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

About time. GM was not able or willing to change course to build cars suited to new market and economic conditions.

I also was reminded that GM was the originator of "planned obsolescence", an purely American concept that history will condemn America for as the start and end of our consumerist kulture.

Note: while Japan and Europe were building more reliable, longer lasting, better mileage cars, GM was burning its own house down with planned obsolescence. Now GM is a failed company. What do you expect?

Originally posted by David9176
Ever seen the movie Idiocrasy?

Yeah, after watching last night's MTV awards (nothing else was on), I feel like that's almost exactly where we are. The next step is the "ow my balls" show, lol.

On topic, didn't GM take several BILLION dollars in tax payer money to avoid bankruptcy??? It didn't even carry them a couple months?? I can't even get angry anymore, my anger juices have been severely depleted since the beginning of this year, I just feel numb now. Do you suppose that's the plan? Keep spitting in our faces until we're used to it?

Originally posted by hallucinogen
I would guess that it is possibly something on the expected bankruptcy of GM that will be announced tomorrow.

Unless something drastic has happened in regards to NK that we don't know about yet.

[edit on 31-5-2009 by hallucinogen]

Breaking news to them isn't really that fantastic of news to us on ATS who have read some pretty interesting things......

It may be something small though which to the general public would seem "breaking" but I think we may be disappointed.

Originally posted by GreenBicMan
reply to post by Gyrochiral

 

Yes, you and many others are sitting with their "trigger finger" on buy/short lol

Still as of right now.. nothing is up

Isn't Embargo just another word for control? They do what they do best......They cause the situation so they can control it.....They caused this mess and they now will control GM and all the news related to it since they control the News also........

Don't buy into them using other words. Control is control...

Sry for the rant and it is not meant at you Gyro.............

My gut feeling is telling me this new administration along with the old one are trying to drive the whole country in bankruptcy ....

why the hell do we need to give GM 30 more billion dollars ???? i really would love to know the benefit from that....

isn't 11.4 trillion dollars enough debt for us ????

36.5 thousand dollars for each American citizen ????

If they keep buying out all companies that go bankrupt THE AMERICAN PEOPLE WILL GO BANKRUPT

posted in wrong thread...Doh

deleted

[edit on 1-6-2009 by David9176]

I shake my head back and forth trying to figure out why we've nationalized the auto industry. Was this a thumb our nose reaction to rising fuel costs? Was it to upstage Chevaz in nationalizing private industry.

Only thing that makes since to me is the DoD didn't want any foreign country owning the Hummer.

Why didn't we just let them fail like any other business? If they don't build a product the consumers want, buh bye. If they get run out by the unions, well, buh bye.

Why are we bailing out private businesses? Why are we nationalizing things that are failing?

Let it fall, let it correct itself and get government the heck out of it. Why is no one frightened by the control that the federal government is taking on EVERYTHING

as i said in a previous post where the %&*% is my bailout for $5000!!! i want it damnit!! not asking for billions just a few 1000
%&%* you govt- steal my money to give to people who sqaunder it and reward their executives with huge bonuses that i guess they deserve because they ran their business into the ground.
love to be a fly on the wall at a meeting-"hey thanks for coming today. we ran our business into the ground but the gov't has decided that the american people should pay for us to keep up our lifestyle. here is your bonus check. cheers!! oh and btw this is extremely expensive champagne so drink as much as you can and go home to your butler and posh house- see you tomorrow."
thanks to the sheeple- we love you so much

GM being pushed into bankruptcy is not the REAL story. It is the move to weaken the US economy further, just at a time when it needs to be strengthened, that is the real story. There were many other alternatives that could have been taken by the government.

Tax credits and/or incentives to buyers of US cars would have been a better way to "fund" the auto industry,( See USA TODAY story 3/18/2009 www.usatoday.com... ).


That is just one way, which other countries have used successfully, to deal with this current economic crisis. So why was this path chosen? May I submit to you one possible reason:

Last fall Berkshire Hathaway bought 10% of BYD for $230 million. The deal, which is awaiting final approval from the Chinese government, didn't get much notice at the time. It was announced in late September, as the global financial markets teetered on the abyss. But Buffett and Munger and Sokol think it is a very big deal indeed. They think BYD has a shot at becoming the world's largest automaker, primarily by selling electric cars, as well as a leader in the fast-growing solar power industry.

( the 4/13/2009 article from CNN MONEY is here:
money.cnn.com...
)

GM's new Volt model would be competition to the BYD electric car and a possible loss of ol' Warrens investment,( question how much GM stock did Berkshire Hathaway have? answer - NONE - see for yourself -
seekingalpha.com... ). Remember that Warren Buffet has been an economic advisor to candidate Obama before he came to office. Maybe he advised a course of action that would make his $230 million investment pay him a better return?

Now this is not new to US politics. Remember when the US was the leading maker of television sets? No? Well check out the summary / script from this PBS Frontline show:

ftp.monash.edu.au...

President Nixon's administration bent over backwards to let Japan become the leading TV maker. And as I recall Japan later went on to have the top ten banks in the world... for a time - but look at Japan now.

My point is the leadership in power today is acting much the same as they did in Nixon's time. Bargains are being made in face-to-face meetings that we will not learn about for years - if ever. They result in benefits for the parties involved or the parties the negotiators represent. The public's interests are not considered, except where they may be a possible impediment to the success of the plan.

Here is another example and an automotive one too. I was watching the "merger" stories that came out before the Daimler Benz and Chrysler deal was done. As I recall it went on and on.,( you can read up on it here:
www.allpar.com... )

At about that same time I received my first list of attendees to a meeting that was held under "Chatham House Rules". And on that list was the name
Jürgen E. Schrempp, which I recognized as being interviewed about his company Daimler-Benz looking to merge / buy Chrysler. But the name of the head of Chrysler at the time, Robert Eaton, was not on the list.

So I thought well, let's see if there is anything to the rumored influence that this group has - if the deal ends up with Eaton and Chrysler on top, than this group should not be taken too seriously. But if it goes the other way with Schrempp and Daimler-Benz coming out on top, then members of this group might really have the upper hand in such business dealings.

Well you probably know what happened. Daimler-Benz in the final analysis didn't merge with - they bought out Chrysler. And today does anyone know where Robert Eaton is? But good ol' Jürgen E. Schrempp is still truckin'. In fact he is still a member of that tight knit group of movers and shakers - Bilderberg... watch for them in any news story

The URL is

"http://ftp.monash.edu.au/pub/nihongo/matsu#a.pbs"

for the Nixon / Television industry show

reply to post by Soldat401


The fact that north korea is now testing even more powerful nuclear weapons than a few years ago is obviously a delicate matter, but c'mon!!! to think about "striking" north korea only for launching a nuclear device in their own soil? We're talking about NUCLEAR weapons here, if anybody tries to strike north korea what do you think it will happen? It is by no means an easy decision to take. Remember the cold war? We're talking about thousands and even millions of casualties just within the first weeks after having received a nuclear strike. This is not Iraq, it's a lot more complex, there is too much at stake to even consider engaging against a country who has actually probe to have weapons of mass distruction.
I deeply doubt that the National Command Authority (SecDef and the Presidencial Office) will consider force as the first option and not diplomacy.

reply to post by TOSFORUS

Let's try this again:

http:
// ringtail . its . monash . edu . au
/ pub
/ nihongo
/ m a t s u s h i t a .pbs

The last post of this URL has been altered since I posted it... would someone let me know what is wrong with my using this format?