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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: miraje who wrote (283993)	12/12/2008 1:06:15 PM
From: Oral Roberts	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793998

I wish I could recommend that post a dozen times.

To: miraje who wrote (283993)	12/12/2008 2:05:26 PM
From: Alan Smithee	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793998

The fact that they've been forced to heavily discount as of late is the price they're paying for days gone by (especially in the 1980's) when they did, in fact, produce shoddy vehicles. Add that to their current financial burden. Back in 1982, a friend of mine had a Diesel Chevette. What a POS that car was. Right up (or down) there with the AMC Pacer, the Yugo and the Renault Le Car in the s**t box category. OTOH, my partner has an '07 Yukon and it's quite a nice vehicle. It's an eight, but when on the flat and not under load, the engine drops down to 4 cylinders. He averages somewhere around 22-23 mpg, which isn't bad at all.

To: miraje who wrote (283993)	12/12/2008 4:14:39 PM
From: Geoff Altman	Respond to of 793998

Very nice post. Also, when you look outside North America, both Ford and GM are doing quite well. Sounds like you saw the same report on FOX that I did. I was rather surprised at the cars they were selling overseas, they really did look impressive.

To: miraje who wrote (283993)	12/12/2008 4:33:18 PM
From: rich evans	Respond to of 793998

The auto industry is one big cash machine. They build and ship cars on credit from their suppliers, get paid by the dealers with their bank flooring and then wait another 45 days or so to pay the suppliers. We are talking billions of dollars needed to operate. So in Chapter 11, they will need financing as the suppliers won't ship on credit. They will need DIP financing (debtor in possession) of huge amounts. The banks can't do it, they don't have the ability especially now.So the governement would have to step in just like they are being asked to now. The auto companies have no assets to secure any financing so it is only a priority thing for DIP and the secured bond holders would command. The judge could break the union contracts but then unions could go on strike and you end up with nothing. The auto companies have already negotiated out of their legacy costs for retirement and post retirement health care. But they do have some more big payments to make to the new union trusts which are taking over. So these payments would be negated. The pensions would end up the oblligation of the Pension guarantee board. This is unfunded and we the taxpapers would end up paying them anyway. The healthcare obligations for retirees would end up on medicare anyway and we would pay for that as well and pay for unemployment. Conclusion , pay me now or pay me later even more. Rich