm no fan of the way Obama handled the Delphi bail-out. Allowing these speculators to crank the US taxpayers for $12.9 billion in subsidies – and losing almost all the auto parts jobs in the process.

But when I heard that Son of a ...Detroit, Mr. Romney, tell us, "I would do nothing to harm the US auto industry," I thought I'd lose my dinner. I suggest Romney repeat this directly to the Naylor family of Kokomo, Indiana.

Bruce Naylor lost his job at Delphi, then his health insurance (terminated by the Romney syndicate) - then his home to foreclosure.

Should Obama have done something about that? You bet. If I were the president, I'd have started with putting the vulture speculators out of business – including Elliott's silent, hidden partner, one Mitt Romney.

***
Want the full story of Romney's vulture-pack partners? I have several chapters on Paul "The Vulture" Singer and other million-dollar donor magnates backing Romney (and those backing Obama too) in my new book, Billionaires & Ballot Bandits, which features an introduction by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and illustrations by Ted Rall.

***

And a question to the US media: HELLO, ANYBODY HOME?

This info on Romney's profiteering and the shipping of Delphi jobs to China by his cronies is on the COVER of The Nation magazine and in a New York Times bestseller (Billionaires & Ballot Bandits). So, where is the New York 'Paper of Record'? Or, for that matter, MSNBC?

Bill Press explained it to me when I was on his show this morning, "Sorry, Greg. There's no more investigative reporting in America. No reporters, just repeaters."

That's why I fear Jimmy Carter's statement that, "The American people deserve a president as good as they are." Now I'm afraid that's exactly what we'll get.

***

Greg Palast is the author of the recently published New York Times Top 10 Bestseller Billionaires & Ballot Bandits: How to Steal an Election in 9 Easy Steps, which is available via Barnes & Noble, Amazon and Indie Bound. Author's proceeds from the book go to the not-for-profit Palast Investigative Fund for reporting on voter protection issues.


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OK, since you know everything. Explain this to me. In GM CEO's own words!

GM in China

The U.S. accounts for around 20% of GMs total global sales. Wouldn't it make sense to make cars closer to the markets where they are being sold?
NY Times - 22% of GM sales is in U.S.

Neither person, if elected, can do anything meaningful because of gridlock in Congress. Neither will do better in office than the other. Just my opinion.. Vote your conscience.

So...don't try?

Wow. That's BEYOND cynical. You need a political education. For starters the next president will likely have 1-2 appointments to the supreme court and as we have seen THAT court is involved less in the constitution which it's supposed to defend and more towards judicial activism. We have an EPA poised to push huge hurdles in place which will hurt business and push us further down a failed green energy path which Obama has already wasted billions on trying to shape business to his liking. Obama took over GM handing it to the unions while hurting investors and putting small dealerships that had been profitable out of business. Obama will NOT repeal Obama care and we will move ever closer to an western Europe socialist state with ever growing entitlements until we're bankrupt as a nation. Seriously, there is a VAST HUGE difference between Obama and Romney. We need to get rid of Obama and start moving towards fiscal sanity or you won't even recognize the country you were born in by the time Obama is done with all his community organizer BS. Beyond all that, Obama has simply lied and lied and lied and failed to deliver on his promises. You DON'T reward that type of behavior, you put his opponent in to give somebody else a chance.

Or, you could live in the real world and realize what a load of crap this guy just spewed.

I always have to wonder why judicial activism is a good thing when Conservative judges do it?

Really???

I know, lets go back over everything, point by point, where neither side believes the other because of....whatever....and go in some more circles, accusing each other of foul deeds and demon worship.

I don't agree with arcadiagram's assessment. Other's won't agree with mine. At this point, I don't care. I don't care who agrees with me, who doesn't, and who thinks I throw skittles out my window in the hopes of creating a rainbow (I don't because that would require buying skittles, and they're so nasty I don't even want to touch them).

So, yes, I said something political...or, rather, sorta-political. And now I'm saying "whatever" in terms of arguing policies, fantasies, facts, and daydreams.

Somebody give me a fucking cupcake.

I just have to ask, what the fuck is wrong with being a community organizer? I hear right-wing nutballs use it all the time, like they are the same as child rapists.

I've wondered this, too. I don't really see "helping poor people with legal matters" as an act of terrible evil.

Problem is, Coyotemike, that most of these right-wingers truly live in a bubble where supposedly Obama "lied and lied and lied" and yet some dipshit like Romney, who is actually and literally culpable of more lies than any other candidate ("58% more than all other political candidates combined", according to Politifact http://ezkool.com/2012/10/politifact-mitt-romney-lies/), refuses to release more than a couple years of taxes, has literally espoused vitriol and hatred for 47% of Americans, has no clear stance on anything and, it was made painfully clear in the last debate, has absolute zero knowledge of foreign policy--despite all this some people refuse to see the forest for the trees and somehow believe Romney and the republican party is what the country needs. This after it was proven that two businessmen running the country left it in shambles after eight years of looting and ransacking it like it was the last days of some third world dictatorship, and still many claim that his alleged "business experience" is Romney's greatest asset. I don't know if its that they don't know or refuse to acknowledge that Romney is no "job creator", his business policies and outsourcing do the exact opposite of creating jobs, unless he's pinning that record on job creation in China and India. It really makes the right seem like abused spouses who keep going back to the same psychopath for more of the same abuse.

Oh, I'm well aware of all that. I just don't care anymore. We have been pointing out facts and flawed arguments to the Right for years, and all they do is stick their fingers in their ears and go "LALALALALALAKENYALALALALALALASOCIALISMLALALALALA". We can fact check Romney's lies, we can put them in pie-charts and line graphs and kitten memes, and it won't make the slightest bit of difference. They just don't care what happens to the country anymore, as long as they get their way. They've gone so far as to claim that MATH no longer matters.

I'm done listening to their insanity. I'm done pretending that they have valid points that should be considered. I'm just done.

I hadn't known about this particular travesty beforehand. Thanks for the update, as depressing as it might be.

All this makes me long for the days of Ross Perot.

Me too, in that he enabled Bill Clinton to win the presidency with 43% of the vote.

Who signed the Chinese free trade agreement allowing jobs to be shipped over? Stop seeing out of one eye you libtards!

Now Jeep (who accepted bail out money) is considering moving their plants to China, I suppose that is Bush's fault, huh?

So tired of cry baby libs that dont think for themselves!

Ummm...nobody...

Unless you're taling about APEC, then that would be George H.W. Bush in 1989.

Have a giant serving of you have no idea what you're talking about. I suppose next you'll bitch that the Eye-talians own Chrysler.

@mydogfarted, I supposed the flatulence in your nostrils dont allow you to do some research. Let me guide you lefty.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/jeep-an-obama-favorite-looks-to-shift-production-to-china/article/2511703#.UIl4z0bCz8B

So, you honestly cannot tell the difference between "considering starting production in a new market" and "moving plants overseas"? Really? REALLY?

@coyotemike, here you go libtard, right from your favorite news site. OPEN BOY EYES JACK ASS!

http://articles.cnn.com/2000-10-10/politics/clinton.pntr_1_wto-membership-china-global-trade-regime?_s=PM:ALLPOLITICS

Umm...did you read that article?

Which means that all Clinton did was follow the lead of Reagan and Bush, Sr., but did so in a way that didn't have to be renewed every year. That is not, as you called it, a "free trade agreement." That is nothing even remotely LIKE a free-trade agreement.

Words have meanings. Just cuz you don't like them (or don't understand them) doesn't change them.


ADDITIONAL: This isn't twitter. Try the "reply" button. It's right there in the upper right-hand corner.

And what does "OPEN BOY EYES JACK ASS" mean?

OPEN UR EYE BOY!