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Microcap & Penny Stocks : Rat dog micro-cap picks... -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tsigprofit who wrote (25835)	8/25/2005 5:47:38 PM
From: Buddy Smellgood	Respond to of 48461

It will be interesting to see if a similar deal is needed.

To: tsigprofit who wrote (25835)	8/28/2005 4:02:44 PM
From: Bucky Katt	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 48461

Good fast read>Iacocca: GM, Ford will survive But in what form yet to be settled In 1979, Chrysler Chairman Lee Iacocca went hat-in-hand to the U.S. government asking for $1.5 billion in federal loan guarantees to keep the automaker from going belly-up. With only a little arm-twisting, the government agreed and within 36 months was not only repaid, but the it also made $350 million in interest. And, of course, Chrysler survived. So, in light of that bailout of Chrysler, you have to wonder why the government is not offering any help to General Motors and Ford Motor. "You'll never get help from a Republican," said Iacocca. "[President] Bush has told the U.S. automakers they have to learn to compete, the government isn't bailing anyone out. If it hadn't been for Tip O'Neill [Democratic speaker of the House] and Jimmy Carter [Democratic president], Chrysler would have gone bankrupt," said Iacocca, who calls himself an independent. Actually, neither Ford nor GM has asked for a bailout, but rather for the government to realize it needs to come up with a plan to reduce health-care costs. Iacocca agrees. "They [GM] have a terrible problem with 400,000 retirees and could go broke if they can't fund their pension. And unless they get relief, health care isn't going to go away. No company can have a $1,500 [per vehicle] health-care albatross around its neck. That's wrong." And Iacocca urges the United Auto Workers union to consider concessions before its contract expires in 2007. "It's time to go to the union and say, `Guys, don't you think it's time to do something before 2007 because what if we're bankrupt before then? You can't wait to see who hollers uncle. If you don't give up something, you're going down the tube,'" he said. "You [UAW] have no deductible and no co-pay, but there has to be equality of sacrifice. We have to share pain together." When Chrysler was in trouble, Iacocca took $1 in salary, which was seen by some as grandstanding. But it won over the union. "I told Doug Fraser [UAW president at the time] that I had plenty of jobs at $15 an hour, but none at $20 an hour. Banks agreed to no payments [on loans], and workers took a pay cut. "GM and Ford will survive, but in what form and how strong they'll be I don't know. The American automakers have lost a lot of market share," he said, to the Japanese and Koreans. Through July, the Japanese had a 31 percent share of the market, up from 30.4 percent a year earlier, and the Koreans 4.2 percent, up from 4.1 percent. Iacocca takes some of the credit or blame, depending on whom you ask, for Japan becoming a power here. Iacocca, in 1982, stated that if the Japanese automakers wanted to sell here, they should build here. He said it would level the playing field, which was tipped toward Japan because of the dollar/yen exchange rate and higher production costs in the U.S. They did but they set up shop in states that are not union friendly so they could build vehicles more cheaply than their domestic counterparts. "There's no question Japan has grown in force and was smart to come to the U.S. I once asked an executive from Mitsubishi about U.S. plants. He said the plan in Japan is never to put two plants in the same state because when you put a plant in one state you won [support from] two senators but the more states you go into, the more senators you win." By Jim Mateja Tribune auto reporter Published August 28, 2005