GM crash survivor exonerated
Is there a "smoking gun" in the GM scandal?
GM CEO addresses deadly crash that left the survivor in serious legal trouble
For ten years, Candice Anderson believed she killed her boyfriend when she crashed her car into a tree. She did not deny that she had taken an unprescribed Xanax pill the night before, but maintains she was not intoxicated. People in her town called her a murderer and she pleaded guilty to criminally negligent homicide. This year, GM recalled her car for a defective ignition switch – one of millions of GM cars recalled for the defect. Regulators count her boyfriend's death among those caused by the defective switches. To this day, in the eyes of the law, Candice still has that felony on her record. Poppy Harlow first brought you Candice's story on AC360. She just sat down with GM CEO Mary Barra and asked if she believes Candice should be pardoned?
You can watch more of Poppy's interview with Marry Barra on CNNMoney
For a decade, she thought the crash that killed her boyfriend was her fault. Now regulators say a faulty GM ignition switch may be to blame.
So far, hundreds of people have put in death and injury claims against G-M.
Today the lawyer hired to manage the company’s compensation fund tied more deaths to the defect and said he expects the number to rise.
One of the 19 people killed was Mikale Erickson. His girlfriend, Candice Anderson, was behind the wheel when they crashed in 2004. Mikale died and Candice was seriously injured. The police report says neither was wearing a seat belt and the car's airbags did not deploy.
It was found that Candice had taken unprescribed Xanax the night before the crash, and she was prosecuted for homicide. She later pleaded guilty to felony negligent homicide and was sentenced to five years probation and fined.
You can watch Poppy Harlow's report, and find out much more about this case at CNNMoney
Financial Dispatch: $1.2 trillion down the drain
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Andrew Torgan
CNN Financial News Producer
As the health care debate rages among lawmakers, in town hall meetings across the country and on every broadcast and cable network, CNNMoney.com has drilled down into a report that found more than half of the $2.2 trillion the United States spends on health care each year is a waste of money.
According to the most recent data from accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers' Health Research Institute, there are 16 different areas in which health care dollars are squandered.
But in talking to doctors, nurses, hospital groups and patient advocacy groups, six areas totaling nearly $500 billion stood out as issues to be dealt with in the health care reform debate, including unnecessary tests, inefficient claims processing and medical errors.
Financial dispatch: Chrysler turns the key
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Andrew Torgan
CNN Financial News Producer
Seven weeks after going bankrupt, Chrysler will soon be making cars again - and the first models off the line could cost more than $90,000.
The newly-formed Chrysler Group announced yesterday that it’s restarting one factory - the Conner Avenue Assembly Plant in Detroit - which employs 115 people.
That’s the plant that makes the Dodge Viper sports car. The Viper has a 600 horsepower V-10 engine and a manufacturer’s suggested retail price tag that starts at $91,220. Only 25,000 Vipers have been sold since the car debuted in 1992.
One interesting note: The old Chrysler sought out Italy’s Fiat as a partner for its fuel-efficient technology. But the first car expected off the line from the new Chrysler – the Viper – gets an estimated 13 mpg in city driving.
GM finds buyer for Saab
Bankrupt automaker General Motors has reached a preliminary agreement to sell its money-losing Saab unit to Swedish sportscar maker Koenigsegg.
The deal would see Saab, which was put up for sale earlier this year, emerge from two decades under the umbrella of GM.
GM lawsuits thrown out?
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Editor's Note: Tune in tonight for an exclusive story on Amanda Dinnigan's case against GM on AC360° at 10 p.m. ET.
Robert Dinnigan is worried what will happen to his daughter Amanda if GM goes bankrupt this week.
Not because he works there – but because he's suing them.
He and hundreds of others who've taken GM and Chrysler to court for injuries they blame on defects are worried they'll end up with nothing to pay their loved one's medical bills if the companies go belly up.
Many are debating settling their case for far less than they'd get in court.
In Dinnigan's case, he says a faulty seatbelt in a GMC Envoy failed to protect 8-year-old Amanda, who's now a quadriplegic.
He estimates her health care costs to be $500,000 a year.
"It's a very big concern right now," said Dinnigan, 47, an ironworker in Local 361, who has assembled a mini-intensive care unit in his Smithtown, L.I., home for Amanda.
Their lawsuit is still in the early stages and because he'd be considered an unsecured creditor, he'd go to the very bottom of the list of claimants against GM in bankruptcy court. And even if there is a settlement or verdict in the Dinnigans' favor, they might collect only pennies on the dollar.
Goodbye, GM
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Michael Moore
For RealClearPolitics.com
I write this on the morning of the end of the once-mighty General Motors. By high noon, the President of the United States will have made it official: General Motors, as we know it, has been totaled.
As I sit here in GM's birthplace, Flint, Michigan, I am surrounded by friends and family who are filled with anxiety about what will happen to them and to the town. Forty percent of the homes and businesses in the city have been abandoned. Imagine what it would be like if you lived in a city where almost every other house is empty. What would be your state of mind?
It is with sad irony that the company which invented "planned obsolescence" - the decision to build cars that would fall apart after a few years so that the customer would then have to buy a new one - has now made itself obsolete. It refused to build automobiles that the public wanted, cars that got great gas mileage, were as safe as they could be, and were exceedingly comfortable to drive. Oh - and that wouldn't start falling apart after two years. GM stubbornly fought environmental and safety regulations. Its executives arrogantly ignored the "inferior" Japanese and German cars, cars which would become the gold standard for automobile buyers. And it was hell-bent on punishing its unionized workforce, lopping off thousands of workers for no good reason other than to "improve" the short-term bottom line of the corporation. Beginning in the 1980s, when GM was posting record profits, it moved countless jobs to Mexico and elsewhere, thus destroying the lives of tens of thousands of hard-working Americans. The glaring stupidity of this policy was that, when they eliminated the income of so many middle class families, who did they think was going to be able to afford to buy their cars? History will record this blunder in the same way it now writes about the French building the Maginot Line or how the Romans cluelessly poisoned their own water system with lethal lead in its pipes.
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