If GM Files for Chapter 11...

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you paid 8 trillion for a war in Iraq and several trillion to bail out wall street.

let's put this into perspective.
 
Originally Posted By: FXjohn
you paid 8 trillion for a war in Iraq and several trillion to bail out wall street.

let's put this into perspective.

Let's try to maintain some sense of reality. The pricetag for Iraq has been somewhere between $500 billion and $800 billion, maybe slightly more. Not $8 trillion.

And while the total price for fiscal and monetary stimulus and for direct bailouts is quite high, at least some of what has been spent went for assets which the government MAY be able to sell later at a profit.

Finally, while "Wall Street" has been labeled the bad guys in this story, in fact Wall Street are the biggest victims.
 
Originally Posted By: FXjohn
you paid 8 trillion for a war in Iraq and several trillion to bail out wall street.

let's put this into perspective.
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8 trillion for the Iraq war?

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Get new batteries for your crayon. AND stop listening to whatever you get your "facts".

"perspective"
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Originally Posted By: Tornado Red
Originally Posted By: FXjohn
you paid 8 trillion for a war in Iraq and several trillion to bail out wall street.

let's put this into perspective.

Let's try to maintain some sense of reality. The pricetag for Iraq has been somewhere between $500 billion and $800 billion, maybe slightly more. Not $8 trillion.

And while the total price for fiscal and monetary stimulus and for direct bailouts is quite high, at least some of what has been spent went for assets which the government MAY be able to sell later at a profit.

Finally, while "Wall Street" has been labeled the bad guys in this story, in fact Wall Street are the biggest victims.


it's ok for banks to make foolish decisions but it isn't OK for GM to lose out because of unfair competition and rising health care and pension costs?

Even with your numbers I see the billions for GM are small compared to iraq, which was a quagmire we were lied to about and makes a lot less sense than maintaining our automotive industry.
 
Originally Posted By: FXjohn
http://costofwar.com/

just 800 billion and thousands of lives for nothing
Your opinion.

Talk to someone who has been over there and most would disagree.

Throwing ANY money towards a broken GM or ANYTHING is dumb. If it is broken, throw it away and start over.

See that you backed off your 8 trillion REAL quickly.
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GM should be allowed to go bankrupt. Their contacts be re written or thats it.

As far as heathcare, there are REAL reasons why its going up. And our "leaders" have NO clue. (and will not fix it so it WILL work)

So they will screw it up so bad it will make the current GM look well run...
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We (the US) need to understand that if we are competing with China or Mexico we can not be making $70k to do something that should make $30k. (or less)

Also we need to stop with this I bought my home for $100k and sold it 5 years later for $500k.

I'll be happy with selling my home 30 years later for $1 more. That way maybe my kids could afford to have one.

Just my opinion.

Bill
 
Originally Posted By: PT1
Originally Posted By: drivewaytech
Once GM is government owned and operated, it will do just fine. Regulations and tariffs will be imposed to make the automotive industry a "more fair playing field". Ford will pay a price for turning down the buy out.... I mean bail out.


Can't and won't happen. The backlash from China and the automotive tier suppliers would collapse the entire industry. If China dumps the amount of our debt they own in treasury notes the US dollar would decline against other global currencies by about 35%. So any parts made in China by the tier suppliers (huge amounts) would increase by about the same plus tarrifs. This would add about $8-10,000 to the cost of a US built car. China would then shut down all of GM imports and GM would lose about 500,000 vehicle sales. The Europeans would throw a huge fit as well and at the same time acquire many more US corporations as the Euro would be worth about $1.75. The Japanese would go on a US corporation shopping spree as well.


China ain't going to screw us en mass. If we go down, they go down. They're already having a problem with ever more numerous riots and civil disturbances. I only hope this leads to real political "change" and sustainability for all of us..
 
Originally Posted By: FXjohn
I thought all the news has been bad for all automakers lately, except subaru.


I think Subaru is far from exempt. I thought I heard speculations that they might be bought out by Toyota and they, like other low volume, razor-thin profit margin makers such as Mazda or Mitsubishi, could be absorbed by someone else...
 
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I just heard Subaru sales were up 2 percent while the rest were down 4-50 percent. Subaru is getting too expensive these days in my opinion
 
Originally Posted By: 65cuda
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2 - Keep in mind gas was around $1.50-$1.60, an the economy was strong wiith very little unemployment, when hurricane Katrina hit. That was the start of our economy's downfall and GM's..


The downfall of our economy has been in the making for decades and fundamentally stems from: Americans propensity to live on credit and borrowing and an over-reliance on a consumption. To that I would add the dot-com bust, the huge corporate scandals that broke prior to 9/11 such as Worldcom/ENRON/Adephia that foreshadowed the complete lack of corporate accountability on Wall St. stemming from decades of "deregulation," 9/11 and the unnecessary war in Iraq...
 
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Originally Posted By: Tornado Red
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Finally, while "Wall Street" has been labeled the bad guys in this story, in fact Wall Street are the biggest victims.


Really? You must be drinking hallucinogenic Kool Aid for that one, since you repeated it...

The Wall St. scum, and the complete lack of oversight of them, are the ones pretty much engineered the collapse of the economy...

A specific example would be the SEC being staffed by people completely unqualified to monitor fraud and corruption and having little understanding of how they operated. This is evidenced by the fact that they were close to Bernie Madoff and that it was actually one of his "competitors" that inadvertently discovered his ponzi-scheme while trying to "reverse-engineer" why he was such a "successful" investor...

BTW, the cost of the Iraq War, even with the most conservative estimates, will be at least $3 billion (or the amount of seven annual bloated defense budgets)...
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Originally Posted By: Nickdfresh
The Wall St. scum, and the complete lack of oversight of them, are the ones pretty much engineered the collapse of the economy...

A specific example would be the SEC being staffed by people completely unqualified to monitor fraud and corruption and having little understanding of how they operated. This is evidenced by the fact that they were close to Bernie Madoff and that it was actually one of his "competitors" that inadvertently discovered his ponzi-scheme while trying to "reverse-engineer" why he was such a "successful" investor...

Who did Bernie Madoff steal from? Some private investors (to benefit other private investors), but mostly from brokerage firms and funds. He was a criminal, they were his victims.
 
Originally Posted By: PT1
if you search on youtube you can see Al Gore & Ross Perot fighting it out on Larry King. Very interesting to watch. Gore was the NAFTA cheerleader and Perot was telling the future for sure.


You won't find it on YouTube, but there are some good articles and a book or two about the GM board of directors paying a lot of money to get rid of Ross Perot, because he insisted on pointing out the strategic mistakes they were making.

Perot was not much of a politician, but he was a very good businessman. GM should have kept him and got rid of Roger Smith.

Ancient history, I know. I wonder what Perot is saying about GM now?
 
Originally Posted By: Tornado Red
That was a mistake too. But like much of the problems with the domestic auto industry, the banking industry's problems originated in Washington.

Too many people point to Wall Street and the major banks as the bad guys. In fact they were the greatest victims -- the real culprits are in Congress.

Congress wanted cleaner and more fuel-efficient cars. They could have raised fuel taxes, but that would have risked the wrath of taxpayers. So instead they imposed mandates on auto companies -- CAFE standards, emissions standards, safety standards. The "experts" always claimed that each incremental change in the regulations would only add $100 or $200 or $500 to the cost of each car -- something so insignificant that auto buyers would never notice.

Yet the customers noticed. They noticed which cars cost more, which ones had the best features, which companies increased the content of their cars and which ones were cutting. They noticed which cars were the most reliable, and which ones sold cars with the same problems year after year.

Washington also created loopholes, like the SUV loophole that let Detroit make a profit on some vehicles even when they losing lots of money on the smaller cars that Washington forced them to make.

Most companies which have different product lines... they make more of the profitable stuff and they stop making the unprofitable stuff completely. But CAFE standards forced Detroit to make more and more of the unprofitable cars. And these are the cars that really did the most damage to the reputations of the Detroit Three.

I agree that nothing can undo the damage that Congress has done. It would be good if they stopped doing more damage, but that's not going to happen. Carbon taxes, cap-and-trade, letting California and other states set their own fuel mileage standard... these things will make everything much much worse.


Amen!
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Originally Posted By: Tornado Red
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Who did Bernie Madoff steal from? Some private investors (to benefit other private investors), but mostly from brokerage firms and funds. He was a criminal, they were his victims.


Madoff ran an "affinity scam" initially catering to mostly, but certainly not limited to, Jewish investors. And my point was about the foxes guarding the hen house irregardless of who played the part of the hens. Notwithstanding, how were the "innocent" ******s at brokerages that should have known better so easily swindled? Because they were greedy tools that saw a quick buck over sustainability with no questions asked...

The guy who busted Madoff said on 60 Minutes that it took him about five minutes to figure out it was a Ponzi scheme (after a quick study to see why he was so 'successful'), and about four hours of math to prove it...

I agree that it is the gov't's fault, it's their fault for abdicating their responsibility of oversight!

And for the record, it is the fault of BOTH parties. Because, almost ironically, banking deregulation began under the Carter Administration...
 
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Originally Posted By: PT1
Can't and won't happen. The backlash from China and the automotive tier suppliers would collapse the entire industry.


Can you explain to me why China would be upset with a U.S. government owned auto manufacturer? I'm not too good at these economic issues and I'd appreciate your help. Thank you.
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Originally Posted By: Merkava_4
Originally Posted By: PT1
Can't and won't happen. The backlash from China and the automotive tier suppliers would collapse the entire industry.


Can you explain to me why China would be upset with a U.S. government owned auto manufacturer? I'm not too good at these economic issues and I'd appreciate your help. Thank you.
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China won't care if the US Gov owns GM. If the US gov puts tarrifs in place as suggested to "level the playing field" that is what will cause the backlash. China owns enough of our debt to crash our system if they push the sell button. Recently they have made public remarks about how they do not want their US Treasury investments to suffer.
 
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