GM bailout rant

Sometimes the truth is problematic compared to what we have been conditioned to believe. This is hardly comparable with anything that happened in the USSR. The USSR problems were internal, our main problem is that we have let foreign companies/countries loot this country.

 

Oh yes, how could I forget the foreign boogeyman ?

 

Call it what you want, the US has exported more than $6,000,000,000,000 since 1985 and millions of corresponding jobs. Those are the facts.

 

How many threads is that fake ad in now? I count 3 so far.

 

This is just so funny and can one say it, incredibly close to the truth :rockon: Neat. Where's the web link, you know like for movies it would be Bailout the movie ? Whoever designed this has a great sense of humour, thanks for a great laugh.

Oops, sorry. That was a real link to something else to do with the CIA.....

 

DanCar,

Thanks for the Bloomberg cite, I note it has a Dec 12 date.

I read the whole article -- "Thats' one speecy-a spicey-a meat-a ball!"
(Hard to swallow, and guaranteed to cause indigestion/heart burn.)

The bad news is the short extracts in your post are the relative good news.

Every story has two sides, doesn't it?

But how in the the world... ?

I'm struck speechless...

 

This section of the Bloomberg article seems to be faulty:

"GM discontinued its one alternative-energy vehicle -- the battery-powered EV1 -- in 2003, after spending more than $1 billion on a car with limited range that flopped with consumers."

Unfortunately, when what looks to be a very good article makes boneheaded statements like than, then you have to wonder what other boneheads might be lurking.

It is a must read other than that section.

 

Bush is not bailing out GM. All he'll do is stick his finger into the dike and wait for Obama to come to the rescue.

 

What does GM board member York know? I think we should all buy into Malorns diatribe, that it's Toyota with the problem ... not GM. It's not guzzlers, and the fuel we pour trillions into via military action in the middle east. The real truth, he says is "well, Toyota has guzzlers too". Preach on. "Top Management" is the problem according to a board member? Not according to malorn. Preach on brother ... were listening. Maybe just one more, "go ahead, you'll see" and the converts will come rolling in.

 

I have never said that Gm management over the years is in no way responsible for a portion of GM's present financial state. The financial problems are from the US operations and are mainly from shrinking market share and huge fixed costs. Many of the problems are systematic, notice GM, Ford and Chrysler have been shrinking and have serious cash problems. Ford did have the foresight to mortgage EVERYTHING about 1.5 years ago, other wise they would have had huge cash problems before now.

Stop with the guzzlers, you know that if they could have Toyota would have sold every suv and pickup that GM and ford did over the last decade, they just didn't have the product.

Maybe if you get your way and detroit goes down and then the country goes down and Disney taps you on your shoulder, relieves you of your post and tells you your pension is gone and you will no longer have health insurance you will get it.

 

GM's board member York disagrees w/ you. He doesn't say US operations ~ he doesn't say shrinking market share ~ he doesn't say huge fixed costs ~ he doesn't say, 'well... Ford would be just as bad as us if..." . . . rather he mans up and says, "it was us, the board". He's the first to admit they all deserved to be fired ... and he followed up by quitting, when he couldn't get the others to grow brains (like selling Hummer back when there was still a chance, etc). Change, as the president elect says ... it's what it's all about. All of the "end of the U.S." scare tactics in the world can't stop the GM board from their failures. That shows how little they care about you & I.

Misuse of Fed funds specifically earmarked for other purposes automatically has standing with the Fed Supreme Court. Bush won't be the 1st prez to rightly get slapped down by the supremes.

 

I just returned from my business trip and - after a nice nap - am feeling reasonably wide awake. I honestly thought the mood in the Asian countries was bad not quite a month ago, it's now MUCH WORSE. Almost End Of Days stuff here

I really could care less how much funny money is thrown at the car makers, the banks, whatever, we are sliding into a very deep and long recession - we've only just begun to slide down, much worse is to come. Possibly even the D word

I've read what former GM Board member York said. He is right on the money, or lack of it, depending on your perspective. Wouldn't matter if we throw ten billion, one hundred billion, or even a trillion taxpayer dollars at the auto industry, they are likely to implode anyway

Consider for a long time, domestic car makers made their money on Planned Obsolescence. Folks bought new cars ever three years. Now with a crippling global recession, folks will have to keep their cars going as long as possible.

GM is now pissing and moaning about their decline in sales. I wouldn't be surprised if their sales sink to less than half of what they were last year. Thousands of workers will be let go, bailout or no bailout. GM and others will have no choice but to enter Chapter 11 reorganization, to ditch as many union jobs as possible. Hopefully, they'll ditch their broken management at the same time, minus the gold plated severance

What really worries me about the proposed auto bailout is that the money will be used as "wisely" as it was for the banking and mortgage sector. What a bunch of crooks! Speaking of crooks, good ole Bernard Madoff made a good buck for himself

We have very effectively mortgaged our future away with this crap. I would not be surprised if all of us end up with indentured servitude to another country, eg China.

 

Bulls***

We let our own corrupt, criminally incompetent CEO's, politicians, and let's not forget "watchdogs" rape us blind

Like many former "empires" we simply pissed it away through our own greed and decadence. We've become fat, lazy, and simple

 

So I write a few lines of code to improve process efficiency 20% for a water district, or a refinery. Is that code fungible to, say, the airline industry? How about GM?

If you depend on planned obsolescence for three year product cycles, you need engineers to tinker and retool production. If you're involved in chemical, electrical, or other egghead research and development like I am, there is little correlation

I'll use the example of NORA again. NORA is Non Obvious Relationship Awareness, widely credited to Jeff Jonas, who developed it in the early 80's. NORA was so far ahead of its time, it only saw critically important use by the Department of Homeland Security in the last several years

When I was still in the Army, and even more recently, I was involved in MURI and ARPA projects that were light years beyond anything commercially viable or even understandable by most civilians. Yes, the most obvious application is intelligence gathering, but similar protocols can be used to dramatically improve our energy efficiency, or production efficiency

I can understand it's hard to wrap your head around new paradigms, unless you have had specific training. Keep in mind what we now consider to be "new" paradigms were actually theorized decades ago. It took that long for the hardware to catch up, and for society to slowly accept the new paradigms

Every major paradigm shift creates turmoil for a certain proportion of society. You can't have 100% of the people "win" all the time, there have to be losers too. That sounds cruel and cold, but in my career I've learned it to be the truth

 

How much of that was manufacturing, how much of it was brain drain, how much of that was buying cheap terrorist oil?

When a large corporation shoves a stake through the back of domestic workers, opens up a plant in BFE, at a fraction of the wage and benefit cost, I find it highly ironic and hypocritical when that same company suddenly whines about the lack of Patriotism.