I do and it is in the insurance industry. tinman - that is what I'd do as well though IF Buick was profitable, I'd pair it with Cadillac (old folks division) instead of dropping it - otherwise yes drop them. I never understood the duplicate effort GM used to create the same car/truck. It would be like Lowes and Home Depot merging and leaving all the stores open - why?
When I worked for Chevron Phillips Chemical which was earlier this year, they still had a pension plan in addition to the 401k.
Actually the cavalier has been selling quite well. The whole "japanese cars are better" thing is more myth now than reality anyway. I heard GM would have problem getting bridge financing normal to bankruptcy restructuring, so it might not be as easy as when the airlines repeatedly do it. The bottom line is that GM can't survive when they are forced to pay three times the wages that Toyota is. I'd hate to see GM go down with the Volt, a real game changer, right around the corner.
HayesStreet, the Cavalier doesn't exist anymore. its one of my tricks i throw in like in the GARM when I said Yao lost rebounds to Len Bias. They replaced the Cavalier with the Cobalt which is also the same car as the Pontiac G5. Another same stupid redundant marketing blunder that GM does. Say they fix the labor cost, what happens then? by the time the Volt comes out, the second iteration of the Prius will still outsell it since its already the industry leader for hybrids.
Tinman, I do think there's too much replication among the big 3, but the playing field is tilted. Just like owning big rigs, I'm part of ooida which a association of owner operators and we have been fight these adcocacy groups and lawmakers about a lot of stuff. One of the big debates is allowing drivers from mexico to drive freight from mexico further into the states. I have no problem with people making money, but the driver from mexico don't have abide by d.o.t. rules dealing with insurance, log books and stuff. That's not fair. Not only that, its dangerous to americans. Sorry about the rant. I think the govt should buy 51% and force the green car projects. Natural gas propels 8m vehicles worldwide, but only 120k in the u.s. They can start with the big rigs, then the cars and suv. This will spark new fill stations, new production line and other jobs. Also Brazil has 80% of their cars powered by sugar cane ethenol. That's another mandate the govt should push for. If after the 70s gas crisis, brazil moved to renewable sugar cane fuel. They squeeze sugar out the cane and take the cane is used to make the fuel. We have a lot of flex fuel vehicles, but in a city like houston, there is 4 stations in big ass houston. Sometimes, the government has to play daddy and force companies to do right.
GM's brand is becoming dog food. They abandoned the market by neglecting it and allowed perceptions of poor quality sedans to persist. It's gonna take more than dumping ad money to fix that big issue.
that is what go us into this mess with the labor problems in the first place. If the government wants to expand the green movement it should make the same rules for all cars sold here not just one company.
interesting...it seems to me they were selling SUV's like hotcakes before oil spiked....and now that gas prices are back in the realm of reasonable, i wonder what that would mean, if it weren't for a credit crunch???
The cheaper price pf oil is because of global recessionary pressures. People would still likely abandon suvs or hold off buying them. I'm guessing they'd still burn billion a month but would at least be buffered by good numbers from their credit arms. There's so much garbage going on that better SUV sales would prop up and not fix.
like was stated before the problem is GMAC is no longer as profitable so their losses from auto just compound the issue.
Bigez, the problem with forcing green car projects is that they have to spend more money to make more cars and put them in lots of the other cars that they haven't sold off. so the inventory will be huge the other huge hurdle is to compete with other green cars made by the japanese. they have to do some serious marketing , and that will cost more money too. I'm not against American cars, just the companies are run by morons, whomever let this car be designed should be tried for treason The long term solution for green cars is great, but GM has to survive first. They need to big time cut off their bleeding brands. They could choose one brand to go green, I guess Saturn. They also need to figure out how not to be so dependent on auto part sales. I did a business case in college about this crap. the average life of GM autopart is something like half of a Japanese brand. This spurs the business of auto parts and auto repair etc. Japan went with the opposite strategy. The management of GM are morons and they don't see the trends and customer needs carefully. A bail out can't fix that. The case of Hyundai shows that you change things around if you focus correctly. the first Hyundai's were crap. they changed the management and focused more on dependability and ensured it with some super long warranty.
the bottom line ino bailout of throwing more money at GM is gonna work. They have to force UAW's hand to get their labor costs in line with the japs or let nature take its course.
I agree some of it is poor management, labor cost, but all the perks and breaks given to foreign car makers is definitely a field tilter. I like the hybrids, but they're 10k more. I can get a tdi jetta that's going to get 50mpg and the motor is going to last long. Tinman, all that inventory can be changed over to natural gas or ethanol. Also, there are more usa built trucks with over 200k miles than any other vehicle. If they can build reliable trucks, why not the cars. I think we're in a time where we have to rethink everything. I'm going to tell you now, within 6 mos, oil will be back to about 130 a barrell. America needs to treat energy like its the most important issue.
Here's a great explanation on the benefits and consequences of the government letting GM file Ch 11 bankruptcy. Restructuring of debt and the dealer franchise agreements would be incredible changes for GM. They can't revoke dealer franchise agreements without dealing with lawsuits using 50 different state franchise laws. It would be a costly legal nightmare in the millions, if not billions of dollars. Bankruptcy is a different story. There is a stigma associated with bankruptcy. Things are bad during bankruptcy with severe job loss and loss of customers. However, GM can't do the neccessary changes without the government allowing GM to use bankruptcy to protect itself from lawsuits and to renegotiate contracts that are killing it. http://www.gminsidenews.com/forums/f12/gms-wagoner-no-plans-bankruptcy-filing-71157/index2.html
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ad09qxbiElB8&refer=home GM Collapse at $200 Billion May Exceed Bailout Plan (Update1) Nov. 14 (Bloomberg) -- General Motors Corp., seeking a federal bailout as its cash dwindles, would cost the government as much as $200 billion should the biggest U.S. automaker be forced to liquidate, a forecasting firm estimated. A GM collapse would mean ``more aid to specific states like Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana, and more money into unemployment and extended benefits,'' Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Global Insight Inc. in Lexington, Massachusetts, said today in an interview. He prepared the estimate for Bloomberg News. The projected expense of $100 billion to $200 billion covers funds for existing programs, such as unemployment insurance, and new measures that would be needed to revive economic growth after millions of auto-related job losses. Such a sum would be an eightfold increase over the $25 billion bailout package that will be debated in Congress next week to help prop up Detroit-based GM, Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC amid the industry's worst sales year since 1991. GM said last week it may run short of operating cash by year's end, and projected it would be ``significantly short'' of what it needs by June unless the auto market improves or it adds capital. A GM shutdown would cost jobs among suppliers as well as at the automaker itself, pushing the U.S. unemployment rate next year to 9.5 percent, compared with current projections of as high as 8.5 percent due to the weakened economy, Behravesh said. Collapse Versus Bailout The cost of an industry rescue plan versus the risk of a GM failure is a central issue for U.S. lawmakers. While some investors including Wilbur Ross say a GM bankruptcy would be a ``real mess'' that would end in liquidation, others such as hedge-fund manager William Ackman say there is no need for taxpayer funds and that GM should reorganize in court. ``A bankruptcy wouldn't address our immediate liquidity concerns,'' said Renee Rashid-Merem, a GM spokeswoman. ``It's not an option for GM because it creates more problems than it solves.'' The Center for Automotive Research projects that federal, state and local governments would lose $108.1 billion in taxes over three years in the event of a 50 percent reduction in U.S. automaker operations. Job losses would total 2.5 million from an automaker failure in 2009, including 1.4 million people in industries not directly tied to manufacturing, the Ann Arbor, Michigan-based group said in a report on Nov. 4, three days before GM disclosed its cash drain. `Real Costs' ``The government has real costs it would have to foot'' in a liquidation, said Bob Brusca, president of Fact & Opinion Economics in New York and a former chief of international markets at the New York Federal Reserve. ``They don't get those income taxes any more from the workers, they don't get the taxes from the corporation, they don't get local loss of taxes,'' Brusca said in an interview. States pay an average of $279 a week for unemployment benefits for 26 weeks, according to Jennifer Kaplan, a U.S. Labor Department economist. The payments can last as long as 39 weeks in some states including Ohio, where the jobless rate was 7.2 percent in September. The federal government also might ``be on the hook for the pension benefits and health benefits'' for workers thrown out of their jobs in an automaker collapse, said Dana Johnson, chief economist with Comerica Inc. in Dallas. GM climbed 6 cents to $3.01 at 4:15 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares have tumbled 88 percent this year.
GM might get financial assistance from Germany for Opel, because of the four production plants and 26,000 employees in Europe. I am sure Germany will not want to lend money for Opel without some guarantee that parent company GM will get loan guarantees or a bailout from America. I still believe the best thing for GM is to file bankruptcy to cancel thousands of dealership agreements, sell failing brands, and renegotiate union contracts. ------------------------------------------------------------ Germany looks to aid crisis-hit automakers BERLIN (AFP) – Signs grew Sunday that Berlin may do more to help Germany's entire industry a day ahead of a crisis meeting between Chancellor Angela Merkel and executives from cash-strapped Opel. Opel, which employs almost 26,000 people in Europe's biggest economy, said on Friday it needed the German state to guarantee loans from banks as its US parent company General Motors (GM) struggles to stave off bankruptcy. This followed an announcement from GM, which together with the other Big Three US auto titans Ford and Chrysler is desperately seeking US government help, that it would be seeking state help in countries where it had major operations. Earlier this year, Congress approved a 25 billion dollar loan guarantee program to help the Big Three but the firms have asked lawmakers for the same amount again to survive a steep US economic downturn. Germany, with four main production sites, accounts for almost half of GM's employees in Europe, where almost one in ten vehicles sold carries a brand owned by GM like Opel, Vauxhall, Saab or Chevrolet. According to press reports Opel, which GM has owned since 1929, needs up to two billion euros (2.5 billion dollars) in guarantees and this is set to be covered by the federal government and by some of Germany's 16 states. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in Washington, where she was attending a G20 meeting on the global financial crisis, that she would meet top executives from Opel on Monday. On Tuesday Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck and Economy Minister Michael Glos were due to discuss the situation with the premiers of those states where Opel has its main factories "to look for possible solutions," Merkel said. But Merkel, whose country, like the United States is highly dependent on the automobile industry for jobs and which last week officially entered recession, is not just faced with problems at Opel. Some 750,000 people in Germany work in the auto sector, not just for carmakers but also for parts makers like Bosch or Continental. When other associated sectors are included, one in seven jobs in the world's third biggest economy is linked to the industry. Three out of every four vehicles made in Germany is exported and figures from around the world show that consumers are buying far fewer cars. Numbers published Friday by the European automakers association ACEA showed new car sales slumping 14.5 percent in October, the sixth straight drop. Other carmakers such as Daimler, BMW and Porsche have also reported slumping sales, have laid off workers and announced cuts in production. BMW, for example, aims to eliminate 8,100 posts by the end of the year and has so far announced that it is cutting output by 65,000 vehicles, while Porsche reported a 39-percent slump in North America sales. "We have to help the German automobile industry," Juergen Ruettgers, premier of Germany's most populous state North Rhine-Westphalia, home to a large plant in Cologne owned by Ford, told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper. "The guarantees for Opel are a first step. Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel said that the cabinet would look at other measures to help out the industry beyond what the government has already annnounced in the form of tax incentives, which have been criticised as being too small to have an effect. The additional measures could include providing state-backed loans for consumers buying a new car, lower interest rates on loans and a bonus for taking cars older than 10 years more off the road, Gabriel told the Tagesspiegel daily.
The problem with filing for bankruptcy is that it would likely force liquidation of the company. If GM filed, who would buy a Chevy, not knowing if the company will be around 2 years from now? It would basically destroy whatever remains of the company - so even any potentially healthy pieces would no longer be healthy. I agree that the things you suggested need to happen (selling various brands, changing union structure, etc) but somehow, that has to be done outside of bankruptcy - I have no idea how that can be accomplished, though.
i think it's a misconception now. yeah, GM was really bad, but now according to consumer reports the malibu gets higher marks than the Camry...but GM has created such a bad reputation that they arent trusted anymore. The mistake they made is that put all their eggs in the truck and SUV basket. Throwing money at GM wont make Americans buy their cars....
