Word: key
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...these hopes float on the audacity of deficit spending. By the time taxpayers are done cleaning up the books of the two companies and refilling their tanks with enough cash to keep them going - along with their finance arm, GMAC, and their key suppliers - the public price tag will exceed $100 billion. Add billions more in subsidies for researching and developing green technology and still more billions in tax credits to motivate buyers to go green. If someday GM and Chrysler become consistently profitable, the government loans will be repaid and both companies restored to total private control. The operative...
...When those givebacks are added to an earlier surrender of the notorious "jobs bank" - which paid laid-off autoworkers for doing nothing - clearly the UAW's once heavenly bed has lost much of its fluff. What remains is the VEBA, the multibillion-dollar trust fund designed to protect a key element of the membership's fabled retirement benefits - which the union refers to as deferred wages. As in the Chrysler deal, the UAW agreed to trade a chunk of the cash GM owed the VEBA for 17.5% equity in the company and other considerations. (Read about Detroit's efforts...
...Participants said talks were tense and frustrating. While Germany was represented by Merkel and two key ministers, Washington sent a midlevel Treasury official who was unable to make any definitive decisions. Several times during the meeting, the U.S. negotiator broke off talks to consult with his superiors by telephone back in Washington. "The meeting ended in a disaster because of the obstructive behavior of GM and the U.S. [Department of the Treasury]," said one German attendee...
...Knowing that Merkel is under pressure because she has made saving Opel a key campaign issue, GM could be using the threat of insolvency to pressure Berlin into providing more aid. Merkel and her political rivals, the Social Democrats, have come too far down this road to back out now, some German commentators have suggested, exposing the government to high-pressure tactics from...
...approach has been welcomed in China. "At the beginning, I was surprised," says Zhu Feng, a international studies professor at Peking University. "She is a big mouth and a very harsh critic of Chinese human rights and Tibetan issues." Zhu believes that the environment will be a key issue in the future of Sino-U.S. relations and that Pelosi is smart to embrace it. Her approach follows the tack taken by Hillary Clinton in February during her first visit to China as U.S. Secretary of State. Clinton, who has also been critical of China's human-rights record, said...