First of all, the 1973 Corvette is one of the worst Corvettes you could have purchased. So, the rattling should have been expected. Chevrolet might has well of stopped production of the Corvette from 1968-1993.
Aside from that, GM will not go bankrupt as they are an American institution. Everyone realizes that Union labor rates are rediculous. If you put a door on a car, it’s not worth $65.00 an hour, sorry. Anyone else have an opinion on that? Also, all of the executives need to get a pay chop. We don’t need 30 Vice presidents making $500k+. It is all common sense, you either make a product people want or you are done. If you sell the number of cars you set out to sell, give yourself a bonus. Not if you lose $3Billion a quarter.
GM needs to streamline,there is no doubt about it. Also, I agree with the fact that some models that have been produced would get turned down by 9 of 10 people! Does that sound like a good investment of millions of dollars of R&D, not to mention production costs? No!!! Thank you HHR, Enclave, SSR and many other on the wall of shame.
They have great vehicles such as the Cadillac CTS and CTS-V which is the Most Powerful Production Sedan Produced, just too expensive. The Corvette is great, their FULL SIZE trucks and SUV’s are great. They have many positives, but then they shoot themselves in the foot by making…..well a Buick Enclave.
GM needs to go bankrupt because they have built cars that most people – at least people under the age of 50 – have no interest in driving. They are dated, ugly and boring. They also need to go bankrupt for other reasons, but I’ll get to those later.
The Japanese and the Germans have been building better looking, more exciting cars, that get good gas mileage, are fun to drive, and have interesting innovations,ie, double wishbone suspension, tachyometers, smooth shifting manual transmissions, horsepower that is fun to play with, clocks that actually work for more than 3 months, hybrids, etc.
Some things deserve to die and the American automotive industry, which has produced boring cars that had Coke bottles in the door, not to mention the 1973 Corvette I bought, which had a rattle that could awake a man from an Ambien induced sleep, are examples of the pathetic engineering and labor effort put into American cars in the last 30 years.
You become too successful and you get complacent. You get complacent in a free market economy and you will get blown out of the market. The only solution to this complacency is government intervention and then you are on the path to communism. Interesting how quickly red blooded Americans will embrace Communism when their pathetic corporations, which they have led to destruction with their Communistic principles of labor equality, lead to bankruptcy of their company.
Let me present to you the Buick Enclave as the best that American automotive technology can offer. Compared to an Acura MDX or a Lexus RX 350 or a BMW X5, it looks bloated, made for old people (despite Tiger Woods advertising for it – I wonder if Tiger actually drives one) and definitely not cool or appealing.
What happened to American ingenuity? Why can’t we produce innovative, stylish, fun to drive cars?
GM and auto industry has suffered a squinted eye syndrome – Their management face the auto industry, but the bulk of their action was concentarted in financial sector – that is their management was figuring out way to make money from investments.
Bankruptcy may not be a bad thing if it forces auto industry management to focus on producing the product – I for one am willin gto switch loyalties from foreign made car to Big-3 product, if their mangement can sincerely show they have my (consumer) best interest at heart.
For such a well thought process for GM to just “enter & then exit” bankruptcy; there is a BIG Factor being ignored – THE RIPPLE EFFECT!
I know being from the mid-west constitutes red-neck or trailer thought processes,; however, I know that when Ag went sour in the early 80’s and ONE Farmer supported Five Main-Street businesses, those farmers that went out of business put a large number businesses under.
Therefore, I do challenge Acedemia or the Gov’t to actually show the US people the flow chart listing the ripple effects of a GM Bankruptcy. They can’t and won’t becuae it will not fit on a niece clear PP Slide; “that would be too complex and difficult to work through in the limited amount of time available.”
Well I do have news for the US, if GM declears Bankruptcy, that flow chart will become a living document that will flow through the world economy like a tsunami unlike the world has ever seen.
Be very careful what you pray for; you just might get it plus another 2 million unemployed in short order.
Ford should be the primary beneficiary. There’s no reason to give all this money and market share to imports. Besides, it’s our money.
Let’s sell GM and Chrysler to Ford or Fiat (for $1, if necessary) to be done with them and strengthen Ford. We can give the GM and Chrysler x-shareholders some options, maybe.
Also, move ALL US automaker retirees over to Medicare, regardless of age. And, clean up the retiree pension program so that there is one final separate-from-the-company settlement; if this takes time, so be it, as you don’t need a pension plan to sell cars.
Short of selling GM and Chrysler to Ford, if we have to put them into bankruptcy, make part of the deal to send their customers directly over to Ford.
If we can get Ford back up to 40 – 50% market share with their new, improved product lineup, we’ll have the strong US automotive industry that we need: it will all be at Ford.
The world auto industry had significant overcapacity even in good times. A bankruptcy at GM would benefit its competitors if some capacity, perhaps as much as 5 million units a year, was permanently shut down.
The easiest way to do this would, imo, be to permanently cease all production by the after bankruptcy GM in America. The critical tooling — only for those car lines and models that will continue — could be uprooted and moved to Mexico [or another second world country] to permit the surviving brands to live on.
Whether a bankruptcy court would see this as the route to the exit is questionable. In an ordinary reorganization [the government may yet decide that GM shall not be an ordinary reorganization], the existing management has the right to propose the first set of plans — which, if adopted, become the only set of plans.
It is only in a liquidation that the creditors’ committee has the power to completely override the existing management.
Even though I grew up in Detroit, I have no confidence that the existing GM managers would be willing to take the very hard steps that I think necessary if Chevy, Cadillac, and GMC are to emerge from a bankruptcy. [For marketing reasons, I disagree with the proposal to drop Buick (what is Buick's market niche?) and think that Pontiac (hot, sporty cars) is a better bet for the long run.]
***
Professor Porter of Harvard observed several decades ago that all capital intensive industries in first world countries are likely to be ‘captured’ by their unions for the benefit of the employees [and to the detriment of the shareholders]. Imo, GM is simply the current very large example of what Dr. Porter meant. [Other capital intensive industries include airlines, railroads, steel, mining, chemicals, and electrical energy production. You may notice that all of these are unionized in America and that many firms in some of these industries have already visited bankruptcy -- some multiple times.]
While a competitive world economy necessarily means adjustments in what goods are produced in which countries as all countries optimize their exports to the sectors where they have a competitive advantage, the road to that nirvana is always under construction and painful dislocations will occur periodically.
America is the world leader in aircraft production — an enterprise that routinely uses higher technology than auto making. Because of the higher technology, aircraft workers are well paid. As a nation, we would do well to notice that we have an advantage in producing aircraft that we do not have in producing automobiles.
And that means that US auto production [the factories] probably needs to end. For all firms, not just for GM.
Of course, there will be winners from the GM bankruptcy. One of the jewels is GMAC (“the bank”); Also, those betting against GM: short, naked short, CDx…
The company and employees are just disposable packaging to Wall Street and the Gov’t. Change a banker can believe in.
There will be no GM bankruptcy. It is a fantasy to believe that a New GM could emerge after a few weeks if GM were to file. Which employees would be working in the good GM and which in the bad GM? What would the wages and benefits be for the employees of the good GM versus the bad GM? Would the UAW employees ratifiy any such agreements the parties come to? If the courts throw out the contracts, would the UAW go on strike? What about the thousands of contracts between suppliers, lenders, and bondholders? How many lawsuits do you imagine there will be? Delphi is still in bankruptcy and it took them and the UAW 21 months to reach a new contract. If GM enters bankruptcy, there will be no winners, only losers including Obama and the democrats in public office in the midwest states when they come up for re-election.
I think if GM filed for bankruptcy, Ford, Chrysler Honda, Toyota, Mercedes, Audi, and VW to name a few would benefit from this. It would force Chrysler to merge with Fiat and use Fiat products in Chrysler vehicle’s if they don’t want go down the same road that GM is currently going through. Ford is some how doing well on its own with out Government aid or being forced to merge with another car company. However if Ford still wants to remain afloat, Ford would be forced to make fuel efficient vehicles and possibly merge with another car company and use their products to their advantage as well. For the Asian and European car companies, it would give them a stronger advantage on the US market. Honda, VW and Toyota already make fuel efficient cars that people want to buy. As for Mercedes and Audi they should start sending over the European models to the states that have excellent fuel economy as well if they want to survive in this market. VW, Mercedes, Toyota and Honda already have plants in the US and I think that once the economy pick up, all of the companies foreign and domestic should buy the un-used plants that GM doesn’t use anymore to keep up with demand on fuel efficient cars.
First of all, as a Michigander-Flatlander, I must ask WHY is the Federal Government (Obama Admin. and Congress) so bent on WANTING General Motors to go into BANKRUPTCY ???
The Federal Government has been all too willing to give Wall Street TONS of money in TARP funds (our tax dollars)!!! AIG got $180 Billion of BAILOUT money (no strings attached), while GM was asking for much less in LOANS.
To paraphrase an old saying, “What’s good for General Motors …”: If GM “needs” to go bankrupt, then what about AIG (Arrogant Incompetent Greed-mongers). I think they should have let AIG go bankrupt! Let the “free market” sort it out!
I would not buy any stocks from Toyota, Honda, etc. If Detroit goes under, then I will ride a bike or walk!
I bought 2 GM cars, in 2001 and 2003, and they both still run great (both get 30 mpg).
But, I bought stocks and other funds in my 401K during this decade, and what did I get? Nothing but a giant sucking sound, 25% of it is “gone”.
Wall Street stock peddlers are worse than used car salesman!
So, IF General Motors goes bankrupt, that means they won’t have to pay certain creditors. And then those creditors (auto supply companies) will have to layoff more workers and more people will lose their health care, and the spiral continues…
Why don’t you learn to spell ‘ridiculous’?