Robbing Us to Pay Us.

One of the few things I hate more than driving a crappy car is being lied to.  (Okay, Cars don't really mean that much to me, unless I'm driving cross country in a econo-box.)  But being lied to, really, really grinds my gears.

Wanna know what's gotten me so hacked off?

GM.  I got an email from them a few days ago, touting how they'd paid off their bailout, five years ahead of schedule and with interest.  Last night I saw a commercial with their smiling CEO walking through a stylized car factory and making the same claim.  But the TRUTH, the plain, unvarnished, un-equivocated and WHOLE TRUTH, is that they didn't repay anything, they took money from one pot of TAXPAYER money to put into another pot of TAXPAYER money.  In effect, they paid off their loan from the taxpayers with a credit card issued by the taxpayer.
"I think the one thing that a lot of people overlook with this is where they got the money to pay back the loan. And it isn't from earnings. ... It's actually from another pool of TARP money that they've already received," he said Wednesday. "I don't think we should exaggerate it too much. Remember that the source of this money is just other TARP money." --Neil Barofsky.

"It appears to be nothing more than an elaborate TARP money shuffle," said Senator Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said in a letter Thursday to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

Vice President Biden on Wednesday called the GM repayment a "huge accomplishment."

Yeppers.  Take money from the taxpayer, spend it, then take MORE money from the taxpayer to pay back the first debt, and tell the taxpayer you've repaid him.  Maybe next the CEO of GM can come over to my house and piss on my leg and tell me it's raining. What pisses me off the most, is that our Administration is telling its citizens and taxpayers that GM is doing great things, when in fact, they simply are playing accounting games.  I'd rather my government was an honest broker, who called out GM and said "wait just a damn minute.  You are full of crap, and you STILL OWE THE PEOPLE MONEY."
GM can't tell the truth about its finances to the very people who they borrowed from.  Why would I trust them to build a quality car and stand behind their product?  I urge you:  dump your GM cars, GM stock, and never, ever buy anything with their trademark again.
If you still don't get it, go dig a hole in your yard, and scatter the soil.  Then, dig a second hole, and use that soil to fill in the first hole.  When your wife asks you why there's a hole in the yard, get the CEO of GM to come explain to you that there is no hole, it was filled in ahead of schedule, and with interest.

--Chuck