GM wants a government bail out

[Diesel1]

Touchy subject, I one way or another I can relate to both sides of the arguement. But if we would at least try to buy American it would help. I avoid Wal Mart like the plague, I try to shop local, mom&pop businesses. But sometimes I go to WalMart and I often buy forigen made products, it is inevitable. The point is I make the effort. I will not buy a overseas auto. I know the big three have lots of forgien content, I don't like it but I think,i hope,that most of the profit and jobs stay in America where it belongs.
Also the constitution gaurantee's us the Right to life,liberty& the PURSUIT of happiness. Not money,not health benifits,not 401k's, not even unconsinable profits. That being said, go camping,it makes life fun and is kinda sorta pursuing happiness!
Have a great day and don't get an ulcer worring about the election, We are Americans ,we will live through what ever fool gets elected. Oh, please vote, that buys your right to bitch! Adios, John

[Silvertwinkie]

Originally Posted by wheel interested

Anywho today's news from the Motor City state of Michigan is that the state unemployment fund is out of money.

Here's the explanation as to why,

We have some property in the UP of MI. Unlike the LP of MI the UP has really no economy to speak of less tourism. The Lansing funds all or most of the activities for the UP.

Here is the perception and this could be wrong, but I offer it at face value.

The UP is a total mess. Few up there work, even though they can....they make more on unemployment and gov benefits, even if they stub their toes than they can get working. My uncle has a resort up there and can barely find anyone to work....not that there is a lack of human resources, but that there is no one who wants to work.

Unless you work in the timber industry up there, it's about the only good paying job (relatively speaking).

So in my mind the UP is a major drag on Lansing who may need the funds to do pay for a lot of what may be coming down the pike.

Lansing should have let the UP become it's own state of Superior as they wanted. The anchor would have been cut and the folks up there would have had to figure it out rather than have their hands out.

How this relates here to this forum seems to be tow vehicles....whatever happens it's going to be an interesting ride.

I to avoid Wal-Mart as much as possible too. What is going to be interesting is the if one party gets into office, Wal-Mart is going to be in some hot water with their health care practices......but that could be a whole 'nuther thread alone.

[purman]

Originally Posted by Diesel1

I know the big three have lots of forgien content, I don't like it but I think,i hope,that most of the profit and jobs stay in America where it belongs.
Adios, John

Thats if they made a profit... They aren't.....

I buy American made when I can.... Example

I bought a Dana Design backpack back in 2001 I still have it and use it.. It was built in Boisman Montana... Then K2 bought them and shipped all the manufacturing to Mexico... I won't buy a new one....


Choco sandles WERE built just down the road from us.. Now of to China, Won't buy them any more either....

Not so much becuase they are built out of country, but the quility control isn't there anymore..

We have 5 cars....
- '75 dodge 3/4 ton
- '89 Jaguar
- '90 Jeep Cherokee
- '01 4 Runner
- '08 Sequoia

I have had 2 chevy blazer's one an '01 traded for the '01 4 runner... They just didn't hold up... I buy for what I believe is quality.. IF it's made in the US great if not I will buy what is...

My kids toys,,,,, I won't buy them toys from Wally World any more, there just cheap plastic crap....

We have a local toy stores that i buy most of my kids toys from... Sure it's a little more $ sometimes,, And some of it is made in china, But it's made out of wood and will last....


I still don't think the government should bail them out... They could sell some of the other car companies they have bought...

Remember when they tried to buy ferrari in the '70's Ford got pissed when the deal fell through.... It's not like the Big 3 haven't bought up other companies.. Sell them.... Stay here... No sympathy from me.. Figure something else out... NO GOVERNMENT BAIL OUT>>>>>>

[wheel interested]

Originally Posted by Jim & Susan

OK, so does this mean that GM as been underfunding their retirement program lo these many years? Using this same logic, can I get the taxpayers (wait, that's me!) to fund my 401k should I fall short in my senior years. I don't have a traditional, company funded, retiremant plan. Does that seem fair to everybody? After all, I just want what "they" have.

Jim

YES! GM has been underfunding the retirement plans, and pushing it off to the future. I think that is some trouble across the board of economics. Instead of real assets paper projections stood in leu of counting eggs hatched.

When a person works 30 years or however many years and your benefits are building a retirement fund it should be there just as your uncashed check. It is payment owed to the employee for the hours worked. It is the company's liability and should not have to be the taxpayers or government's problem but you see the outcome and short of wringing the assets back from where they should not have gone or been expended or undoing imprudent decisions there is not much hope in the company making restitution or even a bankrupt government being able to pay back.

I think the issue and wider still from GM's woes is very complicated but my post was framed to interject a human face to your question and be food for thought. It may not seem like it but if you are paying in you really are amongst the ever decreasing number of the fortunate. Some attitudes of assistance need to be tempered with empathy. Many suffer through no fault of their own on either side. In a perfect world it would not be so.

I know everyone wants to find out, "Who did it?" But let's not let the hunt and the need to exact satisfaction interfere with what the eforts to help are trying to do. Eventually when enough systems fail it will trickle upward, it's just taking longer for some. If you are on the very top you may need to use those funds to shore up a fortress. But a collapse will effect everyone one way or another. But the milk of human kindness will remain a stable asset.

[Jim & Susan]

Carol, you understand my issue is with the "system", not you, right?

Jim

[sander17]

A common thought running thru this thread is the concept of a corporation being "American". Is there a citizenship test you have to take before buying stock? I am no stock broker, but can't anyone buy shares of GM or Ford or Chrysler? He who owns the stock gets the profits. Remember when Rupert Murdock the brit bought 20th Century Fox?

[wheel interested]

Oh yes, thank you Jim. I was just about to post something along the same lines. My pontification was not directed solely at you either it was one of those impromptu news short interviews from the man on the street. It's difficult not to have some emotion and momentum for me and I was responding to a million other things I have heard and accumulated in my mind to the general public. And our situation is pointedly affected with this mess.

I agree a strong work ethic is a good thing and should be rewarded compensurately and not penalized. I hear you, the whole fix is thrown back on the tax payers and that's not fair. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out. When there is a large area of unemployment and not enough industry to support jobs, it's a crisis, both with economics and with morale.

Thanks for posting that. I too was afraid my tone might cause esculation and that really isn't anything I would want to do with my friends here on the forums.

[jimmini]

GM and Chryseler are like two drunks standing on a corner holding each other up,Sooner or later they both are going to fall.
So the Government,the unions and the public should get over it,and stop wasting our tax $$$ trying to save companies that can not compete.Nothing that bad or that good lasts that long.
There are just to many American worker that do not want to do their jobs (Look at Government employees)all they want is a hand out from their employer if they can't get it there then they want it from the Government and that is us, the tax payers.We'er not here to make dollars.We're here to make sense.
Come on you REAL working Americans wake up, we are getting screwed by the people we elected,the Government, the unions,the banks,the credit card companies,the oil companies,(So save gas fart in a jar), and the list goes on.It time we start taking responability for our self and stop depending on others(like the Government) to take care of us.
Life aint fair and neither is cards.

[wheel interested]

...obviously spoken from the standpoint of a real working person who thus far remains unscathed. Will that tune change if it it hits your home? I don't suppose you have some jobs you can export to Michigan to let us all get real too? Or should we just disappear now that the jobs have?

Throwing out random sentiment and prejudiced generalities and stereotypes that people are inherently lazy and don't pull themselves up by their boot straps (got boots?) is very grievious and harmful and that kind of dangerous thing seems to spread like wildfire... an even more bitter pill than loss of income and benefits and gainful employment and purpose. The point is thousands of people are finding themselves in a position they never thought would happen to them.

Where are our cheerleaders? Let's try to paint a better picture, hmm?

[purman]

Ok, I started this thread a little pissed off at GM and the other two... (well still am) The problem as I see it now is almost unfixable...

In some ways they need a bail out to save the rest of the country and workers.

But the don't deserve a bail out because they screwed up and screwed us.

So lets take that 15 B and divide it up among the big 3 employee's Not the CEO's or hire ups. the actuarial workers...

Then lets see how the Big three can sort it out on the own..

Well that won't work either, but it would serve them right....

Wonder if the Italian gov.. bailed out Ferrari when it was in trouble?

Did the British Gov. bail out Jaguar when it was in trouble?

Sure they didn't employee as many people but still....

I don't think they should get free money..... They need to sort out there finances and have a plan before they even get the loan....and it should be the going interest rate not some special rate. I don't get a special rate So why should they.....

The point is they Shouldn't be aloud to buy other car companies until they fix there own... NO MATTER WHAT>>>

Being rewarded for bad business practices in just not a good thing..

[RBolton]

Originally Posted by sander17

A common thought running thru this thread is the concept of a corporation being "American"

I felt that the common thought is the concept of a corporation being an individual. A fat, greedy, short sighted individual who should accept the fact that he has only himself to blame. In reality these corporations have evolved into this mess under the (mis)leadership of several CEOs and management teams, trying to cater to fickle buyers and the UAW. Everyone involved needs to accept their portion of the blame. Punish the corporation and you punish everyone.

The domestics need revenue to improve their product. Not just a desire and a vision. Cold, hard cash. That money comes from sales. If we don't support them, then no R & D. No R & D no new product, no quality improvements, no sales, no company. Who do you think funds the research and development of the Asian automakers? Their governments, that's who.

I say we have a responsibility to buy domestic autos. I say our government has a responsibility to see that these companies survive. The old cliche that buying a Japanese car is "UNAMERICAN." has never been more true.

Roger

[jimmini]

Originally Posted by wheel interested

...obviously spoken from the standpoint of a real working person who thus far remains unscathed. Will that tune change if it it hits your home? I don't suppose you have some jobs you can export to Michigan to let us all get real too? Or should we just disappear now that the jobs have?

Throwing out random sentiment and prejudiced generalities and stereotypes that people are inherently lazy and don't pull themselves up by their boot straps (got boots?) is very grievious and harmful and that kind of dangerous thing seems to spread like wildfire... an even more bitter pill than loss of income and benefits and gainful employment and purpose. The point is thousands of people are finding themselves in a position they never thought would happen to them.

Where are our cheerleaders? Let's try to paint a better picture, hmm?

Ever trail has puddles so I have become self-reliant and I don't like the government trying to "solve" everything for us using yours and my tax $$$$$
And yes I wear boots and have NOT gone unscathed in life, I have had to use the straps more than a few times.
But that the cowboy way.Ride easy the trail is long.

[Silvertwinkie]

Originally Posted by purman

Wonder if the Italian gov.. bailed out Ferrari when it was in trouble?

Did the British Gov. bail out Jaguar when it was in trouble?

These are good comparisons because as has been pointed out, it's a national security issue. In WW2 the domestic automakers made tanks, planes, engines for tanks, planes and military trucks, etc because we needed the manufacturing capacity to fuel the war effort. Could that happen again? Sure, it *could*.

After WW2, BMW was forbidden from building airplane anything, this was BMWs heritage, white propeller under a blue sky, it's current emblem found on BMW cars today.

My point to all this, is that if these companies were allowed to go to foreign hands, or allowed to wither and die, manufacturing capacity, should it ever be needed would not be possible or, worse yet, it's owned by a country like China or some other country that won't retool for the needs of the US Government as it did in WW2.

So you see, it really doesn't matter what England did with Jaguar because we yanks pulled them out of the fire and will most likely have to do it again should another non-nuclear world conflict happen since the Brits don't have the plants they had pre WW2 to make their own stuff.....even then we lend/leased them materials and machinery cause they couldn't produce their own stuff to meet the demand.

It matters not what Italy did with Ferrari or what Japan does with Nissan, Honda or Toyota....but it does matter if the big three disappear. The system won't allow something like that to happen because of a few things:

Industrial military complex
National Security

...and that folks in Government know they may need these resources one day as history has shown. It doesn't matter what *Joe* on the street thinks about it....the US Gov is not going to let these resources go away, plain and simple, even if it takes 100 billion or a trillion (as they have nearly given the banks). We ask taxpayers may hold stakes in these companies via the US Government, but that's just about it. We all will have an opinion about this, but at the end of the day, GM, the world's largest automaker with plants all over the world and Ford in a similar position will not be allowed to pack it in and go home or be sold to some other company housed in a different country. Chrysler? It could happen, but for sure not GM, not in my lifetime.

[Silvertwinkie]

This just in:

U.S. Treasury not negtiating new GM aid-official | Markets | Markets News | Reuters


But don't think that if the $$ is ever needed it won't be there for GM for other things to fend off it's demise.

[overlander63]

Originally Posted by Silvertwinkie

This just in:

U.S. Treasury not negtiating new GM aid-official | Markets | Markets News | Reuters


But don't think that if the $$ is ever needed it won't be there for GM for other things to fend off it's demise.

According to the report, the government is not giving GM the cash to buy Chrysler, it doesn't say anything about saving the company (or not) if it starts a death spiral.

[purman]

Lets just take a look at what companies GM has

Buick (junk)
Cadillac (you can get americans to buy them but thats it)
Chevrolet (no comment)
GMC (glorified Chevy)
GM Daewoo (big hunk of junk)
Holden (another name for Chevy in Eroupe)
Hummer (over priced Suburban)
Oldsmobile (it an't my dads is right)
Opel (Man can't beleive they still make it)
Pontiac (Nice in the '60's)
Saab (was good till GM bought them)
Saturn (Ok car)
Vauxhall (#2 seller in England, but junk)

This is how they got in a mess, Buying up companies that aren't making them more money than they spent to buy them... What are they thinking.

Why are we paying for a retooling?????? thats part of doing business... I don't care if it is national security (WHICH IT ISN"T) If we go to war and someone else owns it we just take it... We put the Japanese in camps in WWII, Took there stuff, and the Indians also "right Jimmy"

What it comes down to is bad business that isn't gonna change if they don't have to fix it themselves...

Look Ford bought Jaguar, and it wasn't making money then or now... Ford made the Jag look like a Ford and act like a Ford with a Jag sticker... My '89 has more character than the new ones... Ford screwed Jag up even more and know want to sell it.... The Big 3 need to work on there stuff not buying other stuff...

[purman]

Originally Posted by overlander63

According to the report, the government is not giving GM the cash to buy Chrysler, it doesn't say anything about saving the company (or not) if it starts a death spiral.

It starts people being accountable for the actions.... That's what it does...

[purman]

And to add, These are my opinions and not necessarily yours... Don't hate me please Just tolerate me...

[RBolton]

Originally Posted by purman

We have 5 cars....
- '75 dodge 3/4 ton
- '89 Jaguar
- '90 Jeep Cherokee
- '01 4 Runner
- '08 Sequoia

I have had 2 chevy blazer's one an '01 traded for the '01 4 runner... They just didn't hold up... I buy for what I believe is quality.. IF it's made in the US great if not I will buy what is...

purman, you haven't owned a GM product snce your '01 Blazer, but yet you call eveything they make junk?

Even if it is, how do you propose these domestic manufacturers fix themselves? The cash these companies have will barely cover their operating costs for the next year. How are they expected to launch new product, improve quality, develop alternative fuel systems etc. without some help?

Roger

[Air2Go]

"The cash these companies have will barely cover their operating costs for the next year. How are they expected to launch new product, improve quality, develop alternative fuel systems etc. without some help?"



Maybe in the same way they have accomplished all of those things during the boom era of the high profit-margin SUV...

which is to say that perhaps they won't.