bidenharris regime to give Ford $9 Billion in subsidized loans to build EV batteries

If you're a young American you probably don't know that back when Obozo was emperor (2008), carmaker GM filed for bankruptcy.   

Obozo gave 'em $9 BILLION, and violated bankruptcy law by illegally erasing the claims of GM's bondholders.  He also ORDERED that about a third of GM stock be *given* to the unions.

(Obozo, like biden, was very good at making illegal orders.)

The bailout earned GM the cynical nickname “Government Motors.”

Of course no one teaches that, so as far as you knew, it never happened, eh?

But the men running Ford--suffering under the same union wage contracts as GM--believed they could survive without government assistance.  So they leveraged all their assets and raised $23 billion in cash, and stayed in business without taxpayer handouts.

Unfortunately today we're 15 years down the road from Obozo, and today all corporate execs have seen the light, which is: if the regime offers you cash to do what the regime wants, take the deal.

So Ford execs have bowed to the wokiez running the regime--and global eco-communists--by taking $9 billion from the US government to build battery plants for EVs.  (One reader calls Ford’s electric vehicle division the “E-dsel.” Heh.)

Yep, the U.S. Energy Department plans to lend up to $9.2 billion to a joint venture of Ford Motor and a South Korean company to build three battery plants in Tennessee and Kentucky.  It's the biggest-ever award from this government program.

It's described as a "low-cost government loan."

A Ford exec said "Major technology transitions have always been accelerated by collaboration between the public and private sectors."

Ah: “major technology transitions,” ya say.

Would that be like Obozo's DOE giving a billion dollar loan "guarantee" to a shit-corrupt company called Solyndra that made photovoltaic cells?  That one?  The one that gave top execs huge bonuses and promptly went bankrupt?

For young Americans, Solyndra burned through $570 Million of “government loans” before it suspended operations.  And that's what normally happens, because when companies take regime money it's usually because they can't attract private capital.  And there's a reason: they're almost always goofy and corrupt.

Ford’s executives have chosen to abandon its capitalist roots and emulate Solyndra by “collaborating” with the government in financing a “technology transition” in the automotive industry.

Other than taking billions of taxpayer dollars to push more EVs, how are things going for Ford?

Let's see:  Last month Ford sold 154,744 gas-powered vehicles, and 5,444 EVs.  In May Ford’s electric vehicle sales were 13% below May of 2022, while sales of gas-powered vehicles were up 11% year over year.

Meanwhile last August Ford had a huge round of layoffs, focusing on cutting engineers and others associated with its gas-engine division.  And they're now planning another round of similar layoffs.  See, dey gots duh message frum duh regime: gas and diesel BAD, EVs good.  So here we go, down the tubes.

Apparently Ford's gas-powered cars are popular.  EVs not so much.  But Ford execs clearly feel the same way about the company's loyal truck and SUV customers as Anheuser Busch feels about its (former) Bud Light customers:  It seeks to replace those loyal customers with hip New Yorkers and regime hacks.

So Ford just keeps terminating employees who are involved in designing and improving products customers want, and which generate revenue.

Sales of electric vehicle sales are dropping because the "early adopters"--morons who chase  heavily-advertised fads without knowing anything about the reality--have been saturated, and reality is starting to set in.  The novelty is gone, and the broader market is saying "no thanks."

Wait...surely the *really* cool, hip EVs like the electric Mustang are selling like mad, right?  Actually May sales were down 44% from May 2022, while sales of gas-powered Mustangs were up 11% year over year.

There's a very strong message there--but you have to be smart to read it.  And like all wokiez, duh execs at Ford only know how to suck up to regime politicians and bureaucrats.  And that ruling class is determined to eliminate all internal-combustion vehicles and replace them with duh faaabulous EVs.

Ford’s most popular vehicle is the F150 pickup, so using that popularity Ford designed an electric version, called the F150 Lightning. Unfortunately for Ford, F150 buyers don't seem to be impressed, and the EV is just 2% of all F150 sales.

Ford also stopped all sales of the Lightning for awhile after one spontaneously burst into flames in the lot of a Ford facility.

Ford has lots of engineers who could explain the physics of the electric pickup problem to the company's soy-boy execs, but the executives don’t listen to engineers.  Instead they listen to the folks pushing "ESG" and DIEversity, and the dweebs who run "focus groups," all of whom have convinced the execs that electric is cool.  

So Ford is laying off engineers and pursuing the agenda of Klaus Schwab and Greta Thunberg-- and subsidized loans from the biden regime.

Just as with academia or the courts, once a lot of leftists gain control of anything, it's doomed.  Just a question of how long before the collapse.  The slow suicide it has chosen will be painful to watch, because it will destroy so many jobs and businesses with it.

And really, isn't that what we've come to expect with Democrats ruling everything?

Oh, and for young Americans:  GM's $9-billion bail-out by Obammy was only the start of the slide into Government Motors-dom. In addition, there were:
- $15-billion in TARP money ("Troubled Asset Relief Program") for GM and GMAC which was never paid back and was eventually "forgiven" by Obozo;
- $10-billion in "Goodwill," normally written off during bankruptcies, but which GM was allowed to retain;
- $22-billion in underfunded pension payments by GM, all of which was dumped into the federal Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation, thus illegally shifting that entire debt from GM to taxpayers;
- $13-billion loss to taxpayers from Treasury buying a staggering 650-million shares of GM stock (@ ~$52/share) to prop up the price, which Treasury later sold at $32/share (i.e. at a loss).

So including all the above costs that were over an above the $9 billion, the Obama regime gave GM  $60 BILLION in benefits over its rivals.  And that was 15 years ago.  In today's dollars that would be just over $81-billion. 

"Government Motors" indeed!   And the Democrats absolutely swooned over this move.

Source: Ace of Spades

https://acecomments.mu.nu/?post=405054