GM goes into bankruptcy
 

Obama just announced that GM will enter bankruptcy, the US government will own 60% of GM and the sacrifices made today will help insure better times for the next generation :helpme

Fully understanding of the employment consequences and ripple effect the bankruptcy will have - I still say c'est la vie.

Its unfortunate that those who had no blame in running the company into the ground will eventually be affected - but I'd sooner see GM go under than continually watch the tax dollars fund endless bailouts.

Should have happened months ago. They would already be rebuilding by now.

Man this sucks big time :(

Saw the Obama speech, sad...

great news! :disgust Hopefully they can turn things around and stay afloat

Um GM isn't going under. They filed Chapter 11 not 7. LEARN. They'll be out of bankruptcy in 60-90 days like Chrysler. In the end this is no big deal. Remember after 9-11 when all the airlines went bankrupt? Can you still fly? yep.

Chrysler didn't close a shitload of dealerships like GM has. Here in our town alone they're closing 2 outta 3.

I don't think GM's chapter 11 is gonna go the same route as Chrysler. For starters, GM doesn't have a Lee Iacoca ready to ride in and save the day.

While GM won't disappear the ripple effect will reach far and wide. I just heard his speech on TV and don't have exact numbers but I think they said they will close something like 14 US plants and close 2,400 dealerships and so on. That effects a lot of people.

can sell shit forever

Fucking amazing.. I just dont understand bailing them out. It just does NOT MAKE SENSE.

Michigan already has the highest unemployment numbers outside of the third world and they're about to get a lot worse.

As for saving tax dollars :1orglaugh:1orglaugh

I know a guy from up there who's been collecting unemployment since last July and he just got another 12 week extension.

Here's a free clue. Everytime someone loses a real job, not a burger flipping job but a real job, this country loses another taxpayer and goes that much deeper into the toilet :disgust

The difference between that "real job" (the one where a 9th grade drop-out gets paid $70 to put bolt-A into nut-B) and the burger-flipping dude - is union greed.

My cousin dropped out of school in the 9th grade back in the late 70s and a few years later went to work for Chrysler - eventually making $45/hr. plus benefits. The last few years he worked at Chrysler he sat in a chair supervising a paint waterfall.

The economy simply can't sustain that - but the unions aren't/weren't willing to accept that.

I, for one...am glad to see the unions getting a reality check. We've heard this said time and time again - unions once served a useful purpose and helped improve working conditions, health and safety, etc. But these days they've morphed into a big greed machine.

Making shitty cars back in the 70's didn't help their long term interest.

I think that unions can do some good and at one point did serve a great purpose, but like you said, there comes a point where things just don't make sense. When a company needs to keep somebody on the payroll simply because of a union contract and not because they actually need someone filling a position, we have a problem. Not only is that a huge disservice to the company... it is a disservice to the customers, to our country, and even to the employee that is standing around doing nothing.

And the list goes on and on.

its like this they buy alot of resources glass metal plastics etc.. so if they go out of biz it will cause a chain reaction in the economy well thats just part of it :winkwink:

excuse me? You have been paying attention to the news.

http://money.cnn.com/2009/05/14/auto...ion=2009051506

"Last Updated: May 15, 2009: 6:21 AM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Chrysler LLC will close down 789 dealerships, or roughly 25% of the current number, according to a plan filed in bankruptcy court Thursday."

Yeah but sometimes you need to burn part of the forest so the rest of it can be healthy.

sad news from GM... it's 100yrs old company

Sure but if these companies had treated the workers right to begin with they wouldn't have need to form a union. So in the end the companies have no one to blame but themselves.

Not really. You are taking the employees "woe is me" perspective. I think they all are at fault. Management and labor.

Management and labor will always fight. Labor will always want a union to represent what they think they should have. Management will always want representation against the union to keep as much as they can.

Nobody is innocent.

according to this article http://www.reuters.com/article/topNe...Name=topNew s

The bankruptcy will cause around 18,000-20,000 people to lose their jobs. While that is still a big number it is far less than would have happened had they just gone under.

So 100 years ago when companies were making workers work 6 days a week 16 hours a day paying 25 cents a day in hazardous conditions and ZERO benefits. Those companies have no blame when the employees decided to unionize? I suugest you read up on some history first. These companies would even hire kids as young as 10 to work in these dangerous conditions and 16 hour days. They didn't give a shit about anyone just the almighty $$$$

The irony the company and the CEOs will get all the blame but these workers should blame dad and grandpa for asking for more than what they probably deserved when they worked there. Common sense should have told dad and grandpa you can't pay current workers and former workers who may not have worked for 20 or 30 years PLUS benefits. But they didn't give a shit about little Johnny they wanted theirs.

http://plaid-jello.com/wp-content/up...y-our-crap.png

ADG

Sir I believe you suffer from what is called "selective reading."

Quoted for truth.

I think both sides can shoulder some of the blame but in the end it falls back on the CEOs. When the unions came to them and demanded these crazy contracts they could have said no. If they stand their ground and put forth a reasonable contract they could have saved themselves much of the labor problems they have now. All of that said I saw that for GM labor cost is only about 15% of their total cost and it only represents about 8.5 % of the cost of a car so labor is not their only problem.

I tend to not blame a guy who can be fired at any time with little or no severance pay for trying to get as much as he can from his boss. If the owner/management of the company can't afford to pay that much they should say no and hire someone who will work for less.

The best part about the ad posted above is the Subaru.

Congrats you fucking idiots. Now the government... against EVERYTHING the USA stands for is taking over companies, dictating business strategy, approving/disapproving of business plans... dictating product lines, selecting/firing management, ignoring shareholder rights and contracts and so on... of course while saying "we have no intention of ever getting involved in the day to day operations unless..."

We are a nation of retards that fully deserves to collapse.

Billions of dollars later to save GM and they couldn't pay loans back and are now bankrupt. over a 1000 dealers closed. all that was feared is happening anyway... so now what? Instead of letting a failed company die... we're suddenly Marxists. They are a failed company going to get billions MORE and gave ownership to the fucking unions of all things. That's like asking Headless to babysit your Twinkies after decades of watching him get fat by stealing and eating all your Twinkies.

duplicate post

Kind of like what happened when the government threw billions at those flimflam artists on Wall Street :(

That's a great analogy.

It's more Change you can believe in !!

And they shouldn't have done it. The economy is not stronger or better off for having propped up shitty companies at YOUR expense. YOU and YOUR children are and will be PAYING for this. arguing about the consequences of not doing it is totally retarded when the obvious and measurable consequences of doing it are never factored into the equation.

No one is doing the free market system a favor by rewarding failure. The weak are supposed to die as new and strong and better companies move in to replace them and fill the void. That's how its supposed to work. That's what yields the greatest benefit to the consumer and the economy. That's why we've (compared to other developed nations) always had relatively low unemployment and unparalleled economic growth.

At our core, we are self destructive. As people, we can't accept bad choices. If a situation existed where a choice had to be made... like "choose 3 kids of these 3000 to be murdered, or they'll all be murdered" - no one would do it and all 3000 would die. they'd all die because no one could accept the choices. if there was an election for someone to make this choice, it would be an election between one who said "i can figure this out and all will be ok" and one who said "i'll make the tough choice and save as many children as possible". if the one who said it would be ok failed, he would be forgiven for trying, for his noble efforts, regardless of the outcome and everyone would have great excuses and plenty of ways to place blame. if someone was elected and did make that tough choice, they'd forever be labeled a monster for doing it. they would be second guessed and blamed forever for not finding that other solution and ultimately be considered failures. That in a nutshell, is the struggle between liberalism and conservatism... and that is why we are forever doomed to repeat history.

When they announced a launch of the Chevrolet Volt electric vehicle in 2010 at $40,000, I saw the writing on the wall. It was a doomed obsolete over-priced product before it was even launched.

Apparently everyones not willing to PAY for a hummer....ha ha ha ...um HA?

I think whoever got elected would take heat now no matter what choice they made. We would wait to see the final outcome years down the road before giving them any praise.

If the Obama plans works and the economy make a strong recovery and things are going very well 3-4 years from now he will be praised as having done the correct things, but there still be people who say it wasn't worth spending all the money to do. If McCain had gotten elected and done nothing, just let it all collapse and fail, (which, by the way he would have never done) at first he would be vilified for letting so many people lose their jobs and everything they have worked for. If the economy bounced back and 3-4 years later things were great he would be praised for doing the right thing and there would be people who still said it wasn't worth all the heartache and trouble some people were put through to get it done.

There is no way to make everyone happy. Right now we have a choice. We can have a shit sandwich, or we can have a shit sandwich with mayonnaise on it. Neither is good. You have to decide if you would rather deal with debt or deal with massive unemployment and the issues that go along with that. neither solution is going to be worth a shit if there are not some kind of regulations or oversight put in place to help ward this kind of thing off and keep certain companies from becoming so big that if the fail they bring the entire economy down with them. Maybe that is too liberal of an idea for some, but otherwise we go right back to what we had pre-depression which is a boom and bust economy and in modern times when most people's retirements are based on the stock market and investments a boom and bust economy would destroy them.

Marxism (as in nationalization of industry, banking, etc..) didn't work for Russia. I don't understand why anybody figures it will work for the US.

I think that sums up one of their major issues. Their cars got expensive and for the money there were better cars out there. Also the spent so much time and effort making and marketing big trucks and SUVs that they were reliant on them. When gas went to $4 a gallon many people stopped buying them. They turned to smaller commuter cars and the other companies had the edge with those types of cars.

I think those that are supporting it and carrying it out are seeing it not as a taking over and controlling, but a temporary oversight. I think they see it as the government stepping in and helping out then eventually giving control back to the business. I guess we will see if that is really the case.

Re-read what I wrote (and quoted) above. I'm talking 2 out of 3 GM dealerships in our town - NOT Chrysler.

I really hope you are right, but I fear you are wrong. Lets keep our fingers crossed. I guess I am not so trusting.

i think you are a very bright and obviously well spoken person who clearly puts a lot of thought into what he says. however, i think anyone can see the basic problems with the federal government taking over private enterprise as they relate to a free market system.

"a shit sandwich",, "no one will happy no matter what" etc etc etc does not mean its ok to stage a takeover of private industry, ignore shareholder rights, break contracts, have politicians dictate business strategy and product lines and so on.

you certainly have to see the problems with that, no matter how liberal you might be. there is a massive difference between a loan and running the company... and having the audacity to think that a bunch of politicians can run it better than actual business people.

I, like you, am not very trusting as well. I hope I am right. Unfortunately it is one of those things where by the time you realize you are wrong you are fucked.

lets assume we are talking about adult friend finder (not a small company by any measure)

does it make sense to you that the federal government steps in and tries to run it? the the federal government take over cams.com and dictate to the company how it be run... approve and disapprove of plans and lay out some demands for products that cams.com and adultfriendfinder.com MUST produce in the future to be competitive? are they somehow qualified to over see its operations or make any decisions about what products fit their business model, much less are in demand by consumers?

that's not what competent management is. competent management is finding a great group of people and turning them loose to do their jobs. business people understand this. most liberal politicians don't.

I think something that is being overlooked (at least as far as the GM deal goes) is that they asked for this. It wasn't like Obama took office and then facilitated a hostile takeover of GM. GM came to the government looking for help and the government told they would help them under certain circumstances. GM has a choice in this matter. They could have turned the government down and either just folded the company or entered a bankruptcy in hopes of salvaging it (but without a large influx of capitol this no way of knowing how successful that would have been) or they can accept the government money and the terms of that. I see it as no different than if a large investor agreed to dump a ton of money into the company to rescue it. That investor would demand on control of certain things and that is what happened here. GM was free to walk away before this whole thing started, but they chose not too.

One thing we can both agree on is that politicians are not the best people to be running any company. While there are some elected officials who have been successful in business on their own, many of them are really only good at getting elected and they know little or nothing about actually running a company. I agree with you that they should have brought in qualified people and let them run the show.

I put this in my other post but will restate it here. I agree with you that politicians and elected officials are not the best options when it comes to running a company. Many of these people have no idea how to run a company and should not be doing so. As you say the best way to do it would be to get competent management in place and let them run the show.

That said if we are using the example of AFF it wouldn't be like Obama one morning woke up and decided to overtake AFF. AFF would have had to have gone to them and asked for money to keep their company afloat then the government would have to approve giving the money and would attach certain stipulations to that agreement. If AFF wants the money they have to agree to the stipulations. They would be free to turn the money down. Ford did and nobody is telling Ford what to do. I'm not saying that how the government may run some of these companies is correct, I'm just saying the companies can't all of a sudden be pissed. They took the money so they knew what they were getting into. It is kind of like if you meet a crazy chick and take her to bed. You know since she is a little sideways she is going to be great in bed, but in the morning she is still crazy and now you have to deal with that.

I think you are assuming that the companies were aware that there were strings attached as a condition to the loan before they accepted the loans. I'm not so sure they knew and I haven't seen anything stating that they knew. Please correct me if I am wrong.

i'm not suggesting anyone is angry. or what right they have or don't have to be angry. i'm saying its totally, 100% absurd that the federal government would take over a company like GM and act like they know how it should be run, as if they understand the business, understand business at all, understand the market, the consumer, the long term and short term strategies, the visions, the changing market, the coming threats from other companies, the changing future and so on and so forth.

There is a difference between loaning money to a company... and basically taking over control of it. a key difference which you seem to be ignoring.

You are ignoring the simple fact that the Obama Administration is dictating to them how it will be run, what their future will be etc. Not allowing management to make that decision. That is what i am talking about. That... and that alone. That simple fact contradicts everything this country stands for and was built on and no one in their right mind can expect the federal government... much less the auto unions of all things are more qualified to run the company than people from the auto industry. The federal government just took over a private enterprise and is running it. The federal government just took over a private enterprise, is running it "as a shareholder" ... whoever the "shareholder" is... since it was your money and my money that bought the shares and is using that position to implement government policy.. such as fuel standards and using government making large orders of cars the market clearly doesn't want when gas is cheap "to boost sales" of those vehicles.