By accessing this website, you acknowledge that Edmunds and its third party business partners may use cookies, pixels, and similar technologies to collect information about you and your interactions with the website as described in our
Privacy Statement, and you agree that your use of the website is subject to our
Visitor Agreement.
Comments
Just hang out in the Renaissance Center when you come - January and all.
Short memories in the media. Just sayin'
Oh, and Bloomberg is way off on CA real estate making a rebound. But that is another story.
Obama's auto czar says "If in the end taxpayers spend $10 billion on the auto rescues, it seems a small price to pay for averting a major economic calamity." Detroit News
No president can get any thing done with the current congress.. We need to clean house and Gage them on performance.. If they don't step up and do the job then can them and the next group and clean house again. How about you in your job if you didn't perform on the job how. long till the boss deals with you.? Stop thinking that the Republicans or the Demarcates have your best interest at hart. You are not the special intrest group that they work for. The sooner you come to terms with that the sooner we can all stop and work together and fixing the problems at hand.
I am so Proud to be an American but still mad as you know what about what they did to the USA. They didn't just drop the WTC and kill alot of people and distorted families Christian and Muslim.. ,They destroyed our economy and put a lot of us out of work. This country is to nice to terrorists they don't deserve the same rights that we have . They gave up rights when they infringed on your rights. Execute them as soon as you find them. Stop being so politically correct. Stop spending my money to feed and house them.
We did it right when we found Bin-laden. Treat the rest of them the same way and stop spending my money to incarcerate them.
I came to the USA when i was five , Mom and Dad made me speak English in the house so that they could learn from me.. Dad would say "You are in America be proud that they gave you the chance to earn the right to live in the USA and become a citizen as soon as you can". He would also say "Do'nt forget your upbringing and where you came from but look to the further and LOVE AMERICA FOR THE CHANCE SHE IS GIVING YOU". He would then tell others who put America down " IF YOU DO'NT LIKE HER THEN GET THE HECK OUT AND DO'NT COME BACK.
I Say stop being Politically correct. And start protecting my rights. Put the word GOD back in and if some one decides not to use the word that’s fine but its my right to have it in . Stop trying to change what has worked for so long for so many for so few. Its against my rights to take it away but its not against your right not to say it.
Just saying
The regional technical high school my town belongs to has many high tech careers in addition to their traditional trade programs. The world needs plenty of people willing to work with their hands but many parents won't allow their children to learn a trade because it's beneath them.
"Oh working with my hands is beneath somebody with a brilliant mind such as myself!" "Wow, I guess you can summarize Proust for me while you serve me a latte, Mr. Liberal Arts barista!"
If my kids are going to college, they're going to learn the hard sciences like medicine, computer science, or mechanical engineering. Don't waste your money or time on nonsense like Art History, Women's Studies, Modern Dance, or Ancient Babylonian Theatre.
Whoa. You may have your opinion, but there are other opinions. I suggest that you take a look at the mortgage giveaways starting in the Clintonista era with janet reno threatening the mortgage companies if they didn't give everyone a mortgage just for breathing, even if they didn't have a job above minimum wage that they were likely to have 30 years from then. And you can transfer the push right through Maxine Waters yelling when Bush tried to cut back on the mortgage giveawat from Freddy and Fannie (at our expense as taxpayers) in 2005/2006, Barney Frank, Dodd, etc.
>No president can get any thing done with the current congress
Again, obama wants to use more public money for public jobs that go to unions that will give him support, donations, and financial aid from the big wigs. Printing more money on top of the $1,000,000,000,000 already spent on a mostly public jobs stimulus bill will only worsen the position of the US dollar to other currencies. That's a factor in the pricing of oil for our markets because of the low dollar value. So let's just print a few hundred billion more dollars to spend and to use to buy our own debt to keep the interest rates artificially low? Congress (Senate dems wouldn't even pass stuff) keeps the sanity in this administration.
Obama had congress of democrats for 2 years. Look at what got rammer through. Democrats were in control Bush's last two years? Did they fix anything?
This discussion probably belongs in
Forget Bushisms, Biden Gaffes, We have Obama blunders
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
He may have counted those votes too soon. Looks like the reality is a much bigger loss with the bailouts. And the spinning continues on why we should have saved a few UAW jobs. Other than Democrat votes.
U.S. boosts estimate of auto bailout losses to $23.6B
http://www.detnews.com/article/20111114/AUTO01/111140434/1361/U.S.-boosts-estima- te-of-auto-bailout-losses-to-$23.6B
God forbid that I couldn't buy a Chevy Impala or Cadillac Escalade.
"Delphi emerged from a lengthy bankruptcy in 2009, but is drastically downsized from its status as one of the world’s largest automotive suppliers following its spin-off from former owner General Motors Corp. The company once made scores of different components, from complex to trivial, but product lines have been cut by nearly 75 percent and its previous North American orientation, reflected in its origins in GM’s in-house parts-making operations, has been reversed – now more than 90 percent of its workforce is located elsewhere and most of its North American product lines are served by production in Mexico."
Not positive but I think some of Delphi workers just got Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation benefits when the company went bankrupt, and Delphi wasn't in on the overall auto bailout.
Detroit Three Automakers To Hire Thousands In Coming Years (AutoObserver)
Since GM doesn't have to pay income tax for years, let Ford profit more, and the U.S. government will collect more in taxes, getting some of that bailout $ back.
That's my take as well. I traded my Sebring in for a Ranger and when it comes time to replace that, I'll be looking at another Ranger or the Explorer Sport Trac before anything else. My 08 Ranger with 52K miles has been flawless so far.
Kudos to Ford for not taking the bailout.
“I didn’t want there to be 21 percent unemployment,” Bush said in a speech yesterday to cap the annual National Automobile Dealers Association convention, attended by more than 20,000 people. “I didn’t want to gamble. I didn’t want history to look back and say, ‘Bush could have done something but chose not to do it.’ And so I said, ‘no depression.’”
Bush Tells Dealers He Avoided ‘Gamble’ in Bailing Out Automakers (Bloomberg)
Ford could have done the same thing using their private funding when they hocked the farm, and gained the benefit of being able to cancel and renegotiate union and dealer contracts. Might bite them in the long run.
I don't live in an auto state, but I always felt some of the Senators like Corker and Shelby were being a bit disingenuous in their vehement bailout opposition. First, it's easy to take an idealogical stand when you aren't ultimately responsible for the decision. But let's be realistic for a moment . Southern states are the primary location of the transplants thanks in at least some large part to the huge tax and financial incentives they provided. Yet these same politicians opposed government monies for D3. It's fine if Alabama or Tennessee government monies are used for transplants, but its not alright if anything is used for Detroit. Seems to me that D3 failures mean big transplants rewards, so the southern states would then reap a windfall. Just another sad example of Washington politicians focused on their narrow, parochial self interest rather than the overall good of the country.
Chrysler is hiring a number on new "American" employees after survival, but I agree with you HM, there will never be a definitive conclusion because all the political parties do is argue and manipulate.
I also find it hilarious when certain politicos who subsidize transplants to come to their states, transplants who themselves benefit from endless gifts given by their home countries and expect to compete here with complete access, then cry when we give similar aid to domestic industry. Like you say, domestic failure equals win for the competition who have been in a defacto manner bribed to locate to certain states.
In 2008 Ford mortgaged all assets to raise $23.4 billion cash in secured credit lines, in order to finance product development during restructuring through 2009. In December that same year they asked Washington for a $9 billion line of credit. (per Wiki and PBS).
Remember too that Cerberus Capital Management owned Chrysler at the time; I think they had plenty of money but didn't want to throw good money after bad. Bad being Nardelli imho. :shades:
I don't think Chrysler had the book value to do what Ford did; GM, maybe.
That pretty much describes my late Grandfather. He only had a 6th grade education, mainly because he had to drop out of school to help out the family on the farm. Probably couldn't name all 47 states, or however many there were back then. But, he knew farming and hunting inside and out. Could build a house, and probably fix anything in it that broke. He could also fix just about anything on a car, although once emission controls and computerization came out, he started giving up. Still, I remember him fixing something on my college buddy's 1980 Accord when it overheated.
If the world suddenly went to hell in a handbasket tomorrow, it would probably be people like my Granddad who would be the survivors, and build it back up. At that point, it wouldn't matter how intimate you were with calculus, or whether or not you could diagram a sentence, or knew Jonathan Livingstone Seagull backwards and forwards.
That would be about six weeks in 1912. Arizona became a state on JAnuary 6 and New Mexico followed on February 14.
I still remember as a kid when my grandmother passed on buying a 49 star flag because the 50 stars were coming a year later. Damn. I coulda had a 49 star flag!
Betcha every one of them had some government loan money floating around too.
I've only done about 42.
Unfortunately (for this topic), I hit most of them in a VW Bug or the Tercel. Nothing like cheap gas, tenting in gravel pits and "borrowing" bags of groceries out of Mom's cupboards to live on when you're twenty-something. :shades:
Ford received $5.9 billion under the program while Nissan North America was awarded $1.4 billion. Electric car start-up Tesla Motors received $465 million, while hybrid start-up Fisker Automotive got $529 million.
Chrysler originally had sought as much as $7 billion in loans under the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing loan program, according to Automotive News. It subsequently lowered that request to less than $3.5 billion."
Chrysler Withdraws Application for U.S. Department of Energy Loans (Inside Line)
Alaska
Hawaii
Oregon
North Dakota
Rhode Island
Massachussetts
Vermont
New Hampshire
Maine
So, I'm at 41 out of 50.
Let's see, I'm missing North Dakota (south is really nice in the west and very dull in the east), Kansas, Missouri (except KC airport), Colorado (Denver airport), Oklahoma and Hawaii (Honolulu airport).
There's several states where my presence was of short duration but at least I drove through a piece....
Hm, there might be an ice road....
We always wanted to drive the Alcan to Alaska...
Isn't if fun what we get to do since the government didn't let the Detroit 3 fail?
Three years after the U.S. auto industry nearly collapsed, sales of cars and trucks are surging. Sales could exceed 14 million this year, above last year's 12.8 million."
Detroit automakers race to keep up with sales (detroitnews.com)
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-job-quality-is-in-trouble-2012-02-27?link=MW- _home_latest_news
Throw in that we're supporting the economy with payroll tax cuts and extended unemployment benefits that add to the careening federal debt, and I don't see many facts supporting that sort of optimism.
That is best case. Worst case is a great natural disaster hits - like a BIG earthquake in CA, or N. Korea or Israel or Iran get itchy trigger fingers.
"The idea that a U.S. style bailout is in the cards doesn't impress Flanders Automotive Research's Heylen. He thinks the European authorities don't see the need for financial assistance to reform the car industry, unlike banks, which needed help to stop a contagious collapse which would undermine economies. A car manufacturer failure would be a plus, not a negative.
vs
"Look at the financial straits that GM was in or Chrysler in particular. It looked like sending good money after bad at first, but look at them today. There seemed to be no chance that Chrysler could be saved with all the money in the world, but it has been turned around in the most remarkable way and is now bailing out Fiat. Any European politicians looking at this would be fools to not to follow the same example," Schmidt said.
Chaotic European market spurs Opel-Peugeot merger talk (Detroit News)