If the Big Three fail, their employees and the employees of the 3,000 parts manufacturers that supply them would be out of work. What would this do to our country? Why would an American citizen purchase a foreign car knowing that it is hurting American workers and that the profi ts leave our country?
Here's an idea.....stop trading them in every 2years.....use it until you cant....stop wasting and crying and whining.....a car is NOT the 'latest rage' in style.....it's a freakin' car/truck etc.......
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
GMAC shift puts Cerberus and GM in the back seat BY HARRY R. WEBER The Associated Press
GMAC Financial Services’ transition into a bank holding company should buy the troubled lender some time to turn itself around, but the cost is a loss of control for its owners General Motors Corp. and Cerberus Capital Management. It also raises a number of questions, including who will control GMAC going forward and how much its business model might change. GMAC, which is 49-percent owned by GM, provides auto financing to GM customers and dealerships. The Federal Reserve on Wednesday approved GMAC’s application to become a bank holding company — allowing the lender to qualify for the government’s $700 billion rescue fund. The approval order indicates that GMAC plans to diversify its activities. The Fed order says GM will reduce its stake to less than 10 percent of the voting and total equity interest of GMAC. GM’s remaining equity interest in GMAC will be transferred to an independent government-accepted trustee who must dispose of the equity held in the trust within three years of the trust’s creation. Cerberus, which led an investment group that bought a 51-percent stake in GMAC from the automaker for $14 billion in 2006, will reduce its stake in GMAC to no more than 33 percent of the lender’s total equity. The Fed said GM “for some time” will remain a major business partner of GMAC, providing funding to customers and dealerships to enable them to buy and lease vehicles from GM. However, the Fed said, GMAC plans to diversify its activities and has significantly modified its agreement with GM to provide customer and dealership financing. Analysts have speculated that without financial help, GMAC would have to file for bankruptcy protection or shut down, dealing a serious blow to GM’s own chances for survival. GMAC spokeswoman Gina Proia said Thursday that GMAC has submitted an application to the Treasury Department for money from the government rescue fund, though she declined to say how much the company is seeking. She said that GMAC’s operations will continue on much the same path. “GMAC was founded in order to support the sale of GM vehicles,” she said. “That’s our history. That’s our core business. We intend to continue to do that and we think we’re actually in a better position now to do that.” At the same time, Proia noted that GMAC’s designation as a bank holding company will help it further diversify its operations. “As a bank holding company, we intend to ramp up our deposit-taking activity,” she said. “To the extent that we’re able to get improved access to funding, we intend to grow our overall business.” Proia declined to say if GMAC, as a commercial bank, will seek to buy other deposit-gathering banks. On that issue, the Fed’s approval documents say only that “applicants do not propose to acquire any additional depository institution as part of this proposal.” A representative at the Fed’s Washington offices, which were closed for the Christmas holiday, did not immediately respond to a request for further comment Thursday. Proia declined to ..............http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....amp;EntityId=Ar00801
Re Dec. 24 letter, "Foreign car buyers to blame for U.S. mess," by Leonard M. Van Buren: Mr. Van Buren could not be more wrong. Twenty years ago, I bought a Nissan pickup because it had more in it, looked nicer, and was $5,000 cheaper. Last I knew, it was still running, with over 230,000 miles. After that came a Dodge Dakota (I like smaller trucks). Nice-looking, not as much in it, but at the time it was reasonably priced. It did need mid-grade gas or it would ping, and the ride was rough, but it was a good truck and still is for my sister-in-law. Two years ago, I bought a Toyota. Riding in the Chevy was like being in a tin can, the Dakota had become way overpriced, and the Ford was overpriced and ugly. I love my Toyota. It is up to the manufacturer to put out a product that is reliable, nice-looking and affordable. The Big Three have failed miserably at this. The looks have gotten better and the reliability has improved, but the affordability has not. That is the fault of management and the United Auto Workers. Management has been arrogant — note private planes to Washington to beg for money — and ostrich-like in really looking at what the public wants. As for the UAW: Well, unions can be a good thing, but just like everything else, they have their not-so-good points. Until this last round of talks, they have been unwilling to compromise until their contract ends in 2011. Please. If I were unemployed I would love to collect unemployment benefits plus extra from the company to equal about 95 percent of my salary — who wouldn't? When employed, I would also love to make an average of $70 per hour in wages and benefits, and I would really love their pension plan. I am proud to live in this country, warts and all. It is a free enterprise country with personal freedoms beyond those of all others. It is the kind of country where a foreign manufacturer can come, employ Americans at a decent wage (who then pay taxes and have the money to buy other things, like groceries), make products that adhere to our standards, pay taxes, and contribute to local communities. Why can't the Big Three and UAW make concessions? Airline pilots and fl ight attendants have done it. Why is the auto industry immune? They should have to file for Chapter 11. Then give them the money, and make them present a plan to reorganize that would actually work. No bureaucrat to oversee them — a successful business person who actually knows what he/she is doing. I would love to buy American. All I ask is that it be something I want at a price I can afford. And by the way, Mr. Van Buren, if you have purchased any electronic product, cookware or even clothing, you've probably purchased foreign goods. CAROL MCDONALD Niskayuna
By PETER S. CANELLOS First published in print: Tuesday, December 30, 2008
In the eyes of the American people, hundreds of billions of dollars in losses on Wall Street is a tough problem, but tens of billions of losses in Detroit is a national embarrassment. How else to account for the relative ease with which the taxpayers and their elected representatives acquiesced to a $700 billion financial-industry bailout, compared with their principled resistance to a $15 billion investment in the nation's carmakers?
Opposition to providing government assistance to General Motors and Chrysler was so powerful that an aid package hammered out by the White House and Democratic leaders couldn't get through Congress, despite the certainty of hundreds of thousands of job losses if the companies went out of business. At the last minute, President Bush provided stopgap relief through the pool of money reserved for the financial companies.
There are some possible explanations for the different receptions accorded to Wall Street and Detroit. The "emergency" Wall Street bailout, pushed by Bush and Congress may have flown by too quickly for average people to come to grips with the amount of money involved. Once they did, their anger fell on the only remaining executives with their hands out.
In addition, the Wall Street bailout didn't have a face attached to it, so anger couldn't be properly channeled. Bailouts of specific companies have aroused a greater backlash, similar to the one against the automakers.
But those factors alone don't account for the widespread contempt directed at the car industry and its unions. The heads of General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler were duly ridiculed for taking private jets to Washington to beg for relief, but in reality many of the executives who benefited from the Wall Street bailout were better paid, and surpassed the auto chieftains in perks.
Moreover, the financial leaders were more culpable for the economic meltdown. They were at the top of a chain that began with mortgage brokers who pushed customers to borrow more than they could afford; lenders who made bad loans knowing that they could get rid of them quickly; brokerages that packaged the bad mortgages into securities; and hedge funds that bought them, in search of above-market-rate returns for their wealthy clients.
Despite this festival of greed, there were good reasons that taxpayers shouldn't have allowed the financial firms to go under; too much of the economy was tied into their activities. There was surprisingly little outrage — nothing compared with that directed at the auto industry.
And the auto industry fell to the verge of bankruptcy only because of the financial-driven downturn in the economy. Detroit's bad decisions weren't the proximate cause of the auto emergency: Wall Street's were. But Detroit's bad decisions, unlike Wall Street's, have been visible to average Americans for three decades.
Practically everyone who has been to a repair shop knows that Japanese manufacturers surpassed Detroit in quality decades ago. Practically everyone who has visited a showroom has found cause to wonder why.............................................http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=755147&category=OPINION
Make UAW Sell its Championship Golf Course Before a Bailout By EXAMINER EDITORIAL HOT ZONE - 12/16/08
A view of the finely groomed Black Lake golf course owned by the UAW. (Michigan Golf) What do UAW executives and workers do to relax? They play golf at the union’s highly touted championship caliber Black Lake Golf Club, designed by Rees Jones. The UAW golf club is in secluded Onaway, MI, as part of the union’s Walter and Mary Reuther Family Education Center. Also part of Black Lake are a learning center, a practice facility with practice bunkers, chipping and putting greens, and a small, nine-hole par-three Little Course. Golf Digest named Black Lake as one of top “upscale public courses.” And Michigan Golf described the course as a “classic” that includes “wide, well-groomed fairways [that] provide ample room for big hitters.” But some big hitters get special privileges at Black Lake. Tee times can be reserved up to two weeks in advance by UAW execs, compared to only three days for non-UAW duffers. Cost to play Black Lake is $95 per round.
Remember all the much-deserved bad press Detroit’s high-paid Big Three executives received last month when they flew in their corporate jets to beg Washington for a tax-paid bailout? Has anybody in Congress or the media bothered to ask UAW head Ron Gettelfinger about his union’s assets and perks like Black Lake Golf Club?
As head of one of the nation's most powerful unions, Gettelfinger doesn't earn nearly as much as Detroit's top CEOs. GM's Rick Wagoner, for example, made more than $14 million last year. But Gettelfinger's total compensation of nearly $160,000 annually far exceeds the U.S. median gross family income of $61,500 and puts him among the top five percent of all tax filers, according to U.S. Census Bureau and IRS data.
And the UAW is anything but poor, with net assets reportedly worth an estimated $1.23 billion. UAW membership has been declining for years, as it has for most major unions, but annual income from member dues, interest and other revenues exceeded $300 million in 2006.
UPDATE:
Michelle Malkin does some digging and comes up with a bunch more information, including a Detroit News investigation that found the Black Lake course is a big money loser for the UAW
I am the only person on my street with an American flag in front of my home. That in itself is a very sad commentary. To those who think a federal bailout of Detroit’s Big Three violates free enterprise: If it weren’t for the automakers and American manufacturers, I would be writing this in either Japanese or German. How soon people forget. The United States rallied after Pearl Harbor — Detroit halted production of cars and built aircraft, tanks, trucks and artillery for WWII. With the strength of American-made steel and American know-how, we won. The federal government didn’t bat an eye to bail out banks recently, but they gave the Big Three so much resistance it went all the way to our president; thankfully, he OKd it. Automobile manufacturers are consumer-driven — they build what the public wants! Every time a new concept car comes out, it is shown for public reaction before production. If it fails to get a positive reaction, it is tossed; if it gets rave reviews, it’s produced. When gas was cheap, nobody cared or wanted an economy car that was American-built — everybody wanted V-8 power! Why did American Motors go out of business? They built reliable economy cars, and nobody bought them.
The tax incentives proposed by the Republicans could be one of the most effective means to stimulate the economy. For example, a $1,000 or $2,000 tax deduction to taxpayers for purchasing a fuel-efficient auto would be far more effective than several billions given to automakers to produce more autos that are not being sold. This is only the tip of the tax incentive iceberg. Don’t blame Republicans for the current crisis! Blame the greedy and corrupt politicians who invaded the party and the incompetents on both sides of the aisle that were exploited by them.
Automakers’ union talks see mixed progress; deadline nears BY TOM KRISHER The Associated Press
DETROIT — Concession talks between the United Auto Workers and the Detroit Three shifted into an odd phase Saturday as negotiations broke off with General Motors Corp., slowed at Chrysler LLC and picked up speed at Ford Motor Co., financially the healthiest of the three, according to people briefed on the bargaining. The developments come as GM and Chrysler race toward a Tuesday deadline to submit plans to show the government how they will become viable and repay billions in loans that are keeping them alive during the worst auto sales slump in 26 years. Ford, which borrowed billions from private sources before credit markets tightened, has said it can make it through 2009 without government help. The Treasury Department has committed to giving GM a total of $13.4 billion if the automaker’s plan is approved. GM’s plan, however, will raise the possibility that more government loans may be needed, as sales in overseas markets have deteriorated worse than expected, according to a person briefed on the plan. That means GM may seek another $5 billion, raising the loan amount to about $18 billion, the amount that GM sought when it made a presentation to Congress in December. The company will discuss bankruptcy in its plan but will emphasize using loans to get through the sales slump, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the preparations are private. Top executives of Chrysler and GM have said bankruptcy is not an option for automakers because people will not make big-ticket purchases from a company that may not be around. Bankruptcy may also................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....amp;EntityId=Ar00501
GM scrambles to make union deal 2 big carmakers’ restructuring plans due BY TOM KRISHER AND KEN THOMAS The Associated Press
DETROIT — With a government-imposed deadline for its restructuring plan just a day away, General Motors Corp. was making progress Monday in concession talks with debtholders and its main union, but deals may not come until after the deadline passes, according to people briefed on the situation. Talks at GM and Chrysler LLC, both of which are living off billions in government loans, continued Monday with few details emerging. Both companies must submit plans to the Treasury Department by today to show how they will repay the loans and become viable again. Two people briefed on the GM plan reported progress toward a deal with the United Auto Workers. Both spoke on condition of anonymity because the negotiations are private. But UAW Legislative Director Alan Reuther said Monday he does not expect labor agreements in time for today’s deadline. One of the people briefed on GM’s plan said some parts, such as bondholder and labor agreements, probably won’t be complete by the time the plan is submitted to the Treasury Department late today. GM executives have said the company only has to show substantial progress by today, with the whole plan finalized by March 31. Reuther, who heads the UAW’s Washington office, said he had not been updated on the talks since Sunday night but he doesn’t expect agreements before today. He said the Obama administration’s appointment Sunday night of a task force to oversee the automakers’ restructuring should get things moving. “I think this is an ongoing process, and having the Obama administration finally putting this task force in operation, hopefully it will be able to facilitate discussions going forward,” Reuther said. At GM, UAW bargainers walked out of talks Friday night in a spat over the company’s contributions to a union-run trust fund that will take on retiree health care expenses starting next year. Although talks resumed Sunday, Reuther said the union’s concerns had not been resolved. GM has received $9.4 billion in government loans and is to get another $4 billion if its plan is approved by the government. Chrysler received $4 billion and could get $3 billion more if its plan is approved. The plans must include concessions from debtholders and unions as well as substantial restructuring. GM is likely to seek more money, at ...................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....amp;EntityId=Ar00402
DETROIT (Reuters) - General Motors Corp (NYSE:GM - News) said on Tuesday it could need a total of up to $30 billion in U.S. government aid -- more than doubling its original aid -- and would run out of cash as soon as March without new federal funding.
The request for additional aid from the top U.S. automaker came in a restructuring plan GM submitted to U.S. officials on Tuesday.
The GM restructuring plan of more than 100 pages was posted on the U.S. Treasury Web site.
The request came on the same afternoon that No. 3 U.S. automaker Chrysler requested an additional $5 billion from the current $4 billion in U.S. government aid, saying it expected the brutal downturn in the U.S. market to run another three years.
DETROIT (AP) - Chrysler LLC on Tuesday told the U.S. government it needs even more taxpayer money to survive. General Motors is expected to do the same. Acknowledging that industry conditions are worse than expected when it made the case in December for a government bailout, Chrysler requested an additional $5 billion in government loans. It originally said it would need $3 billion more. The company had previously received $4 billion from the Treasury Department.
Don’t let U.S. car industry go under E.J. Dionne is a nationally syndicated columnist. E.J. Dionne
It was a terrible omen: At the end of November, just as the American car industry was hitting a wall, my dear Saturn was totaled, around midnight, in front of my house. Fortunately, no one was hurt. But it was the end of my 15-year relationship with “a different kind of company, a different kind of car.” Like many Saturn loyalists, I was attracted to an excellent car made by members of the United Auto Workers under rules giving employees more responsibility. The approach was supposed to mark a new departure in the way General Motors made cars. And now, it has come to this: Saturn dealers, who expect to be cut loose by GM as it folds the brand, are talking about selling cars produced by Indian or Chinese manufacturers as “Saturns” — not what we original devotees had in mind. This story captures the dilemma confronting the Obama administration as it struggles to work out a plan to salvage the unionized car companies, most of them based in Detroit. allowing GM and Chrysler to go bankrupt could be a triggering event that might make a very bad economy much worse. On the upside, the industry is on the verge of breakthroughs in producing cleaner, more fuel-efficient cars. It is not in the country’s interest to let its core companies go under before that new competition begins in earnest. And the trouble facing our once Big Three — and it should be said that Ford, for now, is in better shape than GM or Chrysler — is not simply the result of their own welldocumented mistakes but also of a sudden one-two punch. The American industry was leaning too heavily on gas-guzzlers when high oil prices hit this summer, and then came the credit squeeze. This has been especially damaging to car sales because they rely so much on consumer loans. A rare constellation of events should not be permitted to knock out such a large part of the country’s Midwestern industrial base. But how much taxpayer money should be put at risk, and how much of the old industry can be saved? The administration is searching for a midpoint between indefi nite subsidies and bankruptcy, and Obama has taken control of the issue, having rejected the zany idea that our government needed a car czar. As one administration official put it, “The notion that President Obama was going to outsource decisions involving tens of billions of dollars of taxpayer money never made sense.” (And, please, let’s kill that word “czar.”) No matter what the administration does, the days of an American car industry that could support highly paid assembly line jobs with exceptional benefits are over. As someone who has seen the givebacks that the UAW is offering the car companies put it: “It’s not progress, it’s heartbreak.” The dream that blue-collar work could provide a better-than-decent living is dying. That does not settle the issue facing the president. There are many reasons why it makes sense to prop up our homegrown auto companies. The most important is that Here’s the problem: While indefi nite subsidies or sending the companies into bankruptcy are both terribly flawed ideas, they are at least straightforward choices. Everything else is complicated. The unions have made enormous concessions, and the dealers are likely to do the same. But how hard a bargain will the banks and the bondholders drive? Will banks now being subsidized by the federal government make life difficult for the car companies being subsidized by the very same government? Do the taxpayers get nailed at both ends? Free-market advocates would argue that such agonizing complexities inevitably arise once the government gets deeply enmeshed in the workings of the market. True, but I’d still rather accept the messiness involved in giving Detroit one more chance than risk the human and financial costs of letting the domestic auto industry implode. Sometimes, the market’s “creative destruction” is more destructive than creative. As for me, I’ve put my own money where my columnist’s mouth is. With my Saturn interred, I am now the proud owner of a 2009 Chevy Malibu LTZ. It is one of GM’s comeback cars and the...................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....amp;EntityId=Ar00501
GM says more aid is essential BY TOM KRISHER AND KIMBERLY S. JOHNSON The Associated Press
DETROIT — For General Motors Corp. nothing has stopped the bleeding. Not cutting 50,000 jobs in the United States. Not closing 11 factories. Not $13.4 billion in government loans. The teetering company, once the symbol of American industrial might, revealed Thursday that it burned through $19.2 billion in cash last year on its way to a $30.9 billion loss. The century-old automaker said its only hope of living another year is more aid from the government. GM has continued to spend on a company too big for the market, paying workers when plants are closed and covering other costs such as machinery, marketing, pensions and health care. Expenses are so high and income so low that GM warned that auditors are reviewing whether it can continue as a “going concern.” Auditors are determining whether there is substantial doubt about the company’s ability to stay in business. To many, though, the doubt has existed a long time. The company has piled up $82 billion in losses during the past four years, much of it in restructuring charges. “It’s really a bit of a stamp of notice on something we already recognize,” said Kimberly Rodriguez, restructuring specialist for the audit, tax and advisory firm Grant Thornton LLC. “The fact that they’re into the government for fi nancing in order to maintain viability pretty much says there’s a going concern problem.” GM executives met for several hours with members of President Barack Obama’s auto industry task force Thursday. Company spokesman Greg Martin said the meeting “was just the beginning of the hard work ahead for GM and the president’s team. “We found a genuine willingness among the task force to understand our business, industry challenges and GM’s restructuring plan,” Martin said. The automaker, which reported a $9.6 billion fourth-quarter loss, burned up $6.2 billion in those last three months of 2008, including a $4 billion government loan as the century-old company fought the worst U.S. sales climate since 1982. GM shares fell 17 cents, or 6.7 percent, to $2.38 Thursday. Chief Financial Officer Ray Young told reporters and industry analysts that GM expects to burn through $14 billion funding its operations this year, which raises the need for more government help. Much of this year’s cash burn can be attributed to the temporary shutdown of GM plants early in the year, he said. GM and other automakers took the unprecedented move of shutting down many factories for most of January to stop cars from piling up with low consumer demand. But GM’s size, with 243,000 employees worldwide and 47 factories in the U.S. alone, keeps its fixed costs high. The automaker expects the entire industry to sell a dismal 10.5 million vehicles in the U.S. this year, down from 13.2 million in 2008. But GM says it can’t break even until U.S. sales reach 11.5 million to 12 million. “We’re not pleased with a negative $14 billion cash flow burn, that’s still a very, very sizable amount,” Young said Thursday. “But at the same time we recognize that the industry conditions in ’09 are going to remain fairly challenging.” GM simply has too many fixed costs to make money at low sales volume, and there’s no guarantee it can hold its market share even if U.S. auto sales rebound to 12 million next year, said Kevin Tynan, an industry analyst for Argus Research in New York. GM ended last year with 21.6 percent of the U.S. market, down 1.6 points from 2007. The future of the storied company, Tynan said, rests with the government and how long it is willing to subsidize the cash burn. “By all intents and purposes, their story has been written already except for the government coming in and throwing more money at them,” he said. The U.S. auto industry as a whole has high fixed costs and is stuck with them regardless of...............http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....amp;EntityId=Ar00601
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