Around here it wouldnt wake them up, hell the school bus wouldn't even know it was hit, the car is going single digit speeds when it hits LOL

 

hahaha, you can't seriously think small business can take up the slack? Try to picture how much a Chevy Aveo would cost if you had to build it with 10 guys and hand tools. A typical car factory around here assembles 1100 cars a day!



To START a modest sized car company capable of modern mass production would require more investment capital than what we're talking about here, and it would take YEARS, even if there was private capital to invest, which would still be government money anyway at the moment.



Letting GM fail is what, 250,000 people out of work in one day, 1 million the next day when all their suppliers and dealers close, then probably another 5 million in the next month when almost every restaurant, bar and gas station within 5 miles of a factory closes.



As I understand it the government forced them to adopt the 'big brother, we take care of you till you die' policy of pension and healthcare in the 50s so the government wouldn't have to do it and look like communists. At the time it seemed acceptable because retirees lived maybe 5 years. Now people retire at 50 and die at 90. The last number I heard was that $3000 out of every GM car sale went directly to pension and healthcare cost. So to compete against a $28,000 Camry or Accord that means they have to build a $25,000 car and sell it for $28,000. No wonder everyone thinks they're products are cheap and crappy compared to the competition.



Car companies need to stay for political reasons too. Point out one other major consumer product that is primarily manufactured in North America. Housing materials and food are about it.





The products need to be made. The jobs are required. In my opinion the best way to do this is to have the government take over the pension and healthcare of retirees. It also has a much better political spin on it as well, the public would swallow that MUCH easier than just writing checks to maintain the same old problems.

 

I figure that with the right equipment and a few more tools, I could build a car in 967.3 days, as long as I didn't keep getting interrupted.

 

lol, they don't retire at 50 and go on social security, they retire at 50 and go GM pension, everyone that collects social security has to wait until they are 65, but of course I should have to pay for GM employees to retire @ 50 because if they go broke the world would come to an end.



and no i don't really expect small businesses to build cars, I do expect that Ford would become profitable with GM and Chrysler gone, there is no reason to have 3 taxpayer funded automakers. Are you suggesting that if we allow GM and Chrysler to admit they are bankrupt that there wouldn't be a potential for an "american kia" or an "american hyundai" to come along, start making quality cars and making profit? if you don't believe that, then there must be no market for GM and Chrysler as they sit. Why would it not be possible for some entrepreneur to come along, light up the abandoned GM factories and start making a quality car???? Hell maybe someone would run that company that actually has experience building cars, is there a CEO in any of those two companies that ever had ANYTHING to do with cars prior to their CEO status at the company???? If GM and Chrysler shut down, my guess is 80% of those employees that were laid off would be rehired, by profitable automanufactures in the US, keep in mind, the same number of cars will be sold in america each year regardless of who produces them, even the jap cars makers have us factories and my guess is they would increase their production in those facilities to meet the new demand, you seem to believe that if GM and Chrysler fail, their potential buyers will vanish which I don't quite understand why.



So now that we've bailed out GM and Chrysler with trillions of dollars, they've magically become profitable and of course haven;t shut down their US plants and stoked up the ones south of the border as they no longer need US funds. How do you address the issue of fight inflation with the extra cash influx? Also how to address the 90% tax burden on the taxpayer, will he be able to buy GM cars with 10% of what he makes now? that 10% is effective either way.



Where does it end? Do we take over the pensions of all companies and burden the taxpayer with them? What's teh cutoff 1 million employees and the taxpayer foots the bill, 100,000.... 5,000 at one point does it become so expensive to prop these irresponsible corporations up that the US gov't goes bankrupt... oh yea we've already reached that point. At what point does the tax burden become so great that no one can afford to buy the very cars their tax bill pays to keep running, what then? Do we take over Boeings pension plan, Microsofts, maybe we could take over their stock option programs and whenever their stock lowers, we just give the employee the difference. Where's the motivation for businesses to become profitable? This is the same mindset the cities and states seem to have, when they have a budget shortfall it never once occurs to them to cut overhead, lay off some idiots the only thought that enters their debate is "where do we get the money from" and the answer of course is always to raise taxes.



Ok so now we've bankrupted the gov't, bankrupted the people either through inflation or taxes who buys the cars from these now profitable entities? Just curious?



So no i dont agree with you that the taxpayers need to support 3 automakers, in fact it ******* rediculous why not just have one gov't automaker, there is no motivation for these three companies to compete anyhow, if they don't compete, the taxpayers will pick up the tab. let's just make it the people's car company and call it a day.



just out of curiosity Tyson, you aren't by chance employed by GM or Chrysler are you?

 

its a shame about the stigma the american car has gotten, they do last and the quality is good, just the designs have not been the best, they invested too much into SUVs, the only cars they seemed to care about were fleet cars, no real passionate cars.

 

Funny, considering how important GM and Chrysler are to the world I don't see Canada offering to warm up their printing presses and burden their taxpayers GREAT, GREAT, GREAT grandchildren with teh debt or inflation necessary to save these vital businesses. If it's such a wise investment you'd think they would be chomping at the bit to get in on the ground floor.



Maybe we should just take out an ad in Fortune, "Wanted large investor to take over bankrupt corporations pension fund so that they can struggle on for 6 more months, no we will not change our business model, no we have no plans on how to make a profit in a shrinking industry and not only do we not have the means to pay back the debt, we aren't even offering too. We expect a minimum 40 year commitment and you will be obligated well after we have shuttered our factory doors to pay the pensions, look forward to hearing from you soon HOLLA"



of course it would be down right awesome if you worked for GM or Chrysler, lived in Canada and were championing the US Taxpayer save your job.... that would be sweet

 

Oh here, I have the solution, please tell me why this won't work. Rather then burden the taxpayer with the pension and healthcare, let's throw GM into protective bankruptcy, cancel the retiree pension plan and healthcare plan and those guys can go on medicare and social security when they turn 65 like the rest of their fellow americans? You would think they would be more then willing to do this considering the absolute catastrophic possibilities of them not doing so.



Problem solved, Gm is immediately profitable (per your statements), able to compete, the us taxpayer is not on the hook for the next 30 years and the pensioners have to use medicare. Honestly I find it beyond belief that the solution to all of GM's woes could be solved by "relieving" them of their retiree programs and the only solution being discussed is the taxpayer footing the bill, it's totally inconceivable that the people collecting these benefits go on social security like every other american and apparently a no brainer that the taxpayer foot the bill. The notion that some $10 per hour employee foot the bill for some guy to retire before he is 65, with full healthcare because the company he worked for made promises they couldn't keep is FUCKED. You know what would happen if that same employee, working at the local pizza joint was promised he could retire at 50 with the same pay he makes now and healthcare and the pizza hut went broke, his senator would laugh his *** right out of his office.

 

I'm sooooooooooo glad we didn't give them 8 billion of our dollars. That would've been downright ludicrous...27 million people paying 8 BILLION?!!! **** THAT!!!

 

Don't you feel horrible when you cash your paycheck, doesn't that extra 10% or so just make you feel guilty when yer, I dunno paying your rent, feeding yourself, would you not be more proud living in a hobo condo knowing some poor 52 year old GM retiree is cashing mad checks cause he worked too hard for a little while to eat catfood in a hobo condo with the rest of us.

 

BTW, Friday the job loss data for Feb will come out, ADP has estimated it at 750,000 job losses FOR THE MONTH OF MARCH, using that conservative estimate (my guess is the official numbers will be higher) that's 1.45 MILLION jobs lost since Obama took office. So if GM went under, that would be 1 Million jobs in one month, so it would almost be like the month of March +25% more, but 50% less as awful as Feb and March combined, what I'm pointing out here is IF we can survive the layoffs that took place in Feb/March then I'm certain we can survive the GM bankruptcy and subsequent 1 million layoffs, if we can't then guess what it's already game over, GM isn't going to mean a god damn thing in the greater scheme of things.



I'll have to use the Feb stats since the March ones aren't official, in Feb 8.1% of americans were collecting unemployment. a VERY rough run at these numbers (keeping in mind they are not including the march numbers of 750,00 which by your own statements should "almost" be catastrophic to america as we know it, at least 75% of catastrophic meltdown). 8.1% of americans collecting unemployment, roughly 225,000,000 persons over the age of 18 in the US, 8.1% of that is a little over 18,000,000.... 1,000,000 GM jobs lost, assuming of course NONE of them hire on at other auto plants is roughly a 5.5% increase in the Feb unemployment totals, or an increase to the 8.1% unemployed to 8.5% unemployed.



What sets the 1 million hard working men and women working directly or indirectly for GM apart from the 1.45 million hard working men and women that got canned in Feb/March? What am I missing?