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What about all of the handouts and endless gifts to the bottom many? :P
No more motherhood and apple pie for you!
That's right, the bailout was a waste at the end of the day.
Regards,
OW
That is NOT what happened in GM and C's case. The well-paid jobs led to the failure because the cost exceeded the return.
Let's not make it more complicated. If you are good and deserve the pay, you will find work...not being paid for not working as was the case for the UAW. :mad:
Remember a whole lot of people need to find new work as a result of the incompetent management and UAW at all 3 Detroit automakers over the last 40 years.
It's really a decline that will be marked as a black era in our industrial history. How the decline was not met with innovative change to ensure long term survival will be the next generations education.
Regards,
OW
You don't want to loose your job when GM looses more market share and tanks again because the disease is still alive and well, now, do you?
Regards,
OW
Regards,
OW
REALLY now!
I think the UP has gotten to your head!
That is NOT what happened in GM and C's case. The well-paid jobs led to the failure because the cost exceeded the return.
This isn't about GM. It's about the larger national picture of an America that's reduced to being a bunch of peasants and fast food workers. Incompetent or not, we can't just simply throw away entire sections of our infrastructure and heavy industries if we want to remain competitive in the future. Because once it's gone, it's not coming back.
Look, let's be clear here:
The multi-national corporations see the entire planet as their playing field, exactly the same as nations did 200 years ago. The U.S. is merely a piece in the puzzle and nothing more. If we aren't useful to them, they will whore us out to make a profit without any reservation. And giant corporations outside of the U.S. are more than happy to exploit us if they can.
Just like the major powers did to smaller nations that they forced to be their colonies.
The nations where their headquarters are nice. Take Japan. I love the people, the country, and all of that. But the mega-corporations that control most of it are as soulless, greedy, unethical, and corrupt as any of the enemies that we faced in the Cold War. They worship money and power, pure and simple. If we don't get our act together right now and start to protect ourselves and our industry, we'll simply turn into the world's biggest serfdom.
Well we threw out massive defense industries in SoCal in the Clinton years. And we have thrown out our space capability with the retirement of the shuttle. So it happens all the time. Why are autoworkers more special than everybody else? Because they're unionized?
The idea of the US having lower corporate taxes to match fantasylands like Ireland, Malaysia, Switzerland, etc is pretty much insane.
Then don't be surprised when the jobs continue to flow to more profitable locations.
TANSTAAFL!
The jobs can only be stolen (and it is in essence, theft) for so long. The pendulum, or blade, will swing back. Ignore it all you want.
Free lunch? We give it to false nations like Israel, maybe some pharma jobs have been moved there too.
Well compared to the rest of that neighborhood, I don't see Israeli citizens demonstrating in the streets. Perhaps they are a bit more evolved.
On topic, will GM's market share hold this year? Will be interesting to see. With Toyota's screwups and the earthquake, it looks like an opportunity!
The workers in my plants might have been former UAW if they still wanted to work, and there wouldn't be any legacy pension costs; so I think I could have afforded to keep advertising with Edmunds, while lowering the cost of GM's vehicles 15% or 20% across-the-board. In fact, if I had GM's plants, tooling, and designs with those cost cuts, and the corresponding drop in MSRP that I would implement, my GM's marketshare would go up, I'd be running the plants a full 3-shifts, and with the economies of scale, I would lower the prices again!
I could have no worse results than what GM's executives did starting from the days of 50% market-share, nor no worse for the city of Detroit.
So we have an economy with high real inflation - gas, food, health insurance, low pay increases, benefit cuts, increasing public sector layoffs and givebacks, double-dip real estate markets, Fed hurting savers by keeping interest rates lower, unsustainable Federal annual debt, and global economies in debt ... we are headed for quite the hang-over! QEII and the resultant stock market bubble is just 1 more type of drug. Probably within the next 18 months, the party is coming to an end. Is GM ready for the next financial bust? Do they have their financing lined up, so they're not crying "no one's giving loans right now." Poor DUMB, unprepared babies!
Not strike when the weather changes and make 3rd rate products....and then pay the high wages on top of that?
What a system....fail.
Regards,
OW
OK, so let's discuss whether the new GM is financially sound now?
OK.
“We believe investors had a positive perception of Liddell as C.F.O. and viewed him as a potential C.E.O. candidate in the coming years,” Adam Jonas, an automotive analyst with Morgan Stanley, wrote in a note to clients. “This move could also reignite concerns about potential instability in G.M.’s management ranks.”
Omen #1
More to come....
Regards,
OW
Here's a LONG list of Philadelphia employers that are long gone. Gee, I wonder why there is so much crime and poverty?
Budd
Botany 500
Baldwin Locomotive
Breyer's Ice Cream
Bill Blass
Fleer Gum
Philco
Dodge Steel
General Electric
Jack Frost Sugar
Whitman's Chocolate
Marcus-Pincus
Goldtex
Stetson Hat
Publicker Distillery
Schmidt's
Ortleib's
Esslinger
Gretz
New York Ship
Mrs. Paul's
Sears
Canada Dry
Heintz Corp.
Purex
Keebler
Bachmann Plastics
Quaker Lace
Flexible Flyer
Atwater-Kent
Exide Battery
And countless other textile, aparrel, and other manufacturers...
"The No. 1 title, a morale booster for the winner’s employees and managers, would cap GM’s remarkable comeback from bankruptcy."
Toyota’s troubles likely to make General Motors No. 1 again (Chicago Sun-Times)
GM was #1 in sales volume/market-share for the many years on its road to bankruptcy. So do you think being #1 is a good indicator of success?
Being #1 in sales meant they had a lot of retirees, a lot of factories, and a lot of current employees that in a downturn, are nooses around GM's neck! Having a lot of models and divisions can be another set of nooses, as each absorb resources to continually update and market the divisions and models.
GM needs a flexible workforce and work-rules. It needs reserves of cash and lines-of-credit. It needs to limit its models, making popular models and making lots of each. GM needs profits from those popular models. GM then needs to resist the pressure to payout those profits to its employees as excessive increased wages, benefits, and bonuses.
That 51st state evolved? Give me a break. They have nothing to demonstrate about - their entire being is funded by idiots in NA and Europe.
GM should have nowhere to go but up - the products are much improved and some of the competition is stagnant, but I wouldn't stake any of my money on the vision and drive of its executive sector.
Especially when the sales volumes are propped up by forcing them into inventory where nobody will notice that slow sellers are actually slower than what is being reported monthly...
"Channel Stuffing"
Between Feb. and March this year alone, the overstock has gone up 65 thousand cars, not a couple of dozen... 65 thousand :sick:
But Gov. motors would like you to believe they have hot selling product on their hands, like the Volt. Yup, sooooo many people waiting to get one, "can't build them fast enough"yet 370 of them go unsold on dealer lots...
More smoke being blown up our rears.
Seriously, who in their right mind would buy a GM car at any other time than after the new models come out? GM needs to cut back and stop selling to fleets and rental agencies entirely.
Tax havens are not secret - look them up! I gave 3 examples and I'm sure there are others.
My favorite ice cream by far! They still sell it. Where did they move to? I do think there quality and taste has slipped just a bit in recent years...., but still really good.
Since they didn't disappear, they must of just not liked your area!
Granted, the toyota came from a toyota dealer Hertz station. Have to say I didn't like the Toyota at all. Though it did ride nice and soft and comfy.
The mazda 3 was clearly the best car of this bunch, but even that car seemed tinny, thin, and of economical construction compared to my A3.
In that 5 year period, I generated $239 Billion of tax revenue for the local thru fed gov's.
In one year I lost $39 billion.
In losing that $39 billion, $19 billion in tax revenue was generated from just the loss.
I borrowed about 1/5 of the tax revenue I generated over that 5 year period, from the entity that I generated most of the tax revenue for.
I paid back some but still owe $9.1 billion in loans. (Less than half the $19 billion in taxes generated from my losses in one bad year.
Who am I?
My ex-wife? :P
But I think you're looking for the It's Time to Play "WHO AM I"? discussion.
In fact if we all equally got a loan for 1/5 of the taxes we paid and generated, and all our businesses we own or work for got that (that would be fair) ... then we could stop worrying about the bbt and deficits, and just declare "$ is worthless!". :P
Now if GM had saved some of their revenue, then 1 bad year would not be a problem. Why should we bailout any company that fails the basic operational criteria of retaining enough earnings in the good years, to see it through the historically, predictable periods of economic turmoil that occur. Just like most of our local and state governments that setup systems that used all the current resources, and made promises they can't afford. I hate this philosophy of - spend it now, and stick the people with the bill next year.
If GM wasn't exceptionally, fundamentally mismanaged, why didn't every other U.S. manufacturing company need a bailout? Was GE bailed out? Boeing? IBM? Dupont? Johnson & Johnson? Proctor & Gamble? HP? Microsoft? Ford?
Revenue doesn't mean a whole lot when from 2004 through 2008 GM had 72 billion in net losses. That's almost unbelievable considering how strong auto sales were through 2007.
I wonder how GM has lost the treasury with investment loss carry over from all of the investors who lost their [non-permissible content removed] with GM stock and bonds.
GE was sort of bailed out because I believe their finance arm (GE Capital) received TARP funds or some type of assistance.
Either way - long-term incompetence of spending too much, or the 1 bad year, they don't deserve to be in-business.
Maybe we need to set some national criteria of when a business becomes too-big-to-fail. Any company that is too-big-to-fail should be declared Too-Big-To-Exist, and have to be broken-up into smaller companies.
While I'm a libertarian by philosophy, I agree that a key role of the US Government should be to protect the health of the economy. And when companies get too big, they should be broken up. The big banks are even bigger now. They instead should have been bailed and then broken into a bunch of pieces each. With that we would have had lots more banks and not be right back into vulnerable territory like we are currently. And I'd say the same about GM - should have been broken up if we had to bail them out. ANY company that is important to get a government bailout - BAIL AND BREAK UP. My new platform when I run for prez. :shades:
And last I heard, Fannie and Freddie loaned out hundreds of billions to those of us who will not be paying it back because our houses didn't appreciate how we had hoped.
If you make it to 62, you will get soc sec. which is part of the taxes you have paid in. And it won't be a loan. You can keep it all. And your medicare benefit after 65 is not a loan either.
GM had $54 billion sitting in cash in 2006. In 2008 they lost $39 billion. So 1. They did have money put away. 2. They lost almost all of the $72 Billion in just a 2 year period. 3. They other companies would have got bailout money if it meant saving a lot of jobs. 4. GM took an extra hard hit because fuel more than doubled in price in a very short time. 5. The airlines were bailed out because they too took a hard hit from rising fuel prices. 6. GE and many other companies got bailout money. 7. GM is represented by 140 million vehicles out on the road. 8. Almost all of the $72 billion is losses were paid as excess wages and purchase costs for people and things. Those supplying people and entities paid taxes on that $72 billion. 9. Just those taxes alone are way more than the remaining GM loan balance. 10. Chrysler got a bailout and 11. Ford could of had a bailout if they wanted. and 12. Ford indirectly did get a bailout. Their suppliers were kept healthier and the interest rates they borrowed privately at have had downward pressure due to govermnent stimulus.
Regards,
OW
Amen. Boeing can just fall off of the cliffs of Mukilteo and the leaders of that monstrosity can have fun fighting bare-handed with the octopii on the bottom of Puget Sound for all I care. A person like myself busted my tail for 20 years for that place and a pink slip is their rebuttal.
Morons and crooks and thieves. Phoosh. There. I just blew exhaust from my 2008 Mitsubishi Lancer GTS in to all of their managers' (including lower, midlevel, upper-level and the glorified spunk-master, the CEO) faces. Down to the bottom of the Sound, you grivel-meisters.
This country is in way more hurt than any of us thinks. And for even more fun and fodder there's this late-breaking news. We're doomed.
Doomed! I think I'll move to Norway and pay 52% of my income to the Norwegian government so I can get free health care and get a free college education. Great idea, huh?
2021 Kia Soul LX 6-speed stick