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Obama took GM and Chrysler through bankruptcy after skirting the law to give more to the Unions.
The problem, little was done to correct the problems that put GM into bankruptcy initially.
Today, GM is losing market share. The government owns 500,000,000 shares of GM and would need to sell these at an average price of $53 to break even...the stock is declining in value even while the stock market as a whole has climbed. GM's new stock started off at $33 and is now fighting to not drop below $20.
Obama is also proud to point out that GM paid back a ~$7 Billion dollar loan...Obama doesn't mention that they paid it back with other government money and that GM has not actually paid a penny in car profits back to the government for the over $55,000,000,000 that the government threw at the company.
What kind of a leader just throws Tens of Billions of Dollars at a company and doesn't attempt to actually fix the problems that made the company insolvent...now think about 2008 Obama talking about Social Security, SS-Disability, Medicare, and the annual deficits being insolvent...it is 2012 -- what has Obama done for them?
The people who vote for Obama are generally not intelligent enough to understand any of this and even if they do, they don't care. This is exactly why Mitt Romney said what he did about the restructuring of GM and how to do it. He was exactly right!
The reason link above is very good and worth looking at just for the hilarious photo of the pres driving a bumper car. OMG genius, whoever at Reason came up w/ that photo. Thanks for the link, Michiganmoon.
Come on Obama fans, where are all of you? Pretty tough one to spin here isn't it? Did you all also know the government bought a whole lot of GM vehicles. Sure glad they did that or us taxpayers would of really lost our ass.
Don't think the Obama cheerleading group will get anywhere near this one. But I am throwing all the blame on Bush.
GM would still have been alive had it went through a normal legal bankruptcy and have saved those jobs.
I disagree wholehartedly.
They didn't choose a government-sponsored bankruptcy because it was easy, they went to the government because there was no other option. You are talking about the depths of the recession; capital was sitting on the sidelines, lines of credit were frozen, and nobody knew where the bottom was. GM and Chrysler were damaged companies with enormous liabilities and nobody was willing take a bet on them. They would have been broken up, sold off in parts (likely to foreign entities), and the American auto industry would have never held the same significance again. You are talking about large global corporations that have historically provided a significant amount R&D not only for the automotive industry, but for other American industries as well.
Do you think Alan Mulally of Ford Motor Company went to Washington to stand alongside his competitors for the fun of it? He went there because he understood the gravity of the situation; that GM and Chrysler going under would have had a significant impact not only on Ford, but on every supplier, dealership, and small business that relies on the auto industry. I will trust the judgment of someone who walks the halls of the industry every day long before I trust the scorn of someone with a political axe to grind.
Will the public remember or know enough to attribute layoffs of American workers at Ford or Toyota or Kia during the next downturn in auto demand to the fact that a necessary reckoning on the supply side was precluded by the interventions of 2009?
The auto industry is plagued with overcapacity, which is a problem that demands a thinning of the herd.... But that process was forestalled. In 2013, auto workers in Alabama, Tennessee, South Carolina, Indiana, and even Michigan and Ohio may lose their jobs...
The author also has this pretty good line:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ikenson
if proper judgment is to be passed, then all of the bailout’s costs and benefits must be considered. Otherwise, calling the bailout a success is like applauding the recovery of a drunken driver after an accident, while ignoring the condition of the family he severely maimed.
Obama and the Dems keep shouting that they "saved" the industry, but unfortunately the devil's in the details. And the fact that they keep shouting this simplistic line is prima facie evidence that they are targeting useful idiots.
Obama took GM and Chrysler through bankruptcy after skirting the law to give more to the Unions.
The problem, little was done to correct the problems that put GM into bankruptcy initially.
Today, GM is losing market share. The government owns 500,000,000 shares of GM and would need to sell these at an average price of $53 to break even...the stock is declining in value even while the stock market as a whole has climbed. GM's new stock started off at $33 and is now fighting to not drop below $20.
Obama is also proud to point out that GM paid back a ~$7 Billion dollar loan...Obama doesn't mention that they paid it back with other government money and that GM has not actually paid a penny in car profits back to the government for the over $55,000,000,000 that the government threw at the company.
What kind of a leader just throws Tens of Billions of Dollars at a company and doesn't attempt to actually fix the problems that made the company insolvent...now think about 2008 Obama talking about Social Security, SS-Disability, Medicare, and the annual deficits being insolvent...it is 2012 -- what has Obama done for them?
General Motors posts a 13.2% U.S. sales gain in 2011, including an uptick in December deliveries of 4.6%, closing the book on year where the restructured auto maker witnessed its first annual market-share gain in a decade.
Quote:
What kind of a leader just throws Tens of Billions of Dollars at a company and doesn't attempt to actually fix the problems that made the company insolvent
Wait, so you're saying Obama knows how to run GM better than GM? And the government should be involved in running the day-to-day operations of private industry?
It wasn't like the loans to GM were without precedent; see Chrysler in 1979.
GM's Dan Akerson on the restructuring of the auto industry | Marketplace.org
While there is more work to be done, GM has done an extensive job restructuring what was previously an unwieldly large company with overlapping management and no accountability. The brands have been simplified down to four, and a number of executive positions have been eliminated and/or combined to create a global management structure ala Ford.
Quote:
the stock is declining in value even while the stock market as a whole has climbed.
Why compare to the overall market and not the industry sector? All auto sector stocks have been in the toilet the last few months. Europe is dragging GM, Ford, and others heavily dependent on that market down. Both GM and Ford are looking at ways to cut costs in Europe (likely a plant closure), and as soon as they announce a strategy the stocks will regain traction. This is why Mitt Romney's suggestion to sell GM at a loss as soon as possible is beyond stupid and shows a lack of foresight and common sense. Or he is just playing for political points.
Some believe July was the bottom for the sector, but we will have to see.
The people who vote for Obama are generally not intelligent enough to understand any of this and even if they do, they don't care. This is exactly why Mitt Romney said what he did about the restructuring of GM and how to do it. He was exactly right!
Actually, some of us Obama supporters are intelligent enough to read up on the industry on a regular basis (and in my case, invest in it), fact check, and call out BS when it pops up. Instead of just agreeing with his mostly unsupported assumptions and calling others stupid, it might benefit you to do your own research.
The people who vote for Obama are generally not intelligent enough to understand any of this and even if they do, they don't care. This is exactly why Mitt Romney said what he did about the restructuring of GM and how to do it. He was exactly right!
The people who will vote for Obama would just as soon stay unemployed and have their nice unemployment checks. They really don't care about jobs or thriving businesses. They're perfectly happy to just have the government take care of them the rest of their lives.
That's why there was all that wild cheering when they brought up all the illegals they have given visas -- the unemployed democrats are perfectly happy to have cheap labor brought in, the unemployment checks beat working.
And finally, despite all the political noise and the back-and-forth banter on which strategy would have been superior, only one thing is important...GM has returned to profitability and is growing again. The bottom line is that results matter more than rhetoric.
GM Reports Second Quarter Net Income of $1.5 Billion and EBIT-adjusted of $2.1 Billion
Thu, Aug 2 2012
DETROIT – General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM) today announced second quarter net income attributable to common stockholders of $1.5 billion, or $0.90 per fully diluted share. In the second quarter a year ago, GM’s net income attributable to common stockholders was $2.5 billion, or $1.54 per fully diluted share.
Net revenue in the second quarter of 2012 was $37.6 billion, compared with $39.4 billion in the second quarter of 2011. The decrease was due almost entirely to the strengthening of the U.S. dollar versus other major currencies. Earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) adjusted was $2.1 billion, compared with $3.0 billion in the second quarter of 2011. Total restructuring expense included in EBIT-adjusted for the second quarter of 2012 was $0.1 billion.
“Our results in North America, our International Operations and at GM Financial were solid but we clearly have more work to do to offset the headwinds we face, especially in regions like Europe and South America,” said GM chairman and CEO Dan Akerson. “Despite the challenging environment, GM has now achieved 10 consecutive quarters of profitability, which is a milestone the company has not achieved in more than a decade.”
And finally, despite all the political noise and the back-and-forth banter on which strategy would have been superior, only one thing is important...GM has returned to profitability and is growing again. The bottom line is that results matter more than rhetoric.
Of course they achieved 10 months of profitability - the government all told has thrown over $100 Billion Dollars at a company worth $34 Billion...this includes $55 Billion already and over $40 Billion in future exemptions in taxes.
You throw $100 Billion at any company and it will do well.
I don't think you read your link. You link's fine print says that profit is down from the same quarter the previous year.
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