Obama

Obama’s Long List Of Promises To Keep, Obligations To Meet
“Faced with economic collapse on the home-front and two wars overseas, the administration of President-elect Barack Obama is signaling loudly and clearly that a substantial number of his costly campaign promises will have to be postponed or abandoned altogether.”

Huffington post assembled a great, cited list of Obama’s many promises: Improve options for displaced workers / Help community and small business development agencies / Improve rural schools and availability of doctors / Help organic farmers and promote regional food systems / Give new farmers tax incentives / Provide farmers capital and help rural small businesses / Create rural revitalization program / Improve high school graduation rates / Double the number of high school students taking college level courses / Double charter school funding / Include more technology in public schools / Provide tuition assistance to students who perform community service / Recruit teachers and principals / Recruit science and technology teachers / Provide pay raises for teachers and principals / Pay tuition for students going into teaching / Increase Head Start and Early Start / etc. (Read more from huffingtonpost.com)

Me: Normally, I call politicians on broken promises, but not with these. Let’s hope Obama doesn’t keep these promises for a few reasons: 1) none of the federal government’s business 2) we can’t afford any more government programs 3) they’d further warp our already mutilated economy. If you want to help, say, a rural community, let the people, the communities, the states keep more of their own money. The central planners in Washington don’t know how to most efficiently spend money, the people do.

There are a few promises I’d like to see him keep: Ending the Iraq War, Tax cuts for the poor, Repealing the Patriot Act. Am I hopeful? Hell no. Obama is a new face on the same old policies.

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Obama Doesn’t Plan to End the Iraq Occupation
“The New York Times is reporting about an "apparent evolution" in president-elect Barack Obama’s thinking on Iraq, citing his recent statements about his plan to keep a "residual force" in the country and his pledge to "listen to the recommendations of my commanders" as Obama prepares to assume actual command of US forces. "At the Pentagon and the military headquarters in Iraq, the response to the statements this week from Mr. Obama and his national security team has been akin to the senior officer corps’ letting out its collective breath," the Times reported. "[T]the words sounded to them like the new president would take a measured approach on the question of troop levels."

The reality is there is no "evolution."

Anyone who took the time to cut past Barack Obama’s campaign rhetoric of "change" and bringing an "end" to the Iraq war realized early on that the now-president-elect had a plan that boiled down to a down-sizing and rebranding of the occupation. While he emphasized his pledge to withdraw US "combat forces" from Iraq in 16 months (which may or may not happen), he has always said that he intends to keep "residual forces" in place for the foreseeable future.

It’s an interesting choice of terms. "Residual"” (Read more from antiwar.com)

Me: Can we create a cult of personality in support of the same policies that Bush pursued? Yes we can!

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What Change? by Chuck Baldwin, 2008 Constitution Party Presidential Candidate
“Obama excelled in delivering the message of change. So, what kind of change will Obama actually deliver?” (Read more from newswithviews.com)

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Palestinians say nothing will change under Obama
“Most Palestinians think the election of Barack Obama as US president will have no impact on the chances of a solution to the conflict with Israel, an opinion poll published on Wednesday said. It found that 57.5% of those Palestinians who were questioned thought that Obama’s election ‘will make no difference.'” (Read more from ynetnews.com)

Profiles in Panic

This is a great read from Vanity Fair – the financial melt-down as seen by the financial elite. Hard to feel sorry for them. Maybe that’s why I like it.

“With Wall Street hemorrhaging jobs and assets, even many of the wealthiest players are retrenching. Others, like the Lehman Brothers bankers who borrowed against their millions in stock, have lost everything. Hedge-fund managers try to sell their luxury homes, while trophy wives are hocking their jewelry. The pain is being felt on St. Barth’s and at Sotheby’s, on benefit-gala committees and at the East Hampton Airport, as the world of the Big Rich collapses, its culture in shock and its values in question.” (Read more from vanityfair.com)

on Afghanistan

– German General: Afghan Police Training a ‘Miserable Failure’

– Convoy attacks trigger race to open new Afghan supply lines “Four serious attacks on US and Nato supplies in Pakistan during the past month, including two in the past three days, have added to the sense of urgency to conclude pacts with former Soviet republics bordering Afghanistan to the north. Nato is negotiating with Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan to allow supplies for Nato forces, including fuel, to cross borders into Afghanistan from the north. The deal, which officials said was close to being agreed, follows an agreement with Moscow this year allowing Nato supplies to be transported by rail or road through Russia.”

– Report warns of Taliban ‘noose’ around Afghan capital Me: I disagree with this report’s recommendation of more troops. Better to defend our borders and let the Afghans solve their own problems.

Headlines from the Occupation

The New Face of Jewish Resistance
“We, high-school graduate teens, declare that we shall work against the Israeli occupation and oppression policy in the occupied territories and the territories of Israel. Therefore we will refuse to take part of these actions, which are being done under our name as part of the IDF. . . .” (Read more from desertpeace.wordpress.com)

IDF declares Hebron area closed military zone after settler rampage
“The Israel Defense Forces declared the area surrounding Hebron a closed military zone on Thursday after settlers rampaged through Palestinian neighborhoods in the West Bank city. The settlers, who opened fire on Palestinians and vandalized their property, were responding to the evacuation by Israeli security forces of a disputed house in Hebron earlier in the day. . . . During the riots, settlers had set fires to at least three Palestinian houses and burnt nine cars, the Palestinian fire chief said. . . . The Israeli rights group B’Tselem released a video that appeared to show a settler shooting a Palestinian in the stomach from point-blank range, and Palestinians pelting the settler with rocks. Palestinian hospital officials said 17 Palestinians were wounded, including five from bullets. Dozens of masked settlers surrounded the home of a Palestinian family in the city, setting its laundry ablaze and throwing stones at it. Haaretz correspondent Avi Issacharoff, who was inside the house at the time, was hit by a stone hurled by the group outside. . . . In other parts of the West Bank, settlers threw rocks at Palestinian vehicles and burned an olive grove, Palestinians said. . . . A police officer was moderately hurt when settlers threw acid in his face.” (Read more from Haaretz.com)

Me: I want Americans to understand what our tax dollar are funding. It’s true that Israeli security forces fought the settlers. It’s also true that settler families get tens of thousands of dollars in subsidies. It’s criminal. It’s a moral travesty. Our enemies don’t hate us because we’re free, or rich. They hate us because we’re funding a brutal, brutal, wholesale destruction of a people.

Unilever to sell stake in plant based in West Bank settlement
“The food and soap manufacturing multinational Unilever has announced that it will divest from an Israeli factory in a Jewish settlement illegally built on land confiscated from Palestinians. Unilever, which makes household staples such as Sunsilk shampoo, Surf washing powder and Vaseline, said it would sell its 51% stake in the Beigel & Beigel factory in the West Bank settlement of Ariel.” (Read more from desertpeace.wordpress.com)

Report: Israeli mineral water company closes site due to Scottish boycott
“A Gush Shalom report claims that European anger at Israeli companies producing goods beyond the Green Line is causing real harm to some companies, one of which is reportedly mineral water producer Mayanot Eden. The report claims Mayanot Eden (coloquially known as “Mei Eden”) had to close its warehouse in the town of Loanhead, south of Edinburgh. The shutdown reportedly followed an extended boycott campaign by pro-Palestinian organizations in Scotland, though the Israeli company claims the report to be untrue.” (Read more from normanfinkelstein.com)

UN agency warns of food shortage in Gaza due to Israeli blockade
“GAZA, Dec 07, 2008 (Xinhua via COMTEX News Network) – A UN agency in Gaza warned on Sunday that food aid would run out within the coming couple of days due to the ongoing Israeli tight blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip for a month.” (Read more from reliefweb.int)

Israeli Arab leaders vow to sail to Gaza to break blockade
“Leaders of Israel’s Arab community said Wednesday they’ll head to Gaza on a boat laden with humanitarian aid to defy their government’s blockade of the territory. . . .” (Read more from Haaretz.com)

‘EID SHIP’ HIJACKED BY ISRAELI NAVY
“The Israeli navy barred on Sunday morning a ship which was supposed to sail from Jaffa port to the Gaza Strip carrying medical and humanitarian supplies. The ship was organized by Arab leaders and leftist activists in Israel, the Arabs48 news website reported. The ship, was dubbed “the Eid Ship”, as the Muslims will be marking the Adha Eid (feast) on Monday. The Israeli navy took the ship to the Tel Aviv port, Arabs48 added. The Israeli police said that the ship carried medical equipment and medicine, and that three activists were detained. . . .” (Read more from desertpeace.wordpress.com)

COMMANDMENT # 11 ~~ THOU SHALT NOT SPEAK THE TRUTH – Haaretz writer held for entering Gaza
(Read more from desertpeace.wordpress.com)

The Economy – Predictions of Gloom and Doom

– Worst job losses in almost three decades expected (from marketwatch.com)

– Marc Faber: I advise every American to hold his gold outside of the United States
Executive Order 6102 signed on 5 April 1933 right after Franklin Roosevelt came to office and it forbade all Americans from owning physical gold assets. Quoting Wikipedia: It required all persons to deliver on or before May 1, 1933 all gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates owned by them to the Federal Reserve. Under the Trading With the Enemy Act of October 6, 1917, as amended on March 9, 1933, violation of Executive Order 6102 was punishable by fine up to $10,000 ($166,640 if adjusted for inflation as of 2008) or up to ten years in prison, or both. (from creditwritedowns.com)

– Financial Disaster Will Lead to Civil Disorder in 2009 or 2010, Says Secret Citibank Memo. “The world is not going back to normal after the magnitude of what they have done. When the dust settles this will either work, and the money they have pushed into the system will feed through into an inflation shock,” wrote Tom Fitzpatrick, Citibank’s chief technical strategist. He goes on to explain that the massive money creation efforts by the Federal Reserve and other central banks will end with one of two things: A resurgence of inflation, or a fall into “depression, civil disorder and possibly wars.” (from prisonplanet.com)

– Leading Economist Warns of Food Riots. When top trend forecaster Gerald Calente predicted riots and revolution, many people shrugged and thought, “he’s gone off the deep end”. But leading economist Nouriel Roubini is also now warning of food riots, and blaming it on the Fed and Treasury’s policies and bank priorities. (from George Washington’s Blog)

– Russian Analyst Says U.S. Will Decline, Dissolve (from NewsRoomAmerica.com)

– Health Ranger Offers Thirty-One Predictions for 2009
1. Big Pharma will begin to implode
3. Brankruptcies will bring down retailers, malls
4. 20-40% inflation on food before 2010
6. Three US cities and states will announce bankruptcy
7. More taxes
(from naturalnews.com)

Global Warming Predictions Are Overestimated, Suggests Study On Black Carbon

Okay, I want to be careful about overstating the significance of a single study (thanks for the hint, Esoteridactyl). My goal is not to condemn all gobal warming believers, and certainly not to condemn environmentalist. (I consider myself one.) My goal is to expose what I believe to be government-and-media-backed hysteria, and the possibility of it being leveraged for profit and power by our ruling elite.

I’m curious about the Exchange Traded Funds GWO, which seems to relate to Global Warming, and GRN which seems to relate to Carbon Trading. I’m no expert and would welcome any comments pertaining to how these work. It certainly isn’t a bad thing to invest on what you believe the future might bring, but it’s important to be mindful that profit and power might color people’s intentions.

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“A detailed analysis of black carbon — the residue of burned organic matter — in computer climate models suggests that those models may be overestimating global warming predictions. . . . The researchers found that carbon dioxide emissions from soils were reduced by about 20 percent over 100 years, as compared with simulations that did not take black carbon’s long shelf life into account. The findings are significant because soils are by far the world’s largest source of carbon dioxide, producing 10 times more carbon dioxide each year than all the carbon dioxide emissions from human activities combined.” (emphasis added) (Read more from sciencedaily.com)

Al Gore will launch the international soil monitoring league. We’ll be taxed in its name. Their central planners will supervise the filling of rockets with dirt and launch them into outter space. . . or else we will be doomed! Doooooomed! DOOOOOOMED!

SEE ALSO:

The price of dissent on global warming
“WHEN I first stuck my head above the parapet to say I didn’t believe what we were being told about global warming, I had no idea what the consequences would be. I am a scientist and I have to follow the directions of science, but when I see that the truth is being covered up I have to voice my opinions.

According to official data, in every year since 1998, world temperatures have been getting colder, and in 2002 Arctic ice actually increased. Why, then, do we not hear about that? The sad fact is that since I said I didn’t believe human beings caused global warming, I’ve not been allowed to make a television program.

My absence has been noticed, because wherever I go I meet people who say: “I grew up with you on the television, where are you now?”

It was in 1996 that I criticised wind farms while appearing on children’s program Blue Peter, and I also had an article published in which I described global warming as poppycock. The truth is, I didn’t think wind farms were an effective means of alternative energy, so I said so. Back then, at the BBC you had to toe the line, and I wasn’t doing that. . . .

Yes, the lakes in Africa are drying up. But that’s not global warming. They’re drying up for the very simple reason that most of them have dams around them.

So the water once used by local people is now used in the production of cut flowers and vegetables for the supermarkets of Europe. One of Gore’s biggest clangers was saying that the Aral Sea in Uzbekistan was drying up because of global warming.

Well, everyone knows, because it was all over the news 20 years ago, that the Russians were growing cotton there at the time and that for every tonne of cotton you produce you use a vast amount of water. The thing that annoys me most is that there are genuine environmental problems that desperately require attention. I’m still an environmentalist, I’m still a Green and I’m still campaigning to stop the destruction of the biodiversity of the world. But money will be wasted on trying to solve this global warming “problem” that I would much rather was used for looking after the people of the world. . . .

I might not be on TV any more but I still go around the world campaigning about these important issues. For example, we must stop the destruction of tropical rainforests, something I’ve been saying for 35 years.

Mother nature will balance things out, but not if we interfere by destroying rainforests and overfishing the seas. That is where the real environmental catastrophe could occur.” (Read more from theaustralian.news.com.au)

Person-to-Person Lending and the Money Mafia

In 19th century American literature, like Faulkner’s “The Hamlet,” I occasionally encounter one character writing a debit slip for another, selling debit slips, etc. What ever happened to this practice, I wonder?

I kind of like the idea of it. It give me freedom both as a borrower and lender. I also like that individuals must lend actual money, as opposed to banks who create loan money out of thin air.

This series of articles doesn’t fully answer my questions, but they shed light on a modern-day manifestation of this ancient practice.

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Person-to-Person Loans
“Online networks have emerged in recent years that allow people to find loans or make them, the same way they might exchange music or bid on collectibles on eBay. The sites that are leading the trend — Prosper.com and Zopa.com — say they have noticed a spike in activity since traditional lenders began restricting second mortgages and home equity lines of credit. . . .

Prosper’s users register with the site, permit the company to pull their credit data, and then post a loan request along with an upper limit for the amount of interest they are willing to pay. Loans, which are typically financed by several people seeking to spread their risk, amortize over three years at a fixed rate, with no prepayment penalty.

Lenders review requests individually or let Prosper offer loans to borrowers who meet the lenders’ specified criteria, like credit scores or group affiliation.

Borrowers pay Prosper a fee of 1 to 3 percent of the loan, then receive a check within four days. They make monthly payments to Prosper, based in San Francisco.

The average interest rate in May for a $20,000 loan given to borrowers with excellent credit was about 14 percent, and 9.5 percent for an $8,000 loan. These rates are generally higher than what borrowers would pay with a true home equity loan, but lower than credit card interest rates. ” (Read more from nytimes.com)

Me: Feedom baby!

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Virgin Money Overview
“Overview: Virgin Money is a person to person lending service that allows you to structure formal loans with people you know. Through person to person lending, you skip the bank and borrow from an individual (or group of individuals). This page is an overview of Virgin Money and the various person to person lending options there. Virgin Money was previously CircleLending.
Interest Rate: You and your lender agree on a rate, and Virgin Money uses that rate.
Repayment Schedule and Terms: Again, you and your lender decide when repayment begins and how it happens. Virgin Money allows flexibility that you might not find elsewhere (you don’t have to start repayment immediately, for example, or you might use a seasonal repayment schedule so that you can pay when your income is higher).” (Read more from about.com)

Me: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Does this mean the market is capable of setting an interest rate based on risk, without the help of our Central Planning Committees in Washington? Holy Moly, imagine that!

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Prosper.com creates person-to-person loan site, but can it work?
“Q: How did you come up with the idea behind Prosper.com?
The original idea behind Prosper was from our CEO, Chris Larsen. He had founded E-LOAN so he knew quite a bit about credit. And like all ideas he started with the most basic question: “Why?” Why is credit so expensive? Why is it so inflexible? Why is it so hard? And it just went from the” (Read more from intuitive.com)
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The Money Mafia
“A post by Erick Schonfeld at TechCrunch today really got me riled up: The SEC has shut down Prosper, a peer-to-peer lending site. This was up in the air until yesterday:
Yesterday, the SEC issued its formal cease-and-desist letter . . . outlining its reasoning for characterizing Prosper as a seller of investment, something prosper had vigorously resisted in the past by arguing that it was merely a marketplace matching lenders and borrowers. But the SEC is having none of that.

If this sounds familiar, it’s because this is an exact rerun of what happened with the original Napster and the music industry, only worse in my opinion.

The key here is that Prosper itself was not lending or borrowing, it was simply matching up willing borrowers and willing lenders. It also provided additional services such as collection and tracking. The HORROR.

The real fact is, if private citizens were allowed to freely lend to one another, the private banking cartel that is our central banking system would lose the little control they have over the economy. The free market would freely set interest rates and people and businesses would be free to do an end-run around our corrupt and bloated financial system. The financial engineering that has allowed Wall Street to siphon off trillions of dollars in profit at our expense would be crippled. The SEC is simply acting as the enforcement arm of our private national banking cartel.” (Read more from jasonkolb.com)

Me: In fairness to the SEC, some of the comments on jasonkolb.com w.r.t. this post say that Prosper is actually holding loans for a short period of time before reselling them. That makes it a lender. There’s more to be said about whether this is an exertion of the money mafia.

Washington Post Sports Columnist Advocates Abolishing 2nd Amendment

“Now, let’s not start screaming about the Second Amendment. To begin with, the amendment should be abolished — a sensible interpretation of the amendment is that it was written to allow the people to raise a militia for protection and to hunt for food. Clearly no one needs to raise a militia these days, and those who hunt for a living can be licensed to do so.” (Read more from WashingtonPost.com)

I have done a 180 on this issue from how I felt in my youth. Here’s how I feel now:

– Banning guns does not reduce crime. Crime goes UP when the law abiding citizen is disarmed.
– The Second amendment is not about hunting and it’s not about target shooting. It’s about giving the government good reason to leave the citizen alone.
– An armed man is a citizen. An unarmed man is a subject.
– A gun in the hand is better than a cop on the phone.
– Gun control is not about guns; it’s about control.
– Free men do not ask permission to bear arms.
– Those who trade liberty for security have neither.
– What part of “shall not be infringed” do you not understand?
– 64,999,987 firearms owners killed no one yesterday.
– Criminals love gun control; it makes their jobs safer.
– Only a government that is afraid of its citizens tries to control them.
– The American Revolution would never have happened with gun control.
(Read more on WhatReallyHappened.com)

“Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow for those who do not.” ~ Thomas Jefferson

Vince Foster

I’m putting this up in honor of our newly appointed secretary of state.

For more about Vince Foster’s death, click here.

Also, click here to learn about the SCORES of Clinton investigators, bodyguards, lovers, journalists, donors, partners, and associates who’ve committed suicide, died in small plane crashes, or under suspicious circumstances.

Peres: Obama told me he was ‘very impressed’ with Arab peace plan

“LONDON – U.S. President-elect Barack Obama proclaimed himself ‘very impressed’ with the Arab League’s peace plan when he discussed it with President Shimon Peres during a brief visit to Israel four months ago, Peres said Tuesday.

Peres, who had just arrived in London for an official visit, made the comment in interviews to be published in the British media. He was responding to questions about whether he thought Obama would advance the Middle East peace process in general and the Arab League’s plan in particular.

But he denied a Sunday Times report earlier this week which claimed that Obama had said Israel would be “crazy” to reject the Arab initiative.

On Monday, former American envoy to the Middle East Dennis Ross, who has been advising Obama on the subject, also denied reports that Obama had said while visiting Israel in July that he supported the Arab initiative and would base his own diplomatic policy on it.

The plan, originally proposed by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia in 2002 and later adopted by the Arab League, states that Israel would receive full relations with the entire Arab world in exchange for a full withdrawal from all the territory it captured in 1967, including East Jerusalem, plus a solution to the refugee problem. The Bush Administration has said it views the plan positively, but its own road map peace plan and the understandings reached at last year’s Annapolis summit have served as the basis of its diplomatic program.” (Read more from Haaretz.com)

I predict AIPAC will mobilize monstrous opposition to any hint of support for the Arab peace plan in our government or media. They will try to kill it the same way they killed Bush’s much more modest “Road Map.”

Russia touts itself as ‘anti-American’ world power

Russian warships were recently deployed to Venezuela to coincide with President Dmitry Medvedev’s visit to Caracas — the first ever by a Russian president. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Russia’s deployment of the naval squadron was “not a provocation,” but rather “an exchange between two free countries.”

Peter Brookes, a senior fellow for national security affairs at The Heritage Foundation, says Russia is signaling it has interests in Latin America.

“I think it’s to strategically distract the United States. I think it’s a bit of payback for American warships which went into the Black Sea — which Russia considers a Russian lake — during the Georgian crisis a few months ago,” he contends. “So I think that there’s a lot of symbolism here in terms of this ship visit. I think it also says that Russia sees itself as a world power; it’s not just a regional power.” (Read more from OneNewsNow.com)

There’s one word our war-mongering politicians, and their enablers in the press hate: BACKLASH.

Auto Industry Headlines & Excerpts

– GM’s new propaganda video “GM (GM) says we still don’t get it. If we don’t save them, they’re gonna nuke the economy to all hell. In case dire warnings of billions and billions in losses aren’t enough to freak you out, the company has posted a scare-video on YouTube, complete with ominous music and the kind of overwrought imagery you might got during a preview for 60 Minutes.”

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– Chrysler leaders get millions “As Detroit’s crumbling auto industry asks Congress for a bailout, Chrysler is in the awkward position of paying about $30 million in retention bonuses to keep top executives while the company cuts thousands of jobs. Chrysler owes the bonuses under its contracts with about 50 executives, based on a retention incentive plan crafted early last year by former German parent DaimlerChrysler, when it was preparing to sell the Chrysler unit.”

– What Toyota knows that GM doesn’t “Do you know how many hourly jobs GM has laid off from 2006 to July 2008? . . . . 34,000 . . . And now, they’re talking about another 5,500 . . . . they’re asking you and your government for a bailout to end their troubled, outdated, low quality, wasteful production system. . . . OK, here’s a better question. How many hourly jobs has Toyota’s American production system laid off in the same time frame? Zero. That’s right. ZERO. . . . Toyota has halted production at its Texas and Indiana plants for the past 3 months. But the 4,500 people who work at those plants have not been laid off. . . . Toyota has a special culture, deep-rooted values, and respect for their workforce. Toyota’s tradition is to NOT lay off employees during hard times. This tradition hasn’t really been put to the test until now. And Toyota has stuck to its guns and its values.”

– Auto Workers Union Rules Out Concessions To Help Detroit Bailout “With the House of Representatives pledging an aid package for the auto industry, the United Auto Workers (UWA) union fanned the flames a bit by refusing to grant any concessions in a bailout of the big 3 Detroit automakers. UAW president Ron Gettelfinger adamantly stated that the auto industry’s woes could be laid at the feet of the stumbling U.S. economy overall: The US United Auto Workers (UAW) union has ruled out concessions – at least for the time being – to help rescue the ailing Detroit-based car industry.”

– GM and Ford To Get Rid of Some Private Planes They Don’t Like Totally Need…Maybe “Even though GM CEO Rick Wagoner and Ford CEO Alan Mulally are required by their companies to fly by private aircraft for security reasons, they think they may be able to part with their private jets. Of course this has nothing to do with their recent excursion to Washington to beg for money. Wilkinson said the decision to return the leased corporate jets was made before this week’s hearings and that the company in September returned two other of the seven jets it had at the beginning of the year.”

– Video: Fords Super-Advanced new assembly plant (in Brazil)

– America’s Other Auto Industry “There is such a thing as a profitable car maker in this country. . . . These are the 12 ‘foreign,’ or so-called transplant, producers making cars across America’s South and Midwest. Toyota, BMW, Kia and others now make 54% of the cars Americans buy. The internationals also employ some 113,000 Americans, compared with 239,000 at U.S.-owned carmakers, and several times that number indirectly.”

– U.S. Auto Sales down 30-50% from last year “U.S. auto makers continued to post sharp sales declines in November as General Motors Corp. reported a 41% plunge and lowered its fourth-quarter production forecast, underscoring why the struggling auto maker and its Detroit rivals are seeking federal assistance to help them through the current environment. . . . The dour numbers, coming on the back of October’s moribund results, also saw Ford Motor Co. post a 31% decline and Toyota Motor Corp. report a 34% decrease. Chrysler LLC, a private company controlled by private-equity group Cerberus Capital Management LP, saw its sales skid 47%.”