WI Gov. Scott Walker tries to exert political pressure on state Democrats

» He will not be swayed: Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s attempt to strip the public employee union’s collective bargaining rights got much rougher after he was hung out to dry by Ian Murphy, a blogger who prank called him pretending to be billionaire conservative contributor David Koch. In that call, Walker explained his scheme to get the vote through; to lure Democrats back with a promise of negotiation, only to use procedural rules to then force a vote regardless of whether they participated. Having thus illustrated he has no interest in good faith negotiation, Walker has moved to plan B, political pressure. Walker announced that if the Democrats don’t return to the State Capitol, Wisconsin will miss its chance to refinance it’s debt, which would cost taxpayers $160 million. As it always bears mentioning, the public employee unions have broadly agreed to compromise on Walker’s proposed changes, if he only won’t strip their very right to collective bargaining. Walker says no dice.

Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

$70
billion the amount GM needs to make on its IPO to ensure the government gets all of its bailout money back
$50
billion the amount GM could make on the IPO at the low end; the cruddy economy may be a factor source

» Other considerations: The IPO is obviously only a starting point – the rest of the $43 billion the automaker still owes taxpayers could be made back later. But as a jumping-off point goes, it’d be nice to see the IPO on the high end, around $90 billion. (Edit: We’re dummies and we mistyped these earlier. Sorry.)

Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

$341 billion the original anticipated cost of TARP to taxpayers; that’s pretty huge, right?
–$200 billion the amount the government says you can now chop off that number; hooray! source

Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

The sheer size of the program … is so large and the leverage being provided to the private equity participants so beneficial, that the taxpayer risk is many times that of the private parties, thereby potentially skewing the economic incentives.
Inspector General Neil Barofksy • In a massive quarterly report on the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Sound like fun? It totally is. We hope, if the banks defraud us taxpayers, they do it in really cool ways, like buying themselves gold houses and rocket cars. • source

Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

28 Feb 2011 14:45