{"id":767,"date":"2014-03-17T16:34:57","date_gmt":"2014-03-17T20:34:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jparnell.com\/blog\/?p=767"},"modified":"2014-03-17T16:34:57","modified_gmt":"2014-03-17T20:34:57","slug":"update-on-the-gm-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/?p=767","title":{"rendered":"Update on the GM Crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Details on the GM crisis are continuing to unfold. According to the Wall Street Journal<\/em>, it appears that the entire ignition problem can be traced to a $2-5 part. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx is insisting that the NHTSA would have acted sooner, but its investigation of 3 of the crashes in question were inconclusive. Here are the 3 key issues at this point.<\/p>\n

1. GM knew there was an ignition problem–probably for 10+ years–and could have fixed it but did not. GM has immunity for pre-2009 cases because of the bankruptcy deal and is not commenting on calls to waive it. The company insists that it’s committed to doing the right thing, but that currently includes $500 for unhappy customers towards the lease or sale of a new GM vehicle. Just imagine if Toyota had suggested this as the fix for it’s brake crisis.<\/p>\n

2. The NHTSA either chose not to pursue the case or lacked the ability to investigate complaints properly, or both. Our taxpayer funded “watchdog” is demanding answers from GM but it is unclear what will be done if the answers are not satisfactory. A serious, independent investigation of the NHTSA is in order.<\/p>\n

3. At least some of the GM executives involved in the bankruptcy restructuring negotiations had to have known at the time this would probably be made public at some point, but they said nothing. That deal was pushed by President Obama and the UAW. It allowed the “new GM” to obtain tax benefits by counting some future profits against some “old GM” losses, but did not require the “new GM” to accept product liability linked to the “old GM.”<\/p>\n

A few Democrats are calling for more investigations, but none have called for GM to waive its immunity and accept all legal responsibility. In the end, GM might very well be pressured into establishing a “fund” for the victims, but my guess is nothing more. The goal now is the pin the problem on the “old (pre-bailout) GM.” It’s still difficult to tell exactly how this case will end, but it has already raiseed serious questions about GM, the NHTSA, and the entire bailout process. There’s still more to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Details on the GM crisis are continuing to unfold. According to the Wall Street Journal, it appears that the entire ignition problem can be traced to a $2-5 part. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx is insisting that the NHTSA would have acted sooner, but its investigation of 3 of the crashes in question were inconclusive. Here […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/battle4liberty.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}