GM: Holding a knife to the Volt's throat

I have been at regional meetings with Mullaly and Wagoner where they given three presentations during the day, Las Vegas, Chicago and Philadelpia. How do you do that in airports. It is symbolic, I agree, but just that. These guy are incredibly busy guys. It takes a whole day to fly anywhere commercial, these guys fly several times a week and like I said sometimes several times a day.

Following the logic it would have been the cheapest if they would have hitch-hiked, probably next cheapest if they would have taken the bus.

 

if they went out of business, we have say 150,000 workers unemployed, give them unemployment.. extend it to a full year, that would still only be around 7-8 billion....way cheaper than the bailout...

unemployment a waste of money you say??? well, first its going directly to the people who need it the most and for another... its DEFINITELY not more of a waste than paying GM's bills that were caused by their lack of judgment and planning, especially when there are little signs that they are getting any smarter about the car business.

they did an all or nothing volt project when most doubted they would ever bring a product to market including me... i did hope they would because GM failing is not in our best interests, but supporting a company that cannot help itself is a far greater mis-step.

they declined, in the face of the overwhelming success of the Prius, to bring out incrementally improved vehicles... lets face it, they flipped off the hybrid market at the onset and still secretly feel the same way about it. they thought they were so smart that they could "find" a better direction and have it all to themselves doing so because of their jealousy of Toyota's unprecedented success in bring an entirely new product to the market almost singlehandedly without any outside help.

we they made a mistake and its simply too late to fix it. let them go... we are not losing anything

 

Apparently the American car companies have not been reading thier balance sheets for the last 50 years!

 

Yeah, I'll bet. It takes real effort to f*** things up as badly as these guys have.

Kinda interesting how GM Canada expects the Canadian taxpayer to plop that big teat into their mouth. The health care costs in Canada are just crippling large corporations

All sarcastic humor aside, why would bankruptcy be such a bad thing? Seems a lot of large corporations have used Chapter 11 to shed non-performing business units, reorganize, and emerge stronger

As a first step to reorganization, the useless, criminally incompetent management at the Big Three *must* go. Minus their lucrative options and severance, of course

 

The negative momentum and psychology of such a GM, Ford and Chrylser bankruptcy will leave us in a depression.

By the way thank you for making me think a year ago in one of these threads. I am in very good shape to ride this out no matter what.

 

150,000? They direstly employ more than 250,000 in the US. Their dealers employ 870,000 and the suppiers employ another 2,000,000. At least know the facts.

 

But in this case they weren't flying around to different places. They were flying to Congress to beg for taxpayer money to bail them out. Yes, it would have been a purely symbolic move. But perception is reality in many cases. That's something they don't appear to understand.

I have no sympathy for anyone who flies in a private jet while crying poor.

 

Doubtful. Ever been to third world countries where the local economy and banking system routinely collapse? Folks pick up the pieces, dust themselves off, and carry on life as usual. Of course, they have contempt for us whiny spoiled North American folks who always piss and moan everytime a fleck of dust lands in our Starbucks

As usual, most of the folks will be worse off, the rich will get richer, and the Grand Scheme of Things will be fulfilled

You're very welcome. Obviously, my "plan" is laughed at when times are good. When things go to s***, as they almost certainly do every 10-15 years or so, then you're sitting pretty

However, if the severe global recession tips over into a catastrophic global depression, one can expect internecine warfare - eg, community against community, group against group, like what happens in Somalia, Sudan, etc

I get a chuckle over folks who think they can protect themselves with a gas operated POS like a AR-15/M-16/M-4. Range, stopping power, and accuracy are everything.

I personally recommend a simple, built-like-a-brick-s***house bolt action rifle, like the Remington 700 in .308. THe 7.62 mm/.308 is a very common ammunition, easy to get and cheap to reload. The military uses this as a sniper rifle, designated M-24. Get the XCR, stainless steel with anti-reflective coatings. If you want a "pretty" 700, get the XCR RMEF.

I prefer Leupold optics, they are exotically expensive but if you value quality, worth every penny. A good match for the 700 is the Leupold Mark 4 16x40 LR/T M1: flip up lens covers, waterproof, windage adjust, etc

Good luck

 

I bought a farm and now have the ability to grow food and protect myself and my family. I was laughed at when I did this a year ago. First harvest is complete and have enough food for a year if needed. Nobody is laughing anymore. I ahve not hunted for years but have enough remingtons and amo for a "family army". Wood stoves in enough rooms and plenty of woods and cut wood for years.

 

So you don't think my Ruger 10-22 is going to do it? I was hoping I could annoy the bad guys with the whining sound of tiny bullets. As Daffy Duck said in one of the cartoons: "These woods are full of misquotes, bless their little stingers."

Tom

 

A-ha, you copied my "hobby farm" solution

I really should patent the idea ...

 

ya know... there is another thread here about gift certificates from over 3 dozen retailers, some of them being large national chains, that were either cutting back or going out of business.

should we bail them out too? if not, then why not? where are we going to stop and draw the line... how about we just switch sides on the cold war since there is currently no real opposition and just become a 100 % socialist state.

for me to accept giving GM money, i have to feel that i would be better off with them than without them for one... but that is not the question here...

my fear is that the money we give them will not make a difference. they have to had known what they needed to do and they simply chose to ignore it. and i PERSONALLY think the primary reason is because of PRIDE. they were burned 15 kinds of ways by the success of the Prius and they want revenge. they feel the only way to do it is to come out with something just as revolutionary and the Volt would fit the bill. but they bit off more than they could chew.

they stuck their feet, their suppliers feet and several other toes in their mouth and now they are choking on their statements.

they decided to go double or nothing and they look to have lost... so what is this, "best two of three?"... well no, not quite... maybe with the SuperCar fund, that would apply... "best 3 of 5" would have been maybe the EV1... "best 4 of 7" would have been ignoring the hybrid market....

i mean, it goes on and on.

 

I think the 10-22 is a fine rimfire rifle. I have one with an Aimpoint red-dot scope. For small game, and routine plinking, a .22 is hard to beat

Seriously, invest in a Remington 700. They are very durable bolt action rifles, and require minimal and simple maintenance.

 

do you think Mr Wattanabe flies from toyota city to Washington DC in the caoch section of a united flight. Get real.

 

We do *at least* 85% of our meetings that way. When I was younger I didn't mind the air travel, to meet with a client in person, do on-site work. But that gets old after awhile

Now, if I have a choice of flying to some God Forsaken petrochemical facility halfway around the world, or logging in with a PPTP to their control system, I much prefer the PPTP route. Why should I get dirty, and more than likely catch a tummy bug, when I don't have to?

Especially if I can be in the comfort of my own home, the cats curled around my feet and purring. I am *far* more productive when I work from the home

For example, I have to fly out next Tuesday and will be gone probably 15 days. I'm really not looking forward to it. What the hell, I'll build up a bunch of air miles that I never seem to use anyway

 

This country is going into the dumper at a clip that only a couple of years ago I would have thought was impossible. We have to quit worrying so much about symolism and start worrying about the fact our economy is quickly resembling a tree that is holllow on the inside.

All the same talking heads are calling for a detroit 3 bankruptcy that 4 months ago were telling us gas would be $5,6,7/gallon for gas if you could even find it. Who will stop the dominos from falling once this gets started?

 

gas prices are not done. if you think they will stay low, that will only happen if the economy does not recover. it will when it sheds dead weight and becomes productive again. gas will go up if we have not made major gains on alternative transportation options.

 

I agree to an extent, we need to continue to develop ways to become energy independent. As the days go by, i think the chances of having gas prices back to the $3.-$4.00 range anytime soon are remote at best.