Funny how Carlyle keeps having links to bailouts....
formatting link
Billionare bailouts?
The UAW?s Defined Benefactor
>
formatting link
> Another taxpayer donation to GM and the auto workers union.
>
> Welcome to the General Motors bailout, part three?or is it four, or five?
> It?s hard to keep up, but this week the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty
> Corporation took over the pension liabilities of Delphi, the auto-parts
> spinoff of GM that has been working its way through Chapter 11 since 2005.
> As with the previous taxpayer rescues, this one includes a special favor
> for the United Auto Workers.
>
> Under the agreement, the PBGC will assume some $6.2 billion in pension
> liabilities from Delphi, including both hourly and salaried employees.
> That?s the second biggest pension bailout in PBGC history, and it takes
> billions of liabilities off the books for GM. As Delphi?s former parent,
> GM had agreed to take responsibility for billions of dollars of Delphi?s
> pension obligations to its hourly employees.
>
> It will be months before Delphi employees know what percentage of their
> expected pension they?ll receive, but not all pensioners are created equal
> in this arrangement. UAW employees will have their pensions made whole by
> GM, which insists it is merely fulfilling its end of a deal made with the
> UAW in 1999 (when it spun off Delphi) to cover any future pension
> shortfall. Few such obligations usually survive bankruptcy, but, nah, we?re
> sure politics had nothing to do with it. Less fortunate are smaller unions
> and Delphi?s salaried employees, whose pensions may see drastic reductions
> and who already lost their health care and life insurance plans on April
> 1. They would seem to lack the UAW?s clout inside GM and the Obama > Administration.
>
> In a letter to the House Financial Services and Senate Banking committees,
> Michigan Democrats Bart Stupak and Dale Kildee and Republicans John
> Boehner and James Sensenbrenner, among others, have asked for
> Congressional hearings on the disparity. Pension benefits, the letter
> warned, ?could be cut by as much as 70%, if not eliminated entirely, for
> 15,000 retirees.?
>
> View Full Image
> Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
>
> PBGC spokesman Jeffrey Speicher says that 85% of people who get benefits
> receive the entire amount they?ve earned, though he acknowledges that
> number is misleading in some scenarios. In a plan like Delphi?s ?with lots
> of early retirees, more people will see greater reductions.? OK, but then
> why is the UAW special? (Forgive the rhetorical question.)
>
> By our math, this puts the taxpayer contribution to GM?s survival at
> nearly $70 billion: Some $50 billion for the serial rescues of GM itself,
> another $12.5 billion for its GMAC credit arm, and now $6.2 billion from > the PBGC.
>
> Meanwhile, the Administration is putting the PBGC, an ostensibly
> independent agency, at further financial risk. After Delphi filed for
> bankruptcy, the agency put liens on its overseas assets, providing an
> offset in case it had to take on the company?s pension liabilities. Now,
> lo and behold, the liens have been removed, allowing Delphi to sell its
> assets in bankruptcy court. GM will pay PBGC $70 million for the favor of
> releasing its liens, which Mr. Speicher says totalled about $200 million.
> Nifty deal for GM, though not for taxpayers.
>
> When the PBGC was created in 1974, Democrats running Congress assured
> everyone there was no taxpayer risk because the agency would be funded by
> fees from pension plans, as well as by the assets of plans the company
> takes over. But like Fannie Mae, we are learning that sooner or later
> these government guarantees always come due. Now the PBGC has a $33.5
> billion deficit even before Delphi, and more bankruptcies are headed its
> way. Mark it down as one more way the taxpayers are being put on the hook
> for GM, the UAW and Michigan?s 17 electoral votes in 2012.
>
>
> --
> Civis Romanus Sum