GM (you remember, the car company owned by all of us) is dangerously close to committing fraud, you see, they haven’t REALLY paid back any loans to the government (me and you) they just shell gamed us and ran with the lie on the advertisements that we all paid for. See, we paid for the lie to be told to us with our own money! Isn’t life in the Third World Kleptocracy wonderful!
GM ‘Close to Committing Fraud’ in Ad, Lawmaker Charges
David Shepardson / Detroit News Washington Bureau
Washington — A senior Republican criticized General Motors Co. decision to run television advertisements featuring the company’s CEO that tout its repayment of $6.7 billion in government loans.
Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., the ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said in a letter obtained by The Detroit News today to GM chairman and CEO Edward Whitacre Jr. that the company “has come dangerously close to committing fraud and that you might have colluded with the U.S. Treasury to deceive the American public.”
GM’s ads featured Whitacre touting that fact that GM “repaid our government loan in full, with interest, five years ahead of the original schedule.”
Issa called on GM to stop running the television advertisements. But GM spokesman Dave Roman said the ads stopped running as scheduled on Tuesday night.
At issue is the fact that GM received $50 billion in U.S. government bailout funds — but about $43 billion of those were swapped by the government in exchange for a 61 percent majority stake in GM.
GM had $17.4 billion of those funds in escrow — and GM tapped unused funds from that account to repay the taxpayers for the loan portion. But it won’t be clear for years whether taxpayers will be completely repaid until the government sells all of its shares in the company.
From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20100429/AUTO01/4290473/1148/rss25#ixzz0meBFs55o
