“Motors Liquidation Company” on The Daily Caller

Subway’s taking the next train outta Skins-ville. (more)

1.) Your grandmother drives faster than the new Republican majority — Welcome to the Lowered Expectations dating service, where nobody’s profile picture reflects what he looks like in real life. First up: The House’s Republican majority. Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor promised $100 billion in spending cuts. Late Tuesday, unnamed GOP aides downgraded that amount to roughly $50 billion, reports the New York Times, “because the current fiscal year, which began Oct. 1, will be nearly half over before spending cuts could become law.” The Daily Caller’s Jon Ward, after attending Cantor’s press availability on Tuesday, reported that Republicans may be relying on Obama to do their cutting for them: “Once we get to the State of the Union I expect this president to put some action behind the words he’s been about,” Cantor said yesterday afternoon. “When pressed numerous times for whether there will be specific spending cuts proposed and regulations put under the axe prior to the State of the Union,” Ward added, “Cantor mentioned only an already announced five percent reduction to congressional office budgets that will save $35 million.” Hear that noise? That is the sound of the Tea Partiers sharpening their knives. (more)

You don’t need to understand exchange rates and trade wars to grasp the economic change that has come to Saginaw, Mich. Remarkably, the largest private employer there will soon be the city government of Beijing. (more)

The death of Ford’s Crown Victoria leaves a gaping void in law enforcement garages. This weekend, new high-tech models from Chevy, Dodge and Ford were tested for the first time by the Michigan State Police. Only Jalopnik has the results. (more)

There are a few, but many of the world’s top companies in 1985 have foundered, shrunk, grown obsolete, or been acquired by rivals that grew stronger. General Motors and Ford, the world’s two biggest carmakers in 1985, spent the last decade in a dizzying tailspin, bleeding cash, losing market share, and struggling to turn themselves around. Venerable industrial firms like ITT restructured and drifted down the Fortune 500, while Wal-Mart, Verizon, banks, and technology firms displaced them. Digital Equipment and Wang Laboratories, once leading computer firms, disappeared completely. Even resurgent titans like Apple and IBM stared into the abyss of irrelevance and made painful changes before clawing their way back to the top. (more)

No, it wasn’t the biggest whopper Obama’s ever told.  Last time I’ve checked, Obama has done nothing about sea levels.  It wasn’t his first embellishment about job creation during his “summer of recovery” tour.  All week Obama claimed to have saved GM and Chrysler?  Given the flagrantly un-American way in which Obama seized the two companies, it’s a tall-tale worth taking a moment to investigate. (more)

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. — Eager to rid his company of the stigma of being government owned, the chief executive of General Motors, Edward E. Whitacre Jr., said Thursday that G.M. wanted Washington to sell its entire stake during an initial public offering. (more)

At a briefing today to discuss the administration’s efforts to rescue the auto industry, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs took on conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh—and every other critic “sitting in the cheap seats” –for criticizing the rescue of General Motors and Chrysler as a “government takeover” that smacks of socialism. (more)

President Obama visited Holland, Michigan on Thursday to celebrate a potential success story for both the stimulus package and his auto bailout — the groundbreaking of a factory that will produce the lithium-ion batteries necessary to power thousands of new green vehicles built by Ford and General Motors. (more)

Non-profit organizations such as the one formerly known as the YMCA are commonly advised to become more like for-profit businesses. Management experts and consultants view them as horribly inefficient due to the absence of the concentrating power of the profit motive. The negative reaction to the Y’s rebranding suggests that non-profit outfits are not all that good at emulating business even when they try. There has been barely any reciprocal pressure on for-profit firms to learn from the non-profits. Yet this is what Nancy Lublin, one of America’s most successful non-profit leaders, proposes in a new book, “Zilch: The Power of Zero in Business.” (more)

My friend Matt Lewis recently authored a thoughtful column about General Motors.  As he pointed out, regardless of how one feels about the government bailout of GM – which he and I both vigorously opposed – there is reason for optimism about the company’s future. (more)

A Democratic push to limit campaign spending in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision is under siege in the Senate. (more)

House Democratic leadership is aiming to pass its campaign spending bill on Thursday, while Democrats are defending it from criticism that it includes loopholes for special interests. (more)

The Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, said on Tuesday that taxpayers were recovering their investment from the financial bailouts as the program is wound down. But he acknowledged there would probably be a loss from the rescue of the insurer, American International Group. (more)

Tony Podesta is in the news because he lobbies for BP, public enemy No. 1 in President Obama’s Washington after a BP-rented oil rig blew up and started gushing oil into the Gulf of Mexico 63 days ago. (more)

Washington is shocked top Democrats gave the National Rifle Association – one of the most powerful lobbies in town – its own loophole in legislation designed to increase disclosure requirements on campaign spending following the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision. (more)

Can Volkswagen become a major force in the American market again? The German automaker is about to make its move. Failure in the U.S. would mean the grand VW plan to overtake Toyota and be No. 1 in the world would be likely to falter. (more)

Increasingly obvious perils of government debt have given rise to public concern, and even alarm. Though some people argue the alarm is exaggerated, there is a growing segment of the population that is thinking long and hard about the future of our country in ways we have not seen before. In this article, I discuss the principled basis for practical solutions. In particular, I argue the principle of subsidiarity should be central in our deliberations as we forge ahead. (more)

General Motors’ willingness to publicly display their penchant for image over sound business practices should surprise no one. This is, after all, a company who was cozy enough with the White House to avoid bankruptcy by performing their part in the play perfectly: as the embattled company saved and redeemed by government bailout. (more)

General Motors’ false advertising that it has paid back its bailout money “in full” has prompted harsh criticism. Yesterday, Competitive Enterprise Institute Attorneys Hans Bader and Sam Kazman filed a complaint asking the Federal Trade Commission to investigate these claims, noting “GM has only repaid a fraction of those funds—barely ten percent, and “moreover, GM apparently repaid its loan by using other federal funds [emphasis in original]” (more)