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Dear Mr. Berko:

Dear C.L.:

Edward Whitacre, the yokel-voiced Car Czar at General Motors Co., is a pseudologist and a mythologist, and I wouldn’t trust this disingenuous dissembler to put fuel in my new Buick, which years ago was an acronym for Built Under the Influence of Captain Kangaroo.

General Motors has not repaid all of our money that it usurped from the government. Whitacre’s boast that GM has repaid the taxpayer bailout in full because we are buying more Buicks, Chevys, etc., is – putting it mildly – a giant thumb-sucking lie. And sadly, the Treasury Department is actively participating in this lie.

General Motors took $6.7 billion from a special TARP fund escrow account to pay back that loan. And those puffed-chest TV advertisements heralding the partnership between GM and Treasury indicate how far the department will go to perpetuate the lie. There is no mention of the government’s $2.2 billion investment in GM preferred stock, plus its 61 percent investment in GM’s common equity.

It’s apparent that those who seek full financial disclosure are terribly outnumbered by those who are intent on obscuring full financial disclosure. Just more of Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch and JPMorgan over and over and over again.

And never in a hundred, never in a thousand and never in a million years would I purchase the new shares of GM if it goes public in the summer of 2011. I don’t trust “Whitey” Whitacre, who comfortably indulges in a leadership of lies, setting a precedent for other GM executives. If lying comes so easily to management, then purchasing shares of GM makes about as much sense as buying mortgage-backed securities from Goldman “Sucks.”

It’s also important to know, when GM goes public, that the government’s huge overhang of stock (just like Citigroup) will continue to depress the share price. What is it that many folks say about car salesmen? Well, Whitey doesn’t fall far from the tree.

Mobile TeleSystems OJSC (MBT-$18.97) is a $10 billion revenue mobile cellular communications company that services Russia, Ukraine, Armenia, Uzbekistan, Belarus and Turkmenistan. MBT also designs, builds and installs voice and data networks, including Internet availability, plus numerous value-added services common to AT&T, Verizon and Sprint. It has a strategic partnership with Vodafone, and as of year-end 2009, MBT had 96.4 million subscribers.

This hugely profitable company may be Russia’s most transparent public corporation, and analysts who follow MBT are comfortable suggesting revenue growth of 26 percent in 2010, 11 percent in 2011 and 11 percent in 2012. MBT is wisely managed; note its 10.3 percent net profit margins, 27 percent return on equity and more than $3 in cash per share.

The risk of ownership is mostly political (Vladimir Putin may decide to give the company to his mistress or the KGB). Still, long-term growth prospects are attractive. For 2011, the Street believes MBT could realize $12.8 billion in revenues, with a similar percentage increase in per-share income. I am comfortable owning the stock.

Please address your financial questions to Malcolm Berko, P.O. Box 1416, Boca Raton, Fla. 33429 or e-mail him at malber@adelphia.net. ©2010 Creators.com