delphi delco
https://www.democracynow.org/2012/10/18/greg_palast_mitt_romneys_bailout_bonanza
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Just over two months ago, I spoke with you in this same spot about the challenges facing our auto industry, and I laid out what needed to be done to save two of America’s most storied automakers: General Motors and Chrysler.
GREG PALAST: As part of a massive government bailout, U.S. taxpayers paid $12 billion to save auto parts maker Delphi Corporation. Out of that taxpayer money, three billionaires and their partners took in a profit of over $4 billion. One big winner, with a profit of over 4,000 percent, were the billionaires’ silent partners, Ann and Mitt Romney. The Romneys made at least $15 million, and as much as $115 million.
Our investigation began in Africa in the Congo. This is Greg Palast reporting. We are hunting for a vulture, a so-called vulture fund financier, this man, Paul Singer. Singer’s vulture fund seized $90 million out of foreign aid given the Congo, which could have been used to end a cholera epidemic. Singer’s vulture tactics are now outlawed in England and all over the world, but not in the U.S.A., certainly not here in Detroit, where we found Singer’s vulture fund feasting on the corpse of another victim, the once-world-leading Delco auto parts division of General Motors.
DELCO AD: Power that can’t get old before it’s sold. Delco dry charge battery, made by the Delco-Remy Division of General Motors.
GREG PALAST: As Delco’s biggest customers, GM and Chrysler, collapsed, Delco, now named Delphi, went bust. Down swooped the vultures. The vulture funds bought Delphi for just 67 cents a share. Bloated by $12 billion in taxpayer auto bailout subsidies, the shares blew up from 67 cents to $22 a share. The auto task force chief called it "extortion." Extortion paid big time. So far, Romney and partners have pocketed over $4 billion. Then the billionaires gave Romney a million dollars each for the Republican campaigns. Nevertheless, Romney accused Obama of conflicts.
MITT ROMNEY: This is serious conflict of interest. This ought to be a big story. And I don’t think there are—I think there are a number of people on the—among the president’s team that don’t want that story to get out. We want to make sure it did.
GREG PALAST: Romney said he was opposed to the bailout.
MITT ROMNEY: I wrote an op-ed in the paper, and I said, "Absolutely not. Don’t write a check for $50 billion."
GREG PALAST: But these documents reveal that a government bailout check was in fact cashed by none other than Ann Romney. It says that Ann Romney had a hunk of Mitt’s vast fortune in Elliott Management, Paul Elliott Singer’s vulture fund. Working our way between the limousines in front of his office, we wanted to ask Mr. Singer about his special financial deal with the Romneys. But he turned us down. The Romney campaign refuses to tell us exactly how much they made from the bailout, nor reveal their 2009 taxes.
ANN ROMNEY: We’ve give
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