Bad News For Chrysler workers...

  as they are pretty much being laid-off until January 19,2009, effective at the end if this Friday's shift. All of the companies manufacturing facilities will be closed, which means that 30 plants will see no work. That's some 46,000 UAW workers who will now sit at home over the holidays thanks to people like Bob Corker and the rest of the Republican Party killing off an auto bailout package for purely political reasons.

ABCNews

Chrysler says these employees will receive state unemployment benefits as well as supplemental payments from Chrysler during the layoff according to a union negotiated formula. 

These workers will not be receiving their regular income.  There will be an unknown number of white collar workers who will not be working as well, but the expectation is that they will continue to receive their regular salaries during this time.

As for the number of cars and trucks not being built -- the privately held company (which wants billions of your tax dollars) will not disclose that information.

The company says dealers are telling them there are buyers out there, but they can't get financing and as a result, have lost 20 to 25 percent in sales.  One bankruptcy expert predicted that while Washington tinkers with how much aid to provide and under what conditions, the auto companies will continue their game of chicken.

  I see the " sky is falling " scenario up next, just as was with Wall Street. Both sides of this equation will play chicken and in the end it will be the taxpayer which loses either way.

Technorati Tags: Chrysler,Big 3 Automakers,Layoffs,UAW

Goldman Sachs Makes Profit and Pays Little Taxes

  They got $10 billion and debt guarantees from the U.S. government in October because they are supposed to be strapped for operating cost, yet they had an $2.3 billion profit for the year after paying $10.9 billion in employee compensation and benefits ( read: Bonus ). On top of that, the company only has a tax liability of $14 million for the year after having had a $6 billion tax liability the year before. Those are word-wide numbers.   What is wrong with this picture?

  Bloomberg

The company’s effective income tax rate dropped to 1 percent from 34.1 percent, New York-based Goldman Sachs said today in a statement.

  So just how was their tax rate lowered. Can you say offshore?

         Goldman Sachs, which today reported its first quarterly loss since going public in 1999, lowered its rate with more tax credits as a percentage of earnings and because of “changes in geographic earnings mix,” the company said.

The rate decline looks “a little extreme,” said Robert Willens, president and chief executive officer of tax and accounting advisory firm Robert Willens LLC.

“I was definitely taken aback,” Willens said. “Clearly they have taken steps to ensure that a lot of their income is earned in lower-tax jurisdictions.”

U.S. Representative Lloyd Doggett, a Texas Democrat who serves on the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, said steps by Goldman Sachs and other banks shifting income to countries with lower taxes is cause for concern.

“This problem is larger than Goldman Sachs,” Doggett said. “With the right hand out begging for bailout money, the left is hiding it offshore.”

   This is what happens when there is no oversight from our government officials. I'll bet that the Republicans, and some Democrats, are making a fistful in kick-backs for passing this kind of shit ( bailout ).

Technorati Tags: Goldman Sachs,Wall Street,Taxes,Lloyd Doggett,Economy