GM and Chrysler merge??

[Subzilla]

Now this would be weird: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20081030.IBGM30/TPStory/Business

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Economy/story?id=6073010&page=1

[Robyn]

My father once told me that General Motors was the Rock solid image to judge all other things by, HMMMMMMMM sorry dad taint so any more. :(

The economic situation we see today is the result of a lot of carefully planned and some just plain signs of the times activities behind the scenes.

I blame much of the issues GM faces on poor management and poor use of funds.

As much as I love to see the little guy do well, the practice of paying out millions to people who are laid off for whatever reason is just plain ludicrous.

No matter how deep the corporate pockets, they will eventually go dry when subjected to the sort of assault they have seen.

The constant demand by unions for more more more more has driven many jobs away and has also nearly bankrupt the auto giants.

This along with the absolutely insane demands of the Envirofreeks and all the new regulations they spawn every year has further burdened the industry.

The way to get things back on track is to get wages and costs back to some sort of reality and to back off the regs to a common sense point and then allow the companies to get firm footing again.

Unfortunately the people who run such puke organizations as EPA flat dont care if GM or Ford or ??? go broke.

There is also a lot of issues with these large companies finance branch practices too.

Car companies should stick to building cars and not financing houses.


Sad tale indeed.

My feeling is that my generation will see a funeral for the Detroit auto makers.

The mergers and buyouts and bailouts is just a stop gap in the process.
More of the last twitches of deaththroes me thinks.


best

Robyn

[More Power]

Here's a post I made in 2006 about GM's financial trouble.....
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GM is in big trouble... You can read the following Fortune Magazine (http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/02/20/8369111/index.htm) article to learn more about the problem.

One paragraph, as it relates to the UAW, sums it up this way...

"The truth is that GM is essentially indentured to the UAW because of the union's power to strike. To that bondage, add another: GM's hourly and salaried employees, present and past, essentially own this compnay, a fact we will prove by describing the bank accounts. At the end of 2004, the latest date for which figures are available, GM's pension funds (both inside the U.S. and out) had $100B in assets -- which is wealth belonging to GM's employees, retirees and dependents. To that you can add $19B that GM has put in a dedicated account for retiree health benefits. That makes $119B that GM has banked for its employees. In contrast, the shareholders of GM recently owned their grubby $13B in market value. That is a bizarre, Alice-in-Autoland result from 98 years in which capitalism supposedly reigned."

You gotta read the whole and quite lengthy article to get a sense of the magnitude of the problem GM is facing...

Jim