Breaking News: US Government to own 60% of GM, Canada 12%. Details inside.

reply to post by David9176




I know exactly how you feel. That was a crazy movie.

What is crazier is that I can actually see the world being like that in about a century.

reply to post by David9176


"Go Away, Batin!!!!"

America is going to be so much better off now that the government has Put so much more coin into GM..

What in the hell is Obama thinking?
GM went bust because they failed to move with the times..

Talk about flogging a dead horse..

reply to post by Hastobemoretolife


It's those same shareholders that kept poor management running the company into the ground. I don't really feel too sorry for them. However, I agree with other posters. Bailouts with taxpayers funds is soo contrary to a free market system it's difficult to say we actually ever had one. Companies that took on too much risk and go belly up deserve what they get. The economy gets hurt, shareholders, average Dick & Jane's. But the problem is over, a better company usually steps in and buys up the good assets and the "Toxic Assets" are erased as a loss to those who invested in said company.

All these bailouts are doing is putting a bandaid on a slashed open jugular. The bandaid isn't slowing the bleeding very much and soon there won't be any blood left in the body. Gross I know, but you get my point.

Deez

Originally posted by GreenBicMan
reply to post by BRQuick

 

Gamecocks fan?

LOL

Hawkeyes fan here.. loved the game at raymond james new years day this year LOL!!!

LETS GO HAWKS!!!

Were you there too?

Actually USC fans were pretty cool IMO..

Nah...I watched that atrocity of a game on TV. If we'd had a QB that actually knew what was going on....well...

At any rate, I did enjoy watching Carolina beat OSU 2 years in a row at Raymond James. Those were the good ole days...

And they are going to pay with pennies from Heaven or buttons from hell?

Oh forgot Nixon gave the US permission to fire up the ink jet printer if they need some extra cash when he abolished the gold standard.

Why the heck is our governments buying part of an auto maker. Very strange, I see Canada is in there as well. Talk about put North America over a barrel. You buy us, or we go out of business after us wasting money.

It just seems that the cars they offer is not in step with the needs of all Americans, and focused on a model where if you want accessories and stuff it is costly. Maybe now we can get a nice simple car with most of the accessories, hell if it was cheap enough, it could all be one of 4 colors like the Lada.

Well- there's your 'end of the month' disclosure. You wanted UFOs- you ended up with GM (Government Morons- whoops- Motors). Kinda just sucks, don't it?

Great. Let the socialism begin.

This is an affront to capitalism and the American way. Chrysler: epic fail. GM: epic fail. They should be allowed to collapse, making way for newer, more vigorous companies who can actually survive and thrive and roll with the changes. The big three have been dying dinosaurs for decades now, too much taxpayer money thrown at them to keep them on life support. Now the government is gonna buy them, and even the canucks get a piece.

We all know that nationalization of just about any industry leads to no good.

Why can't America start practicing proper capitalism as it was meant to be practiced?

Being a working and taxpaying American, having ownership in GM I want my company car.

I'm thinking midnight blue.

How about you?

Originally posted by Ferris.Bueller.II
Barry wants Government Motors to fail, along with Chrysler.

Hi Ferris,

Not so sure that they do as these people paid them a great deal of money so far to keep them in business. Chrysler went out of business mostly because of 'free trade' in as much as overseas workers get paid quite a bit less with much less in the way of benefits. Chrysler and others will be allowed to fail because it is in the interest of corporate global capitalism.

That'd mean more people out of work, more demand for all of his social programs, and more dependence on the government.

The US government keeps slashing social programs and benefits overall so how you can come to this conclusion i just don't know. Capitalism HATES welfare as that means there is less and less money to get funneled directly into corporate tax subsidies; why make a car you can make a profit on when you can just get it directly in tax reductions?

The only reason he 'invested' so much of the taxpayer's money into GM is to funnel it and a lot more to his supporters in the UAW, ACORN, and other organizations he's

The reason the US state will invest in GM is because it needs it and it's sales figures and profit margins could be relatively easily fixed provided that the state lends it the same protection as Japanese, Korean, European and other industrialized states gives( or are allowed at least) there's.

What do you mean 'funnel' money to the United Auto workers? What do you think happened to the 100 billion dollar pension fund GM had? You think those benefits will be paid out? How is workers going to benefit from this beside possibly getting their jobs back? Will they be getting the same benefits?

I think not. Obama is NOT saving the American car industry as much as he isn't allowing it to fail completely thus creating a further job loss cascade.

depending on to power his coup to become 'President For Life', his prime goal in all this federalization of private industry and banking.

Yes, and his a Venus from alien in a black body suit.

Sad stuff.

Stellar

Originally posted by Soldat401
It's easy to blame the unions, and they certainly did play a part in this, but the big picture is that GM hasn't produced a car worth buying in a long time.

Hi soldat,

December deliveries up 30 percent compared with October and up 43 percent compared with November
Market share in December expected around 24 percent, up about 4 ppts compared with November, reflecting renewed APR rate support through GMAC
Second half 2008 share up nearly 2 ppts compared with first half
2008 market share position anticipated to hold steady at just above 22 percent

DETROIT - General Motors dealers in the United States delivered 221,983 vehicles in December, down 31 percent compared with a year ago. However, total deliveries were 67,000 vehicles more than November's result, up more than 43 percent month over month. GM December car sales of 87,506 were off 25 percent and truck sales of 134,477 were down 35 percent compared with a year ago.

For the year, GM delivered 2,980,688 vehicles while maintaining an expected market share just above 22 percent. Annual deliveries were down 23 percent compared with 2007, largely due to building weakness in the marketplace throughout the year spurred by economic headwinds such as the dramatic reduction in credit availability experienced in the fourth quarter, coupled with historically low levels of consumer confidence. Additionally, the American Axle strike and several supply disruptions impacted GM's performance in the first half of the year.

media.gm.com...://image.emerald.gm.com/gmnews/viewpressreldetail.do?domain=2&docid=51161

So people are buying trucks and cars by the hundreds of thousands, please don't pretend otherwise.

Foreign auto companies have consistently outclassed GM in almost all areas.

Based on what? Lower benefits and pay coupled with massive trade barriers that prevents Us car makers entry into their markets? What is classy about paying less and erecting trade barriers?

The saying "They don't make em' like they used to" could easily be GM's slogan.

Sure and yet people keep right on buying their products..

I think people are buying into the propaganda that the business models of American auto makers were complete broken. That is NOT true but what can you do when your workers were good enough to reward with higher pay and benefits, well they fougth for it for decades, only for a certain government to decide to bail out banks to the tune of trillions of dollars while giving only a few billion where real good paying jobs are at stake?

Obama isn't protecting the American worker but he sure does his best to pretend that corporate capitalism cares to do such things.

Stellar

Originally posted by Skadi_the_Evil_Elf
Great. Let the socialism begin.

Hi skadi,

Only this isn't socialism. How is destroying all the rights worked fought and earned over the decades 'socialism'? How is letting the company fold 'socialism' when it isn't even nationalization? This is naked dog eat dog capitalism as is often the case with dealings with the working classes.

This is an affront to capitalism and the American way. Chrysler: epic fail. GM: epic fail. They should be allowed to collapse, making way for newer, more vigorous companies who can actually survive and thrive and roll with the changes.

And who would start those new companies in these market conditions? You think such new companies would have any chance against the remaining FORD and the host of European and Asian car manufacturers? Toyota anyone? Who's going to be able to survive? What will happen here is that the market share of American car manufactures will severely decline and keep right on doing so as it's competitors slash prices even further to make foreign competition even more impossible.

The big three have been dying dinosaurs for decades now, too much taxpayer money thrown at them to keep them on life support.

Yes, there have been problems but not always of their own making given the protectionist policies of other nations, including the US government, and car manufactures. Do you know that the Japanese government raises a 100% tax on Fords thus making them a high end luxury item in the Japanese market? What would Ford Market share be like if they were allowed fair entry into the rather large Japanese auto market?

Now the government is gonna buy them, and even the canucks get a piece.

Well if they can give the banks money without even bothering to count it or see where it's going why not bail out the auto makers ( or at least nationalize them by paying off the current shareholders) and keep the jobs as well as the market shares? Hell why not take a few hundred billion dollars from the pentagon budget and fund new all electric/hybrid production lines and save a million jobs as well as the environment?

Non of that will happen because the idea is to undermine the American worker to the best of the ability while cutting benefits as well ensuring that there wont be much of a safety net for when workers can't find the impossible to find new jobs.

We all know that nationalization of just about any industry leads to no good.

No we don't as it's a bald faced lie spread by the very companies who take over privatized state companies ( that were working very well and generating good profits, or at least ensuring good consumer class creating jobs) so they can suck them dry of all assets before claiming that the state sold them a non competitive business. Then the state nationalizes the asset stripped company and over the course of 5-10 year rebuilds it, with our money, until it reaches the point where the same old capitalist will sense blood in the water and again start campaignin for privitization and the asset stripping that will make billionairs at our cost.

On other topic what is the point of voting for a central government that doesn't have control over anything? I mean if the companies are all in private hands ( roads, airports, ports etc) are we gaining any power? Private ownership over national assets and resources ( water, underground resources, roads and communication infrastructure) is what destroys democracy far faster than socialism or communism could.

Why can't America start practicing proper capitalism as it was meant to be practiced?

Well i think you will have to tell me what you mean with proper capitalism as the ideals you will probably present are based on a idealised world of 'local markets' where consumers actually have signifcant bargaining power.

I am also unhappy with Obama's ( well it's not REALLY his ) decision but for the fundamentally different reason that he is ramping up the war against American workers while promising three million jobs over 'the next few years'. Perhaps he should tell us what sort of jobs he has in mind now that he seems as hell bent as previous adminstrations on destroying some of the very best jobs left in the US?

Stellar

I don't know whats more exciting! That the OP claims that I will have a part ownership in 60% of GM or that I will have a part ownership in 12% of Canada! SWEET, I always have wanted to own a time share in a Country!




I thought it was supposed to be 70% in GM though. Not sure what the Twitter deal is. Kinda cryptic if you ask me. Very interesting news. It could be some news about Korea, but hindsight now, being the 1st and news breaking of NK's possible attack on Alaska. HRMM. Why would they attack 'ALASKA'. IF they went Nuke on it, they would kill A LOT of Tundra and TICK of America's Enviro-Terrorists! GO NK!

reply to post by DEEZNUTZ


That is the risk you take investing in the market. But yea they deserve to fail no bailouts you run the company in the ground then you have to pay the piper.

I think the only reason Obama is bailing out GM is for the Unions, how the hell the Unions get a part of GM is beyond me. If I was the bankruptcy judge I wouldn't approve the bankruptcy, if that means they have to re-file as in Chap 7 then so be it.

But nothing good is going to come from this.

reply to post by arcnaver



It started out with that twitter update, but I updated the bottom of the post, and the topic to reflect that this is a thread about the GM Bankruptcy. For some reason this information was embargoed until 10PM last night. Maybe so the local 10PM news outfits wouldn't get beat to the punch, who knows.

Anyway, if you had read my entire post, you'd know that.

Edit: Can a mod edit my OP and bold the update so that it is more apparent to newcomers? Thanks.


[edit on 1-6-2009 by Soldat401]

reply to post by Soldat401


Yes, I was just teasing. The title immediately made me think what I wrote about owning part of Canada and thought it was funny.

Interesting info none-the less. Putting an embargo on information.

Originally posted by HooHaa
reply to post by Dark Jester

 

I hate how the media portrays the UAW. Claiming we make 78 dollars an hour! Get a grip.

my brother in law worked at a plant outside detroit. he made 80K a year to make hummer parts. when he was laid off he couldn't find a job because he didn't know how to do anything at all! no education and is now sitting around sucking up money from the government crying about "america". it makes me sick!!

The President is going to speak about the GM bankruptcy and government ownership of GM at 11:55 eastern time.

This is all really looking like some Orwellian fantasy but it is real.

What strange times we are now living in.

Death of capitalism seems certain soon, most Americans have no idea what this will ultimately mean for them.

Does anyone else find it hilarious that on the day that the dinosaur that is GM files bankruptcy, another company will be opening a new plant in Ohio to begin creating what could become the engines of the future?

www.abovetopsecret.com...

There is still plenty of innovation in the American auto industry out there, it just is not at GM.