The Big Three: Not dead yet!

Oh, they’re dead alright. They’ve BEEN dead for decades. Sit down before you fall down from your incompetence. The 3 stooges have been bankrupt and running in the red for years. Why has it taken until just now for them to declare it?

How can you people have missed every news statement they made, millions in profit, but billions in the whole every year. That does NOT PAY THE BILLS. The only reason they’ve come forward now is because of the bank bailouts. They have their greedy palm open and are as annoying as those bell ringers at the mall.

Even if the so called big three are bailed out by the Feds, who will be able to afford to buy the cars that they will produce? Jobs and homes are being lost in record numbers, the banks, who just received billions aren’t lending. Where does this insanity end?

Time to let nature take its course. They have for years build sub-standard cars expecting us to buy them, because they are american. If you look at most of the parts in them, they are not american, and alot are not assembled here anyway. Just because we lend them the money, doesnt mean people will go out and buy their cars, just delaying what is coming. I, for one, is in the market for a new car, and have compared the quality of “American Cars” vs foreign cars. Sorry to say, the quality of foreign cars are just that much better.

Capitalism is were the best survive and the Big 3 havent been that in years.

With the big 3 gone, new car companies will be created and buy American, might have a new meaning.

God Bless America.

THE US HAS SPENT ABOUT$100,000,000,000 DOLLARS ON A USELESS WAR IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND AFTER THE AMERICAN AUTO INDUSTRY HAS PUMPED TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS INTO THE US TREASURY NOT TO MENTION THE BILLIONS OF DOLLARS THAT THE AUTO WORKERS HAVE PAYED IN TAXES TO THE US TREASURY OVER THE YEARS THE GOVERNMENT AND APPARENTLY THE UNGRATFUL PEOPLE OF THE US WOULD DENY THE MINISCULE AMOUNT OF HELP NEEDED AT THIS TERRIBLE ECONOMIC TIME TO PRESERVE AN INDUSTRY THAT IS AMERICA.

FOR ALL THOSE GM/UAW HATERS OUT THERE,PLEASE GO TO http://www.freep.com/article/20081205/COL14/812050400
FORSOME FACTS ABOUT THIS SUBJECT INSTEAD OF JUST BLIND HATERED

they do not need the money they have made a nice profit over the years.if the invent new cars safe for enviornment they will make a nice profit.they are taking president elect obama loyalty to the american business men and women as a weakness.

the auto company has made a nice profit over the years.normaly when a business is doing bad it sells merge or reinvest.it they do not reinvest their own money into their company why should the taxpayers pay for their business errors.it’s like buying box box of gold in a alley only to find out its trash.let them reinvent their company with better cars better prices safe for the enviornment

It would be far better to provide a financed, prepackaged bankruptcy. This option gets the politicians out of the decision making process and allows the auto companies to restructure a number of the items that have brought them to the brink – including the UAW wages and benefits.
The UAW will do anything to put off concessions and, if they can just hold out until 1/20/09 and get a bailout from the new Congress, they will get off scott-free.
Listen to Chris Dodd – he thinks it is unreasonable to make the UAW take cuts during this serious recession. Of course, he and Barnie Frank presided over the credit crisis and have a great degree or responsibility for the loss of trillions of dollars of wealth. Nice of him to stop when it comes to the UAW.
The auto companies will never be viable unless they can get reorganized and include union contracts in the reorganization. Without this, we just waste taxpayer money.
Just wait for ‘card check’!

I commented on the wrong post previously. Let them go down. YES is my answer.

America is the inventor of the automobile, so we should save our companies. They should be restructured into just car companies with the financial arms and transactions placed into a troubled asset holding company and the union issues also put aside (high wages, pension issues, health care) and let the companies then only do what they should only be doing and that is to make cars. Put new R&D money towards building eco-friendly cars and transportation of all kinds. In fact they should think of themselves as companies that build transportation solutions for society. Let’s move on the a new era, that we know must come and still have our modern technological civilization yet without distroying our planet and complicating our lives with political dispute that is unnecessary in the face of absolute necessity for change.

Uh – what about Delta? It is possible to come out quickly as a lean competitive company. I think that should be a requirement for a bailout (File then we provide credit).

ofcoures the deserve a bailout by the the UAW pention fund has to be worth a few billion let the pention fund loant he big 3 the money to stay in busin ess.

Do you realize the economic repercussions of not helping them? I work in a city hospital and the only patients with private insurance are the autoworkers. They keep Michigan afloat. Everyone else is Medicare/Medicaid. Can we afford more people on government programs? Obama better have national healthcare up is sleeve. Maybe that’s why he chose Hillary.

the auto workers have far better benefit and wages than most similar workers, so who should bail them out. Not me! they deserve a kick in the ass

They are going to go under anyway… why should we waste 15 Bill on this? As just a jobs program?

I would rather them commit to filing bankruptcy — THEN we fast track them through the proceedings and THEN loan them money.

Their reasoning for not wanting to bankrupt makes no sense. Who the hell is going to buy a car from them with them teetering on a cliff… It’s going to be the same thing in less than 60 days.

It seems to me that there are other reasons behind the desire to NOT go bankrupt (that they are not disclosing).

If Delta can do it, GM can do it.

To all those that say “what about the people who will lose their jobs”.

I say go ask the CEOs and the rest who made millions while the companies were bleeding money and running the companies into the ground and get money from them.

The CEO for GM has been in charge for 8 years, if he has not been able to improve the company in that time why will he be able to do it now.

All executives should work on commision.

If we don’t sustain the car makers, we’re looking at unemployment levels exceeding 15%, and a depression lasting around a decade.

Think about how many of your friends and relatives you want moving in with you because they have nowhere else to go.

Think about homelessness tripling, and the crime rate increasing tenfold.

Before you think seriously about letting American industry die, what are you going to do with all those people to keep them from making trouble for a living?

Think of what it would cost to let American industry die, and about how we could even hope to support our existing debt.

Think about having to go to war to keep our creditors from claiming this nation as their own.

JUST…

THINK.

The auto makers need to be bailed out or the US as we know it is going to crumble. We have to look past our anger at the amount of $$$ that UAW workers have made and look at the big picture of how many jobs would be lost in the end of this. Even with bankruptcy, many smaller companies that depend on The Big 3 would never make it and those jobs and companies will be lost. All I ask is that people look at the whole picture with an open mind. I am not employed by any of these companies, but would lose my job if the declared bankruptcy or failed.

Someone please explain this to me.

How is giving the auto companies money going to save any jobs if people are not buying cars? What are we planning on doing? Have the military buy them and use them for target practice?

I say that in this economy this is crazy, if i owned a business and employed 200 people, the government isn’t going to come down here and save me. Why Reward someone for destroying their own company. “ie: AIG…” if they had been proactive enough to run there company well, and profitably, two things would be different. 1. they wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place, 2. They would actually be selling more cars. Most people will not buy a domestic car because of quality. If they had run their companies properly, they should have focused on improving their dependability stats instead of more car types or lines. Let Them Fail, The Average American is Already there.

Why can’t the banks, that we bailed out, supply the loans that the big 3 auto makers need to stay on the road.
Everyone is working – the banks are lending money as they said they would and the big 3 revamps become profitable.

The bailout is supposed to be for the long term. If the UAW is not willing to make concessions then why should the American tax payer. GM corporat and the UAW both must show a willingness to make themselves competitive.

Yes they should be allowed to go under! I have up till now always bought from the big three, NEVER AGAIN! My next car will either be toyota or honda! Before you scream about domestic cars, you need to look at how much of the domestic car is made here, you may be surprised!

A thought to help spur sales for the ailing automakers, though it is more a state-by-state decision than Federal, would be to open a one or two week sales tax moratorium on all new vehicle purchases. Buying a new car is a huge investment as it is, but adding sales tax on a $25,000 vehicle in New York tacks on another $2,000.

Alternatively at the Federal level, the IRS can enact a sales tax deduction for new vehicle purchases at 100% for the current year, phasing out to zero in three years. Ditto for interest on vehicle financing.

Incentives along these lines might help increase sales and inject much needed cash into the Big 3.

Let them fail! Enough is enough. The bank bailout should never have happened. We were told the economy would collapse and the money would help the banks loan money. What did they do with it? Hoarded it.

The CEOs of the auto makers were getting paid 10 million a year, even when the company was failing. Who needs to get paid that much to begin with? Unless you built the company from the ground up; no one should be earning that kind of money then come to the government for a bailout.

Let them fail! We used to live in a free market economy.

I like the direction the senate was headed. I think you need to hold a gun to their head. Anything shy of that they will milk the taxpayer and defer the inevitable.

Two manufacturers is more sustaiable. Let vultures pick the carcass of the third.

Yes, let’s completely eliminate productive industry from the US. That will allow us to stop pretending we’re ever going to pay our debts, so we can stop worrying and just get used to being poor forever. It would be a lot simpler and easier than trying to save the US economy.

Once we swallow our pride and take this easy step, we can get on with the consequent liquidation of US assets. Our nuclear arsenal ought to bring in a pretty penny when we sell it to Iran, don’t you think?

Can you people be serious here for just a minute? If we let the car makers collapse, we lose the last major manufacturing industry in the US, and reduce ourselves to the status of a banana republic with nukes!

If we fail to meet our existing obligations and to maintain our standing, the world will become unable to tolerate our existence as a nuclear power. We’re at the precipice of national oblivion here, and most of you are pissing on each other as if this were some kids’ game.

PEOPLE, THIS IS NOT A GAME! Our national existence is at stake, if we let our industrial base disappear.

No, it would be worse. Plus our native auto-industry is not subsidized like the others are by their home countries.

On a previous entry I wrote “If the world operated on a level-playing field we wouldn’t have to” support the Big Three.

“I would be for laissez faire.”

Please see http://cnnmoneytalkback.blogs.cnnmoney.cnn.com/2008/12/03/buy-american-betting-on-a-big-3-bounce/

We cannot allow the FED to distribute 2 TRILLION which is 2,000 BILLION, and not provide loans of 20 billion to the car companies.

If they had not submitted good plans then OK, don’t advance the funds.

But with good plans, they are asking for 1 percent of what the FED has handed out.

ONE freakin’ PERCENT!!!

Can’t we handle that?

The FED is out-of-control. So maybe the comparison is invalid.

But I hardly think that Congress is a saint when it comes to wasting money.

I understand that there is anger in America against the Big Three. And they are the authors of their own misfortune to some extent.

But you don’t think that there is a policy in Korea, Japan, Taiwan, China and others, to support their homegrown manufacturing and industrial sector?

For the love of Pete. The original $700 billion bailout should have never been passed in the first place, but it was – for the mortgage/credit crisis. Now everyone else wants to jump on the boat and have the general citizen carry the weight of their failures upon their backs. That money has been consistently mismanaged, and has not done much to change the state of things. Detroit has had decades to change their tune to keep up with their competetion and the changing consumer environment, yet they failed to do so. From an ethical standpoint, the Government does not have the right to take money from the original bailout to deliver cash to the Detroit Three, was it not signed into law with the specific intent of being used on the mortgage/credit crisis? Detroit has nothing to do with that crisis, they are suffering due to years of absolute stupidity.

Here we go again, throwing good money at bad money… If loaning that money were to completely stabilize the organizations and present them with the capability of total structural change, fine. But it doesn’t, and keeping them afloat now will only have them begging for more later, over and over again. Let them fail, it’s about time.

Question: Did previous auto industry bailouts prove successful?

Certainly doesn’t seem so…

The short answer is: Yes. They are bankrupt, insolvent, and non viable. Anytime a business entity falls into one or all of those categories, they go under. And GM, Ford, and Chrysler should be no exception.

These bailouts ad infinitum are the very crystallization of what’s wrong with American business these days: “The profits are to be shared with the few but the losses are to be shared by all”. The point that seems lost on everyone is that while those nameplates might disappear, ultimately, the jobs will not. Look at the airlines. When Pan Am, TWA, Eastern, and all of the upstarts went under, other airlines came in and filled the voids. So while there was a little bit of short term chaos, in the end, the industry lived on. It will be no different with the automakers.

You hear a lot of patriotic flag waving rhetoric about how we must save these “American icons” at all costs. But to quote Al Gore, there is one very inconvenient and overlooked truth here: The Japanese can “do it” better, faster, cheaper, and longer than the Americans can. With superior quality. So who’s REALLY better? That’s another fundamental difference between the US and the Japanese and why we are in such a world of hurt: The Japanese businessman cares about how much money he can make in his LIFETIME. The American only cares about how much he can make TODAY.

So as far as I’m concerned, I just have one thing to say to the Big Three:

“Buh-Bye!”

I SAY HELP ONLY IF THEY GIVE US (THE TAX PAYERS)A 30% DICOUNT ON A CAR WHEN THEY GET BACK UP & RUNNING GOOD.IF MY MONEY WILL HELP THEM MAKE MONEY THEY NEED TO HELP ME SAVE IT.

No, none of the big three should be allowed to go broke.

Give them an infusion to keep them going until the new Congress is seated. Then, provide enough assistance to merge them into one company, probably run by Ford, the best run of the Big Three. Reduce executive compensation down to $80k per year. Shift their retiree health care over to Medicare. Shift their pension plans over to PBGC, if necessary. Also, they should consider not-for-profit status.

Finally, with the federal government firmly in charge, implement new mileage standards and renewable fuels; anyone who objects will be fired immediately.

Let’s get going, today.

Good for the economy in the near term or the long term? Near term, things would get appreciably worse for the manufacturers, workers, dealers, parts suppliers, etc… But in the long term, it is better for weak companies to file for bankruptcy, have it’s productive parts bought up by healthier companies and let the weak parts dissolve into the woodwork.

If we prop up weak companies, we risk the destruction of true wealth creation. Poorly run companies employ labor that would be better off doing more productive things, consume raw materials that would be put to better use and burn capital that has better uses. This mal-investment of labor, raw resources and capital actually has the most destructive results of any possible outcome for spending taxpayer monies.

All of this mal-investment must be cleared out of the system to eventually restore health and to start generating true wealth creation again. Government bailouts, subsidies and handouts only prolong the pain and dumps money down a hole.

GM has a lot of foreign operations, all of which I believe are profitable. They are big in Europe, Australia, and China, the potentially biggest market of them all. I have to wonder if GM couldn’t do some corporate reorganization, put the parent company in Europe, dump the US operations, and keep going in the rest of the world. That also would keep their Saab subsidiary operating. And GM could even keep making trucks in Mexico sell them to a smattering of remaining GMC truck dealers; a Canadian engine plant might have to be kept running. Corvette might be sold off to some wealthy investor looking to gain some prestige by owning a boutique car company.