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.
The Detroit News reports on a new GAO analysis that indicates that the Obama administration put conditions on the loans given to GM and Chrysler that required the companies to maintain most of their current production capacity in the United States rather than outsourcing it to other countries.
The Detroit News has an interesting look behind the scenes of the Obama administration’s auto taskforce as it debated what to do about the sinking financial fortunes of GM and Chrysler after taking office in January. The article is based on an interview with the chairman of that taskforce, Steven Rattner, and an account he [...]
Ron Bloom, the new chairman of President Obama’s auto taskforce, told reporters that he doesn’t think an Initial Public Offering of stock in the newly restructured Chrysler Group LLC will happen in 2010 as some had previously predicted. He thinks the following year is more likely, according to the Detroit News:
In an unusual hearing by a congressional oversight panel held at the Wayne State University law school on Monday, a couple of interesting items about the bailout and subsequent bankruptcies of General Motors and Chrysler were revealed. The first was that the government would seek to sell off its equity interest slowly once those companies [...]
In the wake of Chrysler declaring bankruptcy because debtholders refused to accept the terms of a government-mandated debt restructuring, the negotiations between General Motors, the Treasury Department and the company’s bondholders continue. Unfortunately, they have radically different proposals at this point.
Though Chrysler appears to have reached agreements with the UAW, with Fiat and with their major debtholders, they could still be forced into bankruptcy if a group of smaller creditors do not agree to write down most of the loans they’ve given to the automaker. The Washington Post reports on what such a bankruptcy would [...]
The Treasury Department and Chrysler may have managed to work out a restructuring agreement with those who hold debt in the smaller automaker, but the bondholders for General Motors are furious at a similar offer of swapping equity for their debt in the nation’s largest car company. The Free Press reports:
Reuters is reporting that there has been a breakthrough in the negotiations between Chrysler, the Treasury Department and the banks and investment funds that financed the purchase of the automaker by private equity firm Cerberus. They’re citing anonymous sources as saying that an agreement has been reached on restructuring that debt:
General Motors has filed its amended restructuring plan and it contains much more aggressive cuts than those rejected by the Treasury Department in the previous plan. As expected, Pontiac is being phased out and so are half the GM dealerships in the nation and thousands more workers. Automotive News reports.
A senior White House economic official who sits on the auto taskforce said on a Sunday talk show that there has been some progress in negotiations with the unions and debtholders for Chrysler. Automotive News reports:
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