Archive for January, 2009

By now it seem we’ve all grown tired of what I like to call “bailoutmania”.  I mean, who isn’t getting a bailout at this point?  It’s starting to look like none of us should have been responsible with our money, but instead lived outside of our means so that Uncle Sam could send us some phony money.  But here’s the kicker – the government is throwing tens of billions at the “Big 3″ domestic auto makers (GM, Ford, and Chrysler), even though these companies have MILLIONS in unclaimed money already owed to them, but they’ve been too lazy to claim it!

That’s right, one unclaimed money expert has discovered that each of the big three automakers has millions in forgotten assets that are just waiting to be claimed:

However, it seems that the big three auto makers did not account for other streams of cash. Edward Palonek founder of an Internet searchable database for unclaimed money reports that the big three have millions of dollars sitting and collecting dust. He goes on to say, “That the problem of auto makers not collecting money extends to almost all foreign car makers, such as, Toyota and Honda.”

So these missing monies may extend beyond the U.S. automakers in Detroit, but at the moment we have the exact numbers, thanks to that article. According to the article, more than $2.2 million is owed to the Ford Motor Company, and is spread across 1,300 records. GM (General Motor Company), on the other hand, has an estimated $3.4 million across more than 1,500 unclaimed funds records. At the same time, Chrysler turned up nearly 1,200 unclaimed asset listings totaling in excess of 1.6 million dollars!

Maybe it’s just me, but it seems like these manufacturers ought to scrape together their own missing money before they put their hands out for billions of our tax dollars, like some common beggar! At the same time, do we really think companies that can let millions of dollars simply go missing are responsible enough to handle billions of OUR dollars to reorganize? If they aren’t smart enough to keep tighter books, why should we trust them with our money, instead of telling them to file bankruptcy like we would have to if we’d been so reckless?

Well, nothing is going to slow down the Bailoutmania Express, so I might as well stop whining… But I will encourage all of those workers who’ve lost their jobs with one of those 3 automakers to do their own unclaimed funds search, given that experts estimate that 7 in 10 Americans are due some type of claim. When times are tough, the only thing better than earned money is found money.

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