Let GM go Bankrupt

You know you are damn lucky that Ford did not need to take any of the funds as they was on the edge of needing to do so.

I guess if they had done so you would had have to walk or bike in the future.

In any case the government and the taxpayers are going to make a profit out of the bailout of the car companies.

I know you would prefer otherwise.

please find ONE recognized expert who predicts that. Betcha can't do it.

I will begin by looking a the Fox New website for those experts<grin>.

Sorry it is now making a profit even in the North America market and it will be selling public shares and paying off the government in a fairly short time frame.

This will be the second time that the taxpayers had bail out the auto companies and as a result came out with a profit.

Is that not a sad event for you Hawkeye as you would must prefer otherwise.

I am a socialist so I have nothing but disdain for the corporate class, and only mild tolerance for free enterprise , but I understand enough about the theory of free enterprise to know that failed firms must die. I am plenty pissed that the government bought GM, and Chrysler was given way for nothing to another nearly failed firm ....Fiat.

Below is a story from the Wall street Journey and once more when the company go public once more that the taxpayers sell it 61 percent of the company we are going to end up with a very very large windfall.

Then what are you right wingers going to complain about then?
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DETROIT"Nearly a year after two big U.S. auto makers were bailed out by government-engineered bankruptcies, both offered tentative signs of a turnaround, with General Motors Co. repaying $6.7 billion to the U.S. government ahead of schedule and Chrysler Group LLC reporting a first-quarter operating profit and boosting its cash reserves.

The companies and the Obama administration seized on the news to argue that the controversial bailout plan, is taking hold, helped by a surge in consumer spending. GM, keenly aware of the bailout stigma that it sees as a major hurdle to a recovery in the U.S., launched a series of new television ads featuring Chairman and Chief Executive Edward E. Whitacre Jr. touting the loan repayment.

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Reuters

CEO Edward E. Whitacre Jr., at a GM plant in Kansas Wednesday, announces GM's early repayment of a U.S. loan.
"This continued progress is a positive sign for our auto investment"not only more funds recovered for the taxpayer, but also countless jobs saved and the successful stabilization of a vital industry for our country," Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said in a statement.

The two auto makers still face substantial challenges. GM's repayment was a fraction of the $50 billion that the company received from the U.S. government last year. The big payback won't come until GM goes public and the U.S. can begin to sell off its 60% stake in the company.

And Chrysler, while upbeat, still said it has posted losses of nearly $4 billion since leaving Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last year.

A senior Obama administration official on Wednesday said GM and Chrysler have yet to prove they can become viable in the long term, but that the companies are on the right track. The administration remains hopeful GM will go public this year, the official said. Mr. Whitacre backed off an earlier timetable to go public in this year.

The administration reiterated that the government is unlikely to recoup all of the bailout funds extended to the auto industry.

Still, a year after predictions that the industry and its suppliers could face a drastic decline, the situation has clearly stabilized. In the past three quarters, the U.S. auto industry has added 45,000 new jobs, making it the strongest nine-month period for auto-industry job growth since 2000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Most of those jobs have been added by parts suppliers, which account for a majority of the jobs in the industry. Gregg Sherrill, chief executive of Tenneco Inc., a maker of emission controls for GM and Chrysler, said many suppliers were able to use the industry's downturn to restructure themselves into lean operations, and now need more workers as auto sales come back.

"The whole [supplier] industry has restructured to such a point that we don't have to have super high [production] volumes to be profitable," he said in a recent interview.

Both GM and Chrysler have made aggressive forecasts for the rest of the year. Mr. Whitacre predicted Wednesday that GM will surprise industry observers next month when it reports financial results for the first quarter of 2010.

"This is the new pace at GM," he said to a crowd of factory workers and government leaders at a plant in Kansas City. "GM's ability to pay back loans is a sign our plan is working."

Mr. Whitacre said that GM, since exiting bankruptcy, has invested $1.5 billion in U.S. and Canadian factories and added 7,500 production jobs. The company's main focus now is improving its sales performance in the U.S., cutting reliance on costly incentives and implementing more cost cuts.

"This will raise a lot of eyebrows in a positive sense," said Tammy Darvish, vice president of Dar-cars Automotive Group, based in Silver Spring, Md., which owns a Chevrolet dealership. "I have many customers who have sent us letters that say, 'As long as they have government money, we're not going to support them.' "

Chrysler recorded a loss of $197 million during the first quarter and $3.78 billion for the period covering June 10 through Dec. 31, after the company had exited Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Last year's loss included a $2.1 billion charge for Chrysler's payment into the United Auto Workers' health-care trust fund.

But the auto maker's operating profit of $143 million for the first quarter, compared with a loss of $895 million for the June-through-December period in 2009, bolstered Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne's claim that the auto maker will break even by the end of the year.

The company credited cost-cutting and the introduction of the new Ram Heavy Duty pickup truck for the positive results. "The fact that we are able to post a $143 million operating profit in this environment shows how low we have lowered Chrysler's break-even point," Mr. Marchionne said. It was the first time he has disclosed Chrysler's financial figures since taking over as chief executive in June after the majority of Chrysler's assets were merged with Fiat.

Write to Sharon Terlep at [email protected] and Jeff Bennett at [email protected]

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You said that people should only write about what they know. You reject real knowledge, verified historical reports, widely accepted definitions. The only thing you know about is your own navel gazing or are you too naive to recognize a widely used turn of phrase?

Then why are you a rightwinger who kisses the corporate cloaca?

Bill,
Thiss is from your own link to the article you pasted...



So, the administration admits that the govt is going to lose money.
How is that a good thing?

That the Wall Street Journey story written before the fact that GM had turn a 800 millions dollars profit in North American market in the last quarter came out.

Sorry it look real real good that the taxpayers for a second time with as Auto bail out will come out ahead and gain not loss a dime!

Wonder oh how I wonder what the right wingers will do when after the public offerings begin buying out the taxpayers and we have a nice windfall profit will said.

I love the fact that they try to denial all the good news as they wish for GM to fail and manufacturing jobs to be lost to other countries.

The right wingers seem to be traitors to their own country that they pretend to love as it is far more important that Obama fail then the country recover to them.

Obama failing means America succeeds. Obama succeeding would ultimately mean the demise of America. Leftists are the traitors.

Don't be an idiot. Please. This is no more compelling than if I were to write that 'rightists are traitors.'

Cycloptichorn

BillRM just accused right wingers of being traitors, so I was just setting the record straight. I don't appreciate being accused of something I have no connection to. It is the leftists that are pushing anti-American stuff, not conservatives, is that clear?

If you want just one of many examples, who do you think Eric Holder's law firm has connections to in terms of defending? One guess. If you guess gitmo terrorists, you would guess right. Some of these people in the administration have no conscience.

And did you find that compelling? Did it sway you in any way?

Don't be the child who responds at the same level as someone they disagree with. You aren't convincing anyone that your argument is superior on the merits by doing so.

Cycloptichorn

Cyclops, some of the arguments here have gone past the point of ridiculous. Leftists cannot be reasoned with anymore. See what I added to my above post, in regard to Holder and the reference to traitors. Some of the stuff going on nowadays, would make decent Americans of the past turn over in their graves.

Gitmo terrorists - actually, people who have been ACCUSED of terrorism - deserve a defense lawyer just like anyone else. The idea that people should be tarred and feathered for helping these people exercise their rights is ridiculous and indicative of a complete misunderstanding of how the justice system, even the shitty Tribunal system, works.

You're not really helping your case here by making uninformed comments like this.

Cycloptichorn

Cyclops, one of the reasons lawyers are the butt of jokes is that fact that often they are willing to give up any semblance of principles for the almightly dollar, and also claim their stilted view of themselves as defending the helpless, and that everyone has a right to a defense, blah blah blah, but I think most people also know that all too many lawyers are willing to defend people they know are guilty, and so they check their principles at the door of making a dollar. Laywers for O. J. Simpson were a prime example. And I think defending gitmo detainees, some of which are obviously guilty, also requires giving up one's principles to a certain extent, I think common sense would tell you this. But cyclops, if you have given up all common sense, then you will of course continue to argue with the obvious points that I have just made.

At best, Holder has a conflict of interest, and at worst, he has more sympathies for terrorists than he does for his own country and the citizens of his own country, which I think should tell us more than enough to want to get rid of the bunch in Washington right now. I do not think the term, "traitor" is too big of s stretch for some of the Leftists in Washington these days. That in contrast with using the term "traitor" for conservatives, which I took as a total and complete insult from BillRM.

I should have clicked on Bill's but I find the right wing harmful to democracy and to the planet.

As I said if the bail out work and it does seem to be working the right wing will be very very unhappy.

The funny thing is we had one "gentleman" that said he is only buying Ford cars as they did not take part in the bail out.

The reason they did not do so was that the terms of this "free" money from the government was far too harsh for them to take unless they was driven right to the wall.

By the skin of their teeth they did not need to do so but one had to wonder at who the right wingers who will now only deal with Ford would had gone to if the balance had tilt a little more against Ford.

They would prefer to see the country destroy then their pet theories proven wrong.

It was said at the time that they had at least six months if business did not improve. Ford was able to go out and convince private wealth to lend them money even at the worst, because the holders of private wealth believed in Ford's management. Chrysler had no management to speak of, and GM had a very long record of incompetent management, so they had no where to go but for the government. I think rewarding Ford by doing business with them is sound idea, by all rights Chrysler and GM should no longer be in business.

Weird opinion, to equate a company going broke to the country being destroyed. I happen to think it will take more than a company going broke to destroy the country, and I also think principles and the country are bigger and more valuable than a cheap politician from Chicago getting his way.