[MI-IRISH]

Originally Posted by Michigansnowflake

Did your business have millions depending on a paycheck from you? Sucks your business failed but this is a much larger scale...or we you stupid like the ceos aand didnt know how to run your business?

See? seems pretty heartless when its directed at you and your situation and no one cares doesnt it?

I agree with you both on this,bad business practice led to this mess,and on the other hand,the millions of jobs lost and the effect of the overall situation is a catasrophe,and logic for the greater good cannot be dismissed in this decision.

[malamute]

Originally Posted by Peter B

Don't bail them out! F them! Stupid business practices over an extended period of time do not entitle the stupid to be bailed out by the government. This is the antithesis of what capitalism is based upon. When my business failed 12 years ago, nobody bailed me out. This is just another example of blatant elitism being embraced by a clueless governing body. These car companies have been havens for elitist, obnoxious, ineffective business practices for years. The only thing they are guilty of is building inadequate vehicles and ripping off their shareholders for the last 20 years. Sad thing is, they'll get away with it because of the stupidity and lack of common sense by the general, voting public.

I agree and they are no longer about producing wealth but a wealth drain. One bailout will lead to another and then another. We can't afford them.

[malamute]

Originally Posted by HeadedWest

Bailouts are a fundamentally bad idea, but if there are any excuses for them it might be financial institutions so that credit can be granted. (But it hasn't been done intelligently.)

But for manufacturing, it doesn't work. It just encourages bad management decision making and bad labor contracts. Reorganization under Chapter 11 is far more sensible. The valuable parts of the existing companies can survive and the useless parts will not.

Credit is what caused this economic collapse. Too many people living on debt they can never pay off.

No way can the taxpayers pay for all these bailouts. And all the bailouts are is more credit, more debt to live off. Debt that will never be paid.

[Indentured Servant]

I don’t know why everyone keeps harping on bad management decisions. What is the benchmark of “good management” in the industry? Is the industry going to perpetually be held responsible for decisions it’s made 15, 20 and 30 years ago? Was is bad management that current leadership did not realize that gas would triple In price in two years, hurting its big vehicle profitability, and that the worst financial crisis since the great depression would prevent people from getting loans to buy cars? Those idiots…lol. The Japanese management did not see it coming either. If they had, what did they do differently in preparation for it?

]People act as if management is the only component in a company’s…no….an industries…..success. Wrong! You have the pressure of the board, the stock holders, and the engineers who design things, the workers who build things, the government and the culture. All these elements go into the final product. Maybe our engineering schools suck relative to Japans. Maybe our business schools such relative to Japans. Maybe our workers suck relative to Japan. Maybe our culture sucks relative to Japan. Hey….news flash…..all kinds of companies in America are failing in light of the economic conditions. Has bad management suddenly become a plague? Obviously the companies best prepared to ride out such times are companies with huge cash reserves from excess profitability in the past. Had they attempted to share that profitability with their workers, in the form of higher pay or bonuses, the companies would not have the cash to ride out the economic storm we are now facing. Japan auto companies have excess cash because they did not pass their profitability to their workers……maybe because no unions forced them too. However, the fact is that their sales are down just as radically as GM, Ford and Chrysler.

I get sick of hearing about bad management in regards to the Big 3 just as much as I get sick of hearing people talk about bad parenting when a teenager shots someone or does something wrong. It is possible for kids to go bad, despite good parents and it is possible for companies to fail despite the best of management. People who have preconceived notion and biases will always pick their pet peeves as a scapegoat.

[MI-IRISH]

Originally Posted by Indentured Servant

Is the industry going to perpetually be held responsible for decisions it’s made 15, 20 and 30 years ago?
.

you know that old saying " no one remember's the good things you do,and they never forget the bad"

[brokerdave]

Originally Posted by SpaceGhost79

As for the gov't giving Toyota and Honda money, no chance. Toyota and Honda might have auto plants here in the U.S., but they are headquartered in Japan. No way we're handing out money to an overseas company. On top of it, while sales are down, both Toyota and Honda are still profiting, so they don't need the money.

That is the problem. GM and Ford are not American Companies!!!! They are multinational companies. Why should the US GOVERNMENT assist them in anyway?

Originally Posted by DDevil

Have you driven a Big 3 car lately? Stop comparing to the quality of the 90's.
How many old Honda/Toyota cars do you see on the roads? I see hardly any, but I see a lot of very old Pontiac Grand Prix, Chevy Malibu, Chevy Blazer, Pontiac Grand Am, and lots of Buicks and Oldsmobiles.

Yes, I have. They are terrible. Only the luxury lines are nice. Imports are more numerous here in Florida and in Michigan's metropolis it's even close to 50/50, outside of the immediate city limits.

Originally Posted by DDevil

Isnt EVO the Mitsubishi performance car?
Wasnt that that GM EV1?
Any sources to back this claim of 10,000 people ordering them?

I mispoke. Yes the EV1 here is your source: Who Killed the Electric Car? - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Originally Posted by DDevil

Arent you following the news? They did not get the $25 billion yet, and this is not scheduled to be given to them till some time next year, which is why they are asking for a LOAN now.

Please do your own homework. Bush approves $25 billion loan package for auto makers | Reuters

Originally Posted by DDevil

I dont think the cost is 1/20th, again, any sources to back this claim?

OK, forget the numbers. how about, the money they saved moving plants to Mexico far out ways the "burden" of the UAW? see, no problems there.

GM and Ford have a massive amount of commercial/industrial property for investments. They could simply liquidate this and solve their own problems. But they wont even help themselves. Like I have said, the problem is management. I would replace 75% of executives overnight and issue an email memorandum in the new direction of the company and change things immediately.

ONCE AGAIN, BANKRUPTCY DOES NOT MEAN MILLIONS WILL LOSE JOBS. SOME WILL, BUT THE INDUSTRY WILL STILL BUILD CARS, NEED PARTS AND LABOR. CHAPTER ELEVEN DOES NOT MEAN A COMPANY HAS FOLDED AND EVEN IF THEY DO, IT WOULDN'T HAPPEN FOR ANOTHER PROBABLY 5-7 YEARS.

STOP THINKING THAT THEY ARE GOING UNDER.

[Peter B]

The bailout is in HUGE trouble. Very good chance it will not pass now thanks to the Southern Republicans. Thank God!! Bailing them out is a BAD decision. Let them file bankruptcy and restructure their companies so they operate efficiently. They've put out crap products for years. Now they are getting their due.

[MittenDweller82]

A very interesting article for those who know Friedman, I do believe he is right on pertaining to this subject:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/10/op...n.html?_r=1&hp

[Dwatted Wabbit]

First, Congress should hold responsible those who helped create this hellish disaster: Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, and numerous others in both parties who forced the banks to loan good money to bad risks.
This is what is called "progressive," it's also counterlogical, counterethical, and an infamous crime against the citizens of our great, but declining, nation.

Watching the hearings was truly an adventure in observing shameless hypocracy. One congressman criticized the Three Nutless Ones for spending half a billion on lobbying. Yet Congress' bread and butter is lobbyists.
The same charges leveled against IL Gov. Blagojevich could easily be brought against any member of Congress who votes a particular way in response to the influx of lobbyist money.
Tit for tat is tit for tat, whether it's a governor or a congressman. Lobbyists are bribemeisters, members of Congress are bribees. Let the FBI investigate, wiretap, and arrest them all.

Another member had the audacity to criticize the auto execs for speaking of using their finance arms as banking institutions in order to get some of the hundreds of billions of unaccounted, untracked, unconditional dollars that the feds have so far thrown into the sewer to "fix" the problem that they created.

(Saying this is appointing the wolves to guard the henhouse does not even begin to approximate what is going on among what must be the best dressed collection of terminally stupid and corrupt individuals in the nation.)

Yet my solution was exactly that.
All the auto makers' financing arms are just as eligible to magically become "banks" as American Express so conveniently did. Just wave your magic wand, POOF!, I Am A Bank!

What is another 30 or 40 billion when the Goldman Sachs buttbuddies have already absorbed far more than that?

As for the feds appointing a car czar, that is absolutely the worst joke of the month. It's bad enough that such miscreants as Dodd and Frank grill people who actually work for a living, but to appoint yet another Washington Know-Nothing to "oversee" something he has not idea one regarding how free enterprise, real business, labor relations, etc. etc. ad nauseum actually functions on a daily basis, is something that must have even the Chinese government leaders shaking their heads in disbelief regarding how our elected officials are so conveniently dismembering our manufacturing and financial base before their very eyes. If al qadea or other foreign agents did this, they would hopefully be prosecuted to the end of time.
When congressmen do it, it's a "rescue."

As for the Big Three execs, it's pitiful how spineless they all are. I expected better of Mulally, at least.
I would have walked out of those hearings, after explaining how stupid and hypocritical almost all the inquisitors are.

My recommendation to each of these "execs" is they contact successful giants like Wal Mart, Exxon Mobil, and other free enterprise companies that have a successful business practice.
If no corporation or group of corporations is interested in financially assisting and game planning new strategies, I would suggest they approach foreign governments like China, France, Israel, or Canada.

None of those nations, I believe, would treat the managers of the core industry that was so instrumental in winning WWII for the free nations, so shabbily and disrespectfully, as the benighted bribemeisters known as members of congress.

As for the president, I can only say his completely clueless lack of interest or leadership throughout this farce shows how far a Harvard MBA can take you into the darkening forest.

God help us all.

[Rapunzll]

I say no. I think they need to reorganize and if we bail them out, it will be business as usual.