GM faces rapid collapse without aid

[rj_astra]

Interesting pic doing the rounds.

Strange... the europeans and japanese will be sure to bailout their manufacturers if required and no one on here will complain

[Rezz]

Strange... the europeans and japanese will be sure to bailout their manufacturers if required and no one on here will complain

True...　would hate to see the last remnants of quality car manufacturing disappear.

[rj_astra]

True...　would hate to see the last remnants of quality car manufacturing disappear.

Except.... there are a few US brands that routinely outrate the Euro and Japs during quality ratings. Strange but true!

[TonyJZX]

JD Power

what a joke that is

like ac neilsen

no one cared that mitsubishi folded here so i think that most people really wouldn't give a shit

there will always seem *someone* selling cars

[Dimitri]

was just over on an american forum i visit. while i wouldnt say its filled with the sharpest cookies..

their poll - 86% says. fuck them, no bail out.

[TonyJZX]

i think the reason is they are sick to death of it already

1st it was wall street

2nd it was insurance

3rd it was fannie mae and freddie mac

[EfiOz]

LMAO, so the yanks spend over a trillion bailing out a bankrupt banking system.

Then do likewise for the insurance sector.

Then take equity positions in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac after they ahve had there bones picked dry.

But they don't want to bail out a manufacturing sector that actually makes something more than paper money?!?

Give it twelve months and they'll beback to complaining how everythings made in China now and remember the good ole days when we had American cars.

[TonyJZX]

i think they got the feeling the europeans and japs will fill in the holes - hey man $20k audis for every COCK who wants one

i also think the uaw has kinda poisoned the public view of them

[Ustasa]

The boutique investment banks fucked more people then Ford and GM ever did. The reason they are still standing is because they have planted one of their good old boys in congress e.g. secretary of treasury Paulson used to be CEO of Goldman & Sachs.

The money printers get a free ride while the manufacturing industry will be left to rot. But the yanks will find out soon enough that high-rollers on Wall street don't actually make anything and that capital investment, not capitalism, is the key to a thriving economy.

Makes you wonder what free market actually means.

[Ustasa]

Oh, I forgot.

The secondary reason for the existence of such a large automotive industry is as reserve capacity to produce heavy military equipment e.g. mechanised forces, artillery etc.

Will be very interesting to see if congress let the auto makers bleed out.

[TonyJZX]

they want $34 bn

they are like to get $15 bn and massive and intrusive oversight into company decisions IF and when future viability is established

they don't wanna do a Howard govt. and gift money to Mitsubishi and have them fold a year later

[CXTdreamer]

They could do a Rudd and give Toyota billions to develop a car they had already decided they were going to build anyway

[Dave]

The boutique investment banks fucked more people then Ford and GM ever did. The reason they are still standing is because they have planted one of their good old boys in congress e.g. secretary of treasury Paulson used to be CEO of Goldman & Sachs.

The money printers get a free ride while the manufacturing industry will be left to rot. But the yanks will find out soon enough that high-rollers on Wall street don't actually make anything and that capital investment, not capitalism, is the key to a thriving economy.

Makes you wonder what free market actually means.

pinko much?

[jzx83]

I am far from expert on this, but it seems to me that one of the absolute killers in all this for the big 3 is the stupid legacy deal with the UAW, that they are lumbered with from the early 80s. From memory the deal was made when they had like 50 to 70 percent of the market between them (figures pulled from air but reasonably close I think) but they wanted to shift from USA workers to Mexicans or some shit. So they promised to pay the workers they already had - more or less forever - as though they were still working. Fine if it is a smallish number of workers, not so good if you then drop the ball on making decent cars and lose half your market share. Now it seems that GM will live or die largely on whether they can extract themselves from that one deal. As in, they can afford to sell fewer cars, but only if they don't have to pay a whole lot of unproductive workers that don't actually do anything.

For mine, the best way to get the big 3 out of the poo is to work out a deal where the idle workers are paid out, trained out, or whatever it takes to end the old deal without the crash of the business. Sure the Feds could just take over these workers and pay them the same entitlements as the big 3 would have, for an indefinite period, but it might be smarter if they work out how to train them into new jobs that get them out of the deal in a finite period of time. That might involve a 'Mutual Obligation' style of deal between worker and govt, but is probably better for these workers than just allowing the companies to bust and their deal is null and void anyway.

Then they could slap a few of the UAW types upside the head until they stop blocking our big Aussie cars from being sold in the US.

[EfiOz]

Makes you wonder what free market actually means.

300 + years of imperialism in a nut shell.