I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
In testimony before the Senate Banking Committee, a member of President Obama’s auto taskforce said that there was no specific timetable for selling off the government’s stake in GM and Chrysler. Automotive News reports:
The Obama administration hopes the new General Motors will have an initial public offering next year but has no “blueprint” for extricating itself from its ownership stake in the company, auto task force member Ron Bloom told Congress today.
“We do not have a specific target in terms of years,” Bloom said. “The mere issuance of that blueprint, we believe, would be market disruptive.”
Bloom said a large shareholder selling its shares “can be disruptive to other shareholders.”
This does make sense. At some point over the next few years, both GM and Chrysler will have to have public offerings of its common stock and both the government and the UAW are going to have to sell of their stakes in the company — the UAW because they will need to replenish the VEBA trust fund to provide healthcare for retirees and the government because the proceeds of that sale will pay back the treasury for the loaned funds.
But that selloff is going to have to be done slowly and in a coordinated manner. Signaling in advance when it is going to happen would allow stock speculators to manipulate the value of the stock before and after that sale, and selling it off all at once would depress the value of the stock.
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