So, I was trying to think about a suitable topic for today's rant, and coming up blank, until we started discussing GM's decision to pay $3.5bn for AmeriCredit. Hmmm. Let's think about that. GM, the bankrupt, government-bailed out (US taxpayer bailed out, which is inclusive of Wall Streeters and their tax donations), crappy car maker is buying a subprime lender. They are doing it before plans to ipo the company. They are doing it, ostensibly, to enable unqualified and uncreditworthy borrowers to get access to loans for cars.

Really? We want to make it easier for uncreditworthy borrowers to get access to credit to buy vehicles which  they probably cannot afford anyway? (By the way, given the quality, or lack there of, in GM product, this seems more punishment than pleasure). Didn't we just live through the same thing in the housing market? Wasn't it the bubble that nearly brought down the entire financial system?

Let's review. People making $35k, or so,  per year were able to get a zero money down mortgage on a $500k house which they were never going to able to afford. Of course, Washington said it was the "wicked" lenders, shysters who knew that they were screwing hard working and wholesome Americans by fleecing them with low rate mortgages that stepped to unmanageable levels as soon as the ink was dry. These "bad people" never explained the full risks and the expression of "it seeming to good to be true" never came into play. It was never those people who were gaming the system to live well beyond their means (because, of course, that is really the American dream) who were to blame.

This week, Obama's "pay czar" (whichever way you prefer to spell it - czar or tsar - it still spells a*shole) said he is going to clawback compensation (the residual amounts) from 2008 for all employees of firms which received a bailout. [Let's see: what is he clawing back from GM employees, their Chevy Malibu's? They can keep those because no one else wants them]. Seems like a wonderful political ploy for an administration under duress for its inability to achieve any legislation of any merit (by the way, where did that massive overhaul of healthcare disappear to?). As has been their usual blueprint, fall back on Wall Street whenever public opinion sways. For that matter, cry fire in a crowded theater, tell everyone who will listen the sky is falling and blame Wall Street, while canonizing middle America and the hard working, skilled, and unionized labourers, like those at GM.

In the end we wind up here again. GM, which should stand for Giant Moneypit, is now going to invest $3.5bn to buy a business to lend to people who should, quite frankly, be happy with used cars. They should consider walking to work (uphill and downhill, both ways, like your dad used to tell you he did when growing up). Heck, they could try mass transit and actually do something environmentally sound to support their liberal leanings. GM has still not paid the taxpayer back fully and assumes that this "growth" story window dressing will help it achieve a better multiple in its ipo (by the way, to whom do they think they are going to sell the shares in the ipo - more stupid citizens?). Maybe we should pay Obama and his merry band in Congress with GM shares in lieu of good old greenbacks. Maybe then, they would consider getting the joke.