If we're going by corporate standards then Obama has a year to turn things around.

If we're going by GM standards then Obama has a twenty years to not accomplish anything.

4/4/2009 10:15:16 PM

Pretty obvious that Obama wanted Wagnor out so if they do go through a gov assisted bankruptcy then the unions won't get totally pushed out the door. Wagnor was not like by the unions because he wouldn't give into their every demand and Obama wants to keep the unions happy.

Not that I am going to complain to much because this makes my job that much more secure

4/5/2009 10:16:48 AM

http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2009/04/obama-makes-some-tough-business.html


[Edited on April 6, 2009 at 10:41 AM. Reason : lnk]

4/6/2009 10:37:24 AM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V805UMaiZ-8

4/12/2009 9:10:05 PM

might as well post this too
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Y4hfBfUyg8

4/12/2009 9:10:44 PM

Looks like GM is going to file for some form of bankruptcy anyway. Who knew?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,514823,00.html

Quote :

" The Treasury Department is directing General Motors to prepare for a bankruptcy filing by June 1, despite GM's assertion that it could still reorganize without such a filing, The New York Times reported unnamed sources as saying on Monday. Members of President Obama's automotive task force are said to have been in discussion with GM officials and its advisers in Detroit and Washington last week and are expected to continue this week. The White House-appointed autos task force has given GM 60 days to come up with a restructuring plan and it is trying to determine whether the automaker can be a viable company. Quoting sources who had been briefed on the GM plans, the Times said the goal was to prepare for a fast "surgical" bankruptcy."

4/13/2009 11:36:45 AM

I have been saying for years that american cars are crap. And not such good timing on this recall.

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/US/04/14/gm.recall/index.html

Recall on these cars

Quote :

" 1997-2003 Buick Regals. 1998-2003 Chevrolet Luminas, Monte Carlos and Impalas. 1998-1999 Oldsmobile Intrigues. 1997-2003 Pontiac Grand Prix. "

4/14/2009 7:48:12 AM

FUCK!

I have one of those And I learned that from this thread (haven't checked the mail).

4/15/2009 8:01:18 PM

Chrysler to file for bankruptcy.

GM pushing a proposal to give the govt a controlling stake in the company in exchange for more loans, while the bondholders are pushing an alternate proposal to put them in charge. Either way, UAW somehow comes out ahead again, gaining a 40% stake in the company in exchange for consessions granted to management.

I'm so glad we decided to postpone the inevitable and loan these companies billions of dollars.

4/30/2009 2:20:07 PM

Quote :

"According the Treasury-GM debt-for-equity swap announced Monday, GM has $27.2 billion in unsecured bonds owned by the public. These are owned by mutual funds, pension funds, hedge funds and retail investors who bought them directly through their brokers. Under Monday’s offer, they would exchange their $27.2 billion in bonds for 10% of the stock of the restructured GM. This could amount to less than five cents on the dollar. The Treasury, which is owed $16.2 billion, would receive 50% of the stock and $8.1 billion in debt — as much as 87 cents on the dollar. The union’s retiree health-care benefit trust would receive half of the $20 billion it is owed in stock, giving it 40% ownership of GM, plus another $10 billion in cash over time. That’s worth about 76 cents on the dollar, according to some estimates. In a genuine Chapter 11 bankruptcy, these three groups of creditors would all be similarly situated — because all three are, for the most part, unsecured creditors of GM. And yet according to the formula presented Monday, those with the largest claim — the bondholders — get the smallest piece of the restructured company by a huge margin. This seems to be by political design"

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124105303238271343.html

4/30/2009 6:40:01 PM

I liked the slam Obama put on some of the creditors. They are evil because they want to get 2 times as much than other creditors are willing to take. Gee, thanks, Obama. How dare those damned creditors actually expect to have a contract honored. How dare those evil people look after THEIR balance books.

Oh, and apparently bankruptcy isn't a sign of weakness, according to the dear leader.

4/30/2009 7:27:19 PM

Under the fast-track bankruptcy that the Govt is trying to shove down the bondholder's throats, the Health Care Trust Fund (read: UAW) will own a controlling stake of 55% of the company, with the government owning 25% and Fiat owning 20%. That is, if they ever get out of bankruptcy proceedings. The bondholders will have something to say about that, considering that we have courts and shit to prevent owners of secured debt from getting bent over the way Obama is trying to do to them. Expect this bankruptcy proceeding to last closer to a year than the 60-day window Obama has set.

When they finally get out of bankruptcy, it'll be fun watching the UAW and the government run a company. Since they now have a controlling stake, does Gettelfinger appoint himself as CEO? Or maybe one of Obama's cronies? Either way, it's funny hearing Obama talk about the "tremendous sacrifices" the UAW has made while railing against the greed of the "money men" bondholders. His true colors are coming out now when it comes to business and organized labor.

4/30/2009 9:08:57 PM

Quote :

"it'll be fun watching the UAW and the government run a company."

It will be hilarious!

And when it continues to fail amidst Intra-union bickering and violence, (ala "some union members are more equal than others")... the gov't will have to step in and "level" the playing field some more..by driving domestic competition out with increased regulations..and raising tariffs on foreign competitors to price them out of the market.

The country will get to witness the results of a plethera of liberal wet-dreams.. protectionism, workers running the factory, and gov't nationalization. I hope Fiat knows what it is getting into.

4/30/2009 10:55:05 PM

Chrysler files bankruptcy.
I guess bail outs really were the only way.

5/2/2009 2:27:17 AM

to be fair, according to NPR, the UAW won't be running the company. They will have 1 representative on the board of directors out of something like 11.

5/2/2009 3:41:17 AM

^ Oh come on man, let EarthDogg the Informed live the dream a little while longer that the socialist experiment in Chrysler will blow up and he'll be vindicated for everything he's ever stated about the situation.

[Edited on May 2, 2009 at 8:57 AM. Reason : .]

5/2/2009 8:57:04 AM

Quote :

"it's funny hearing Obama talk about the "tremendous sacrifices" the UAW has made while railing against the greed of the "money men" bondholders."

qft

5/2/2009 9:09:38 AM

Sad that these businesses have to defend themselves against the admin.

The response from the non tarp taking EVIL hedge funds. IT calls out the admin, of course it got NO airtime.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/bb1d8d00-359d-11de-a997-00144feabdc0,dwp_uuid=a491f060-b57f-11dd-ab71-0000779fd18c,print=yes.html

"Under long recognized legal and business principles, junior creditors are ordinarily not entitled to anything until senior secured creditors like our investors are repaid in full. Nevertheless, to facilitate Chrysler’s rehabilitation, we offered to take a 40% haircut even though some groups lower down in the legal priority chain in Chrysler debt were being given recoveries of up to 50% or more and being allowed to take out billions of dollars. In contrast, over at General Motors, senior secured lenders are being left unimpaired with 100% recoveries, while even GM’s unsecured bondholders are receiving a far better recovery than we are as Chrysler’s first lien secured lenders."

So the admin is basically doing what it wants for political gain, instead of following the rule of law? I believe they are talking about unions.

5/2/2009 9:35:32 AM

Quote :

" The response from the non tarp taking EVIL hedge funds. IT calls out the admin, of course it got NO airtime. "

It got plenty of air time on CNBC yesterday and has been for the past couple of weeks. You're average American doesn't understand what capital structure cram downs and bankruptcy proceedings entail, so I can understand why lowest common denominator news outlets don't mention it.

5/2/2009 9:44:09 AM

That is a good point Failboat. I guess my frustration with the media is that I did hear the pressers by Gibbs and Obama smearing these hedgefunds on those news outlets. Yet they fail to mention what they were asked to do and how many groups those hedgefunds represent.

5/2/2009 9:54:36 AM

Quote :

"The Truth About Cars and Trucks Call it a bailout or restructuring. What you're seeing is not a new beginning for the homegrown auto sector. It's the culmination of a decades-old, dishonestly peddled auto policy. The two parties that turned the Big Three into a perennially limping freak of unwritten industrial policy now will take formal ownership of their handiwork. The United Auto Workers (UAW) would own 39% of GM. The federal government would own 50%. The creditors will be shafted with just 10%. (In the Chrysler plan being discussed, labor would own 55%, making it effectively a subsidiary of the UAW.) The day after any such settlement is finalized, the clock will start ticking down to the next collective-bargaining session between a monopoly UAW and what remains of the Big Three -- though now the UAW would be sitting on both sides of the table. Nearly 25 years ago, a Los Angeles Times reporter innocently and accurately invoked the "M" word in describing the domestic auto sector, noting that the arrival of Japanese auto plants was "threatening the UAW's traditional monopoly on labor in the domestic auto industry." The erosion of the Big Three's market share since then has really been the erosion of the market for monopoly labor-produced cars. The UAW standard tactic, "pattern bargaining," which it pursues without embarrassment, would have gotten Bill Gates thrown in jail under the antitrust laws... ...Lately some have doted, with wonderment and admiration, on the Obama administration's apparent willingness to drive a hard bargain with the UAW as it tries to impose a stage-managed replica of bankruptcy on GM and Chrysler. Please. In a real bankruptcy, which is the natural fate of companies unable to meet their obligations, Chrysler and GM would be run (or liquidated) for the benefit of their creditors, not their workers. But, here, "pattern bargaining" will remain the law of the Detroit jungle. The UAW will continue to use its unnaturally augmented clout to extract uncompetitive pay and benefits (it can do no other given its internal incentives). As it has for 40 years, Washington will pitch in with one improvisation after another, disguised as energy policy, trade policy, health-care policy or environmental policy, to stop the rivets from popping off. Politics, especially Democratic electoral politics, will play a more dominant role than ever."

Good article on the politics of it. I didn't post the whole thing. You can find it here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124096698307566437.html

5/4/2009 12:47:02 PM

Quote :

"It will be hilarious! And when it continues to fail amidst Intra-union bickering and violence, (ala "some union members are more equal than others")... the gov't will have to step in and "level" the playing field some more..by driving domestic competition out with increased regulations..and raising tariffs on foreign competitors to price them out of the market. The country will get to witness the results of a plethera of liberal wet-dreams.. protectionism, workers running the factory, and gov't nationalization. I hope Fiat knows what it is getting into."

Hopefully someone will beat the shit out of every last union worker in America so you can bust a nut all over yourself. Jesus, get over it.

5/4/2009 5:48:25 PM

Can we talk instead about the real long term effects? Most notable among these is the formation of what should end up being the world's 3rd largest car maker:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8032213.stm

Opel and Fiat are already pretty popular brands among the general public in Europe and I see no reason why that sort of technology won't sell over here, in addition to what Chrysler has planned on their own as far as their trucks go. It will be fun to see what happens to a largely tri-national car company (esp after the Daimler-Chrysler failure).

5/4/2009 6:02:25 PM

Do you just take everything this administration does as spoon feeding and assume its going to be for the best? If Fiat and Opel were such stellar companies with such stellar products, they would have been here a long long time ago making money. I don't know if you noticed it or not, but the small shitty type of car that Fiat and Opel sell in Europe just doesn't have a home here yet. And I can't help but wonder what relative lightweights in Europe are going to on the global scene when suddenly becoming the 3rd largest automaker (if what you are saying is correct, didn't read the link)...and all that, before we consider how big a stake the UAW will have in the company. What a clusterfuck, and you're eating it up.

5/4/2009 9:38:38 PM

Quote :

"Do you just take everything this administration does as spoon feeding and assume its going to be for the best? If Fiat and Opel were such stellar companies with such stellar products, they would have been here a long long time ago making money. I don't know if you noticed it or not, but the small shitty type of car that Fiat and Opel sell in Europe just doesn't have a home here yet. And I can't help but wonder what relative lightweights in Europe are going to on the global scene when suddenly becoming the 3rd largest automaker (if what you are saying is correct, didn't read the link)...and all that, before we consider how big a stake the UAW will have in the company. What a clusterfuck, and you're eating it up."

1. Fiat has been trying to do this for a while. I'm guessing you've missed what's been going on with them in Europe as of late. They came back from the dead to become one of the fastest growing car companies in recent years and they've been wanting to come back to the states for some time. But it's not like that's common knowledge. I follow the car industry on a pretty regular basis as a car guy I don't expect others to know how Fiat has been growing so much.

2. GM owns Opel. It's a German brand they bought. Why haven't they brought them here? I don't know, why don't they take Buick to Germany? They have been using Opel engines in their American cars for a few years now.

3. Not sure if you realized, but there are profitable companies the world over who don't orient their product to the United States, or even sell anything here. If Americans don't want to buy Fiats, but Europeans are snatching them up by the boatload, does that make Fiat a failure? Jesus, they're one of the world's best car companies on many levels and they'll probably be bigger than VW soon.

Maybe Americans are the failures for wanting Excursions and Tahoes over Alfa-Romeos.

3. I'm not sure what my post about the interesting new formation of a large car conglomerate out of the guided bankruptcy of Chrysler has to do with being some sort of unquestioning devotion to Obama.

5/4/2009 9:52:28 PM

lol, yeah okay. Fiat has not been trying to seriously break into the US market. Well, they are about to re-enter via Alfa Romeo but that's small potatoes

And I'm curious how you think Fiat is going to surpass VAG in size and sales given that VAG is doing pretty well too (hell their stock set a record for share price earlier this year when Porsche was increasing their stake).

Look I'm not saying its solely the government's fault. The companies themselves have screwed the pooch and been pushed around by the UAW. But the gov't has been stacking the deck against them for years.

[Edited on May 5, 2009 at 12:03 AM. Reason : then again you think big govt = answer]

[Edited on May 5, 2009 at 12:04 AM. Reason : k]

5/5/2009 12:02:03 AM

I dont know if you have mentioned it yet, but its official we are fucked out of 7Billion and it looks like they plan on loaning them 5Billion more....WTF

http://money.cnn.com/2009/05/05/news/companies/chrysler_loans/index.htm?cnn=yes

5/5/2009 10:54:02 PM

So glad we spent so much money to delay the inevitable a whole 6 months.

Private gains, public losses made possible by Bush and his congress and reenforced by Obama and his congress. Now that's "Change We Can Believe In™"

5/5/2009 11:09:23 PM

^ I agree. And how in the world are you going to "loan" them 5 billion more after? They just defaulted on 7 Billion dollars. And there is hardly any fuss or mention of this anywhere.

For gods sake him eating a fucking burger got more coverage last night.

5/6/2009 9:05:46 AM

It's right there in the fucking CNN article and no doubt discussed on their TV programs. How is that not covering it? Which right wing nutjob are you listening to or reading that is proclaiming no one is covering it because shows most certainly are. If you didn't suck all your news media down from the wing nuts you'd know this.

5/6/2009 9:24:59 AM

Well when I turned on the news last night, including cnn i saw multiple stories about obama eating a burger. It was amazing. I called my family together and we all watched. It was enchanting. I even teared up. I never thought Id see the day. And yes CNNMONEY and CNN.com are the same fuckign thing. I dont see anything mentioned about it on cnn.com.

Ok back to the autos. Have you all seen this? Total bullshit. Would the creditors have a legal case to stop this from happening?

http://www.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idUSTRE54471X20090506?feedType=RSS&feedName=businessNews

5/6/2009 9:34:06 AM

^^^ That restaurant is literally right across the street from where I live. I suppose I won't be able to eat there for a while as the tourists flood it (the lines were already long enough as is), but yeah, coverage was excessive.

5/6/2009 9:49:17 AM

Is that the old GM stock or the new issuance they are talking about selling? After a bankruptcy the old stock is retired for new stock issued to the debt holders, is this the stock GM is fixing to put on sale? Or is this the expectation that GM is not going to go into bankruptcy and therefore avoid erasing equity holders? But if that is the case, then how is GM not paying back debt holders 100%? Would the bond holders not induce a third party liquidation if they found themselves being treated worse than equity holders?

5/6/2009 10:04:28 AM

Quote :

"Would the bond holders not induce a third party liquidation if they found themselves being treated worse than equity holders"

I think they'd obviously try, but the Obama admin thinks they can rip up contracts and ignore the law because of the bailouts they were given thwarting their effort, just like what is happening to Chrysler.

It really is a monumental fuckup what they are doing with the automakers while ignoring the banks. It really saddens me that there is no Deep Throat for our generation who can get the inside stories of all the happenings.

Of course, when you have Geithner and one Wall Street rep (Blankfein) attending meetings deemed of national security level importance and there is no real paper record of any of it and you know these dicks aren't talking to anyone, there isn't anyone a Deep Throat could get information out of.

5/6/2009 10:12:05 AM

Quote :

" Battered Hedge Fund Managers’ Syndrome Greed is good – until it gets in the way of a union-friendly restructuring deal. President Obama, generous recipient of Wall Street largesse, angrily derided a group of hedge fund managers this week as “speculators.” The miffed president suggested that uncooperative firms were selfish for holding out on the government’s Chrysler bankruptcy plans and refusing to make “sacrifices” to benefit the United Auto Workers. The “sacrifices” involved Chrysler debt holders agreeing to sell the debt to the government at prices determined by union-beholden bureaucrats instead of bankruptcy courts. The hedge firms balked. Obama sneered that the dissenters were looking for “unjustified taxpayer-funded bailout.” But the holdouts never took banking bailout funds from Washington. And the targeted financial executives were simply doing what good money managers are supposed to do: put their clients’ fiduciary interests first. -- Michelle Malkin "

So you're greedy now for fulfilling your contractual fiduciary responsibilities. And Obama is a champion for throwing out years of bankruptcy law just to keep one of his voting blocs happy?

Some of those hedge funds are in charge of teacher's union money. I guess some unions are more equal than others.

http://www.creators.com/opinion/michelle-malkin/battered-hedge-fund-managers-syndrome.html

5/10/2009 11:20:11 AM

Gotta love the Obama idea of making cars so unaffordable that no one will be able to buy them.

He says that his new fuel economy standards will effectively take 130million cars off the road; it probably will. No one will be able to afford them any more! of course, what will really happen is people will just make their old, polluting cars last longer, thus neutering any effect Obama hoped to achieve...

Then he goes ahead and says "we need to decrease their emissions, too..." Hey, fuckstick, if you have better fuel economy, then, by definition, you have fewer emissions. Why tack on more difficult regulations when you don't have to?

Way to go, man. Way to help out Detroit by guaranteeing them fewer sales in the future and a product so impossible to make that it will drive them out of business.

I was all for California making their own fuel standards. let em. Let Detroit say to California "hey, we can't meet your standards, so HAVE FUN WALKING."

5/19/2009 6:34:59 PM

I suppose one would expect the "cow farts don't hurt the environment!" crowd to completely ignore that aspect of the issue.

5/19/2009 6:45:59 PM

^^

Quote :

"Hey, fuckstick, if you have better fuel economy, then, by definition, you have fewer emissions. "

Not true at all.

5/19/2009 6:50:15 PM

^^ cow farts probably don't hurt the environment, given that they are part of the carbon cycle and current atmospheric carbon amounts, and all... But why argue with logic and science...

^ how do you figure? I burn less gas, ergo, I produce less emissions.

5/19/2009 6:53:03 PM

Quote :

"cow farts probably don't hurt the environment, given that they are part of the carbon cycle and current atmospheric carbon amounts, and all... But why argue with logic and science..."

It's hilarious that you would invoke "logic and science" while in the same breath denying the greenhouse effect.

5/19/2009 7:04:06 PM

^^not neccesarily

[Edited on May 19, 2009 at 7:04 PM. Reason : .]

5/19/2009 7:04:08 PM

Quote :

"hey, we can't meet your standards, so HAVE FUN WALKING. in your new foreign car"

fixed it for you.

5/19/2009 7:04:55 PM

Quote :

"It's hilarious that you would invoke "logic and science" while in the same breath denying the greenhouse effect."

it's funny when you put words in people's mouths...

Quote :

"^^not neccesarily"

Wha? OK. I burn gas. Burning gas creates emissions. I burn less gas. Somehow i don't create less emissions?

^ not exactly. Foreign cars would have to comply with the standards just as much as domestics. If they can make a truck that gets 30mpg and ship it over here, then great, let em do it! Of course, then the whole point of "lowering emissions" gets hammered a bit, cause shipping that car does create emissions. The only thing they could really do is build it over here. And if they could do so, why aren't they doing so already?

5/19/2009 7:12:52 PM

Quote :

"it's funny when you put words in people's mouths..."

If you deny that increasing the level of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere will have an effect on climate change, then you are, by definition, denying the greenhouse effect.

5/19/2009 7:22:37 PM

^ that would be why you put words in my mouth, kind sir. Never denied that putting GHGs in the air will "affect climate change," whatever that means.

5/19/2009 7:32:17 PM

Whatever that means?

5/19/2009 7:50:25 PM

yes. "whatever that means." You are quite daft at making a point, you know

5/19/2009 7:55:36 PM

http://www.reuters.com/article/mergersNews/idUSN1943363120090519

Quote :

"General Motors Corp's (GM.N) plan for a bankruptcy filing involves a quick sale of the company's healthy assets to a new company initially owned by the U.S. government, a source familiar with the situation said on Tuesday. ... The government's plans include giving stakes in the new company to GM's union and bondholders, although the ownership structure of the company is still being negotiated, said the source who is familiar with the company's plans. In addition, the government would extend a credit line to the new company and forgive the bulk of the $15.4 billion in emergency loans that the U.S. has already provided to GM, the source said."

5/19/2009 10:48:56 PM

Quote :

"I'm so glad we decided to postpone the inevitable and loan these companies billions of dollars."

5/19/2009 11:24:15 PM

^^ Fuuuuck. I can't believe that they're doing that. At the very least give it to them interest free and tell them to pay it back by 2019 or something. Don't just give them my fucking money because their business model sucks.

Somebody got paid off somewhere for that bullshit to happen.

5/19/2009 11:47:00 PM