It's an e$$ential component of AmeriKan life and Empire:
"US Treasury to acquire 30 percent of trucking company in exchange for $700 million loan" by Jeff Stein and Aaron Gregg Washington Post, July 1, 2020
WASHINGTON — The Treasury Department announced Wednesday that it will loan $700 million to a trucking firm that ships military equipment, in exchange for having US taxpayers acquire an almost 30 percent stake in the company.
You are now ve$ted in the war machine, AmeriKan taxpayer!
Why would you ever want them to end?
The sacrifices of your sons and daughters, husbands and wives, brother and sisters, all worth it now. The U.S. Treasury has vested you! Never mind that the pre$$ won't call it was it is: nationalization and state-ownership. In other words, Communi$m!
Oh, yeah, your little piddly shop that's been a life's dream, that's not getting the lifeline. The military that fights for your freedom and rights to have such a thing is. How ironic. The very thing they are fighting to protect is gone, taken from you not by the "terrorists" but by the globalist thieves on Wall Street, in Washington, and every state capitol.
Under the unusual arrangement, the Treasury Department will provide the emergency loan to YRC Worldwide, while taking a 29.6 percent equity stake in the company. The US government does not typically take ownership stakes in companies but was given permission to do so by Congress as a way to ensure taxpayer funds are not misspent.
Oh, right, the government is going to make sure taxpayer funds are not misspent. That's like the fox guarding the chicken coop!
The deal is the first under a $17 billion loan program approved as part of the broader stimulus by Congress in March. That pot of money was earmarked for firms deemed ‘‘critical’’ to US national security. Congress gave Treasury the authority to approve more than $500 billion in emergency loans to companies and cities, although most of that money has not been disbursed.
‘‘We are pleased for Treasury to make this loan pursuant to the CARES Act,’’ Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement. ‘‘This loan will enable a critical vendor to the Department of Defense to maintain significant employment while providing appropriate compensation to taxpayers.’’
That is the way you redesign a society after a planned economic collapse under the cover of COVID.
YRC Worldwide, which stands for more than your regional carrier, is a publicly traded company headquartered in Kansas. With a fleet of about 7,600 tractors and 30,000 trailors, YRC is one of the largest ‘‘less-than-truckload’’ transportation companies in North America. It covers 68 percent of the military’s services in that area, according to the Treasury Department’s announcement.
So much for global warming and all.
The investment could intensify questions over Treasury’s handling of hundreds of billions in taxpayer aid at a pivotal moment for the US economy. Some critics have said Treasury’s interventions amount to a large corporate bailout for undeserving firms, while others have argued the money should be more swiftly distributed with fewer conditions to avert rising unemployment. Treasury did not spend any of the $17 billion for more than three months, raising questions about the program’s effectiveness as companies sought other means of funding.
It's the same as 2009, only way, way wor$e.
The Cares Act requires that companies receiving help through the $17 billion fund give the government an equity stake or a warrant, a financial instrument that allows the lender to claim stock at a later date. Most defense contractors considered those terms too onerous, defense executives and lobbyists told The Washington Post.
‘‘There are too many bells and whistles going in the wrong direction, and major aerospace companies just aren’t interested’’ in the $17 billion fund, said Arnold Punaro, a retired Marine Corps general who works as a defense consultant. ‘‘If this were a good deal for our aerospace companies, they would be using it.’’
Although many companies were financially desperate as the crisis deepened in late March and early April, many of them found other options. Numerous defense contractors found relief through other Cares Act programs. A handful of defense suppliers received Paycheck Protection Program loans backed by the Small Business Administration, which have no equity requirement and have the option of being forgiven.
So they sat on $17 billion trying to figure out who they could give it to after being turned down by the u$ual $u$pects -- and in some cases, they GAVE IT TO THEMSELVES!
This whole thing, all the coronavirus hysteria along with race and lockdowns and everything presented in the pre$$, has reached a point of vomiting!
The Defense Department is spending $668 million in Defense Production Act funding on the defense industrial base. That funding is being meted out through existing, open contracts that don’t have to be renegotiated and don’t require any equity stake.
With capital markets improving throughout April and May, some companies found other options through private markets.
‘‘When the Cares Act passed, most defense companies looked at the program as an option, but most determined that the conditions associated with the loan program were so restrictive it made obtaining capital through other means a better option,’’ said Jeff Green, a lobbyist who works with several defense firms that considered applying.
One of them was Boeing, the battered aerospace manufacturer and defense contractor whose finances have been wrecked by the global slowdown in commercial air travel. Mnuchin and people involved in the drafting of the Cares Act have said the $17 billion pot of money was initially intended in large part to help shore up Boeing; however the company was able to raise sufficient funds to stay afloat through the private credit markets, which were aided by the Federal Reserve’s extraordinary measures, although it has also laid off thousands of workers.
Boeing must have been first in line.
A Treasury statement said the loan will allow YRC to keep about 30,000 trucking jobs and ‘‘continue to support essential military supply chain operations’’ used by more than 200,000 companies in North America.
That's e$$ential, American civilian; you are obviou$ly not.
The department also cited a certification from the defense secretary about YRC’s critical value for national security. The agreement includes limits on executive compensation and dividend payments to shareholders, but Treasury has not disclosed what those are.
Now get this one:
While it is unusual for the United States to acquire parts of companies, such arrangements are common internationally and help governments ensure that taxpayers receive a return for their investment, if the price of YRC’s stock goes up, taxpayers will also benefit as a traditional investor would.
And IF the stock goes down?
We LO$E, right?
Btw, the "unusual" arrangement is a distortion at best, outright lie at worst. The government to shares in all sorts of companies in 2009 -- GM and Fannie/Freddie are the most prominent -- and we were told that when the government sold the stuff back we made money of the bailout (if you believe that I have a bridge to sell you).
Anyway, time to keep on driving.
‘‘During this crisis, the government should not let companies fail, but it also should not bail out the wealth of their owners. Providing loans for equity accomplishes exactly this,’’ said Matt Bruenig, founder of the left-leaning People’s Policy Project.
They already bailed out wealth and owner$hip, and here it is again. Too late to do anything now!
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Gotta get Boeing's $tock flying high again:
"Boeing withheld data on system linked to crashes, report says" by Alan Levin and Julie Johnsson Bloomberg News, July 1, 2020
Boeing Co. provided only “limited information” on the flight-control software later implicated in two fatal crashes on the 737 Max as it was being approved by federal regulators, a government watchdog report has found.
Oh, f***, they didn't ell the truth and covered something up.
The Transportation Department’s Inspector General concluded that Boeing didn’t fully communicate to Federal Aviation Administration officials changes to a system that automatically pushed down the jet’s nose. That led the regulator to focus on other issues in its review of the plane.
The highly anticipated report, dated June 29 and released Wednesday morning, paints a critical picture of Boeing. It was reviewed by Bloomberg News before its release.
Boeing’s best-selling jet has been grounded since March 2019 after the second of two crashes that killed a total of 346 people. While some of the details released by the inspector general have been contained in other investigative reports or news articles, the latest report contains the most extensive timeline of the plane’s approval to date.
Boeing, in a statement, said it has cooperated with the investigation and made “robust improvements” to the flight-control system. “We are committed to transparency with the FAA during all aspects of the airplane certification process, and have made significant changes to improve our support to that regulatory process,” the company said.
The bald-faced, brazen, and disingenuous in-your-face lie is astounding.
Boeing stock was down 1.63 percent Wednesday to $180.32, as broad US stock gauges rose. The stock had tumbled 44 percent this year through Tuesday, the steepest decline on the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
Awwwwwww, their stock price crashed.
Too bad it's not yet fatal.
Two US lawmakers with responsibility for overseeing the aviation industry said they’d use the report to craft legislation to prevent such missteps in the future.
“The more scrutiny we put on Boeing and the FAA, and the more we dig into why and how the system failed so horribly and led to the deaths of 346 innocent people, the better chance we have of fixing the system to ensure no family has to endure this nightmare again,” Representative Peter DeFazio, the Oregon Democrat who is chairman of the House Transportation Committee, said in a release.
DeFazio was joined by Representative Rick Larsen, a Washington Democrat who is chairman of the panel’s aviation subcommittee.
Too f**king late, fellas.
Should never have allowed them to approve their own planes to begin with!
In a response included in the report, the FAA acknowledged that its certification of the jet was hampered by a lack of effective communication with Boeing and within the agency. This led to “an incomplete understanding of the scope and potential safety impacts” of the changes to the system that helped lead to the crashes.
What good are these f**king agencies if they can't perform their most basic function?
The report revolves around the approvals for the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System. It was added to the plane to nudge the nose down in certain high-risk conditions so that the aircraft complied with federal regulations; however, in both crashes — one off the coast of Indonesia in October 2018 and the second near Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in March 2019 — a malfunction caused it to repeatedly attempt to dive the planes. Pilots in both cases lost control. The Max has been grounded globally since days after the Ethiopian crash.
The FAA is conducting test flights for re-certification of the plane this week. MCAS was redesigned so that it won’t operate repeatedly and the post-crash reviews prompted several other revisions, including an extensive change to the plane’s flight-control computer.
That is when my print paper cut the flight short, and would you risk your life flying in one of those death traps?
More deadly then corona!
FAA engineers responsible for approving pilot-training requirements were unaware of revisions to MCAS that occurred during the design, the agency said. “FAA’s certification process relies on receiving complete, candid information from manufacturers,” it said.
The agency is revising its oversight of the program that permitted designated employees of a manufacturer to perform certification work and will release details in coming months. “This and other reviews, both completed and ongoing, will inform important reforms of FAA’s aircraft certification process,” the FAA response said.
Daniel Putit, managing director of Lion Air Group, operator of the 737 Max involved in the first crash, declined to comment on the inspector general’s report. He said the airline, one of the biggest customers for the Max, will make a decision on its future at the carrier “only after the full re-certification process from regulators and the return-to-service program provided by Boeing.”
A spokesman for Ethiopian said he hadn’t seen the report and couldn’t comment. The company has said it will be last carrier to fly the Max after it resumes service.
I would disembark before the plane takes off.
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Related:
"It’s a moment that aviation enthusiasts long have dreaded. Boeing’s “Queen of the Skies” debuted in 1970, an audacious bet that transformed travel but almost bankrupted the company. Passenger versions boasted a spiral staircase to a luxurious upstairs lounge. Freighter models featured a hinged nose that flipped open to load everything from cars to oil-drilling gear. The 747 went on to rack up 1,571 orders over the decades -— second among wide-body jets only to Boeing’s 777. The millennial-era A380 could haul as many as 853 travelers and reflected Europe’s lofty aerospace ambition, but by the time it arrived in 2007, airlines were already tilting to smaller planes that burned less fuel....."
Awwwwwwww!
The ETA was way off?
Am I supposed to feel sorry for their folly or mine?
Time to toast the death of the “Queen of the Skies”:
"A $6 million PPP loan and bankruptcy keep two chains afloat" by Steven Church Bloomberg News, July 1, 2020
More than $6 million of federal loans wasn’t enough to keep HopCat’s beer pubs or TooJay’s sandwich delis out of bankruptcy.
Were being ordered to shut back down anyway.
They’re the two biggest recipients of Paycheck Protection Program aid, designed to prevent US small businesses from collapsing during the pandemic, that filed for Chapter 11 protection, according to research by bankrutpcydata.com.
Almost one out of every 12 companies that have gone bankrupt since early April got PPP loans just weeks earlier, and more are likely on the way.
“The bankruptcy trend is just up,” said Jim Hammond, chief executive officer of New Generation Research Inc., which owns bankruptcydata.com. “The money is going to run out.”
That is so odd because I was told less than two weeks ago that the $afety net was in great shape and we are all getting rich!
The recipients that went bankrupt didn’t do anything improper. Federal regulations bar companies from receiving PPP money while they are in bankruptcy — but not the other way around.
TooJay’s Management LLC and HopCat parent company Barfly Ventures LLC, which both filed within five weeks of getting federal assistance, are seeking to use the cash to keep operating while they reduce debt and prepare for a fresh start once their court cases end. For them, the low-interest PPP loan is a cheaper way to finance a turnaround than in traditional bankruptcy cases, where lenders routinely charge double-digit interest rates and impose hefty fees.
There appears to be no guideline preventing a borrower from heading to the courthouse shortly after getting PPP funds, said Edward Barry, chief executive officer of Capital Bank NA, a Rockville, Md.-based lender that has made $234 million of PPP loans.
“It’s free money if you work within the program,” Barry said.....
They then talk to some Barfly named Ben Schlafman, the chief operating officer at New Generation.
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Time to start $winging elbows:
"Jewish Vocational Service to take over Boston Center for Adult Education; The Boston organization had all but closed up shop after several former employees were accused of theft" by Larry Edelman Globe Staff, July 1, 2020
Pretty much already have, and we are headed to a fate worse than the Soviet Union if such is the case.
Jewish Vocational Service said Wednesday it would merge with the Boston Center for Adult Education, whose 86-year run helping people expand their horizons ended last year following the alleged theft of nearly $2 million by two former executives and a part-time worker.
I sure hope they didn't receive PPP funds!
JVS said the center’s biggest asset is its Arlington Street headquarters, which JVS will use to expand its adult education, training, and employment services across the region.
Just what we need.
The building, where the center offered courses ranging from cooking to computers, “could serve as the home of new technology, innovative labs, and programming that reflects the growing industries and occupations in Boston that need to be opened up to a more diverse and economically challenged workforce,” JVS said in a statement.
In addition, JVS said it would create a $3 million fund to support programs and serve new communities using investment assets from the center.
In October, when the center announced it would end classes and special events, board chairman Dean T. Hara said the organization was losing money due to declining enrollment and had “reached a point that is not sustainable.” He said the board would reevaluate the organization’s future.
The decision came three months after former executive director Susan B. Brown and comptroller Mark Mitchell, a Saugus selectman, were arraigned in Suffolk Superior Court on larceny charges. Brown’s business partner, Karen Kalfian, who briefly worked for the center in 2005, faced a similar charge.
Brown and Mitchell allegedly falsified financial entries and lied to the board of directors. Prosecutors said $1.7 million vanished from the center over eight years. The organization was stripped of its tax-exempt status.
Too bad they were not as big as Boeing, huh?
The defendants pleaded not guilty and were released on personal recognizance. Their cases are pending.
WHAT?
The center said in October that while the fraud had a significant financial impact, it was not the reason it stopped offering classes. Instead, the decision was based on “major changes in the overall adult education environment.”
Most of the center’s staff left the organization after it ended programming last fall. Several stayed on while the organization, working with consultants, mapped out its next step.
Jewish Vocational Service in Boston was started in 1938 to help Jewish immigrants enter the workforce. It now provides employment and career development services to a diverse base of clients, and partners with employers on hiring, training, and retention of employees.
What would we all do were in not for the benevolent Joo?
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Better stay out of the office and avoid malls:
"Nearly a third of workers who are remote now expect to remain out of the office once the COVID-19 crisis is over, according to one online survey. A poll of 828 remote workers across the country, conducted for Waltham online education firm MindEdge in May, shows that 29 percent said they will stay remote on a full-time basis even after businesses resume normal operations. Another 27 percent expect to work remotely on a part-time basis, and only 35 percent said they plan to return to their old workplaces all the time. About half of the respondents had some previous experience with remote work, although about 80 percent said their employers did not have a remote-work program before the pandemic’s onset. The respondents had a decidedly mixed reaction about the whole experience: Thirty percent said it made their jobs harder, while 26 percent said it made their jobs easier."
You should hide at home because the world is tainted.
"Macy’s Inc. recorded a $3.1 billion charge in the first quarter as the pandemic ravaged retail, even as sales have since started to show signs of recovery. The department-store chain’s business has tracked ahead of expectations in the two months since the quarter ended. The company said it continues to expect a “gradual sales recovery.” The retailer was particularly affected during the quarter by store closures, including at its flagship in Manhattan’s Herald Square, which relies heavily on international tourists."
Just stay at home and wait for the FedEx package to be dropped off instead.
Then off we go..... (blog editor ends post humming).
