GM stands for GimMe!
Cha-ching! Cha-ching! Cha-ching! The auto bailout price tag just went up again.
This morning on Capitol Hill, GM asked for an extra $4 billion in immediate loans — a figure not mentioned in the restructuring plan it submitted to Congress:
Ailing General Motors on Thursday asked Congress for a second four billion dollar loan in January, in addition to an already requested immediate four billion dollar rescue payment.
General Motors Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner made the request, a sign his firm is in deep trouble, in prepared testimony to the Senate Banking committee, as the Big Three US automakers made a fresh bid to secure a government bailout.
“Specifically we are seeking an immediate loan of four billion dollars … and a second draw of up to four billion in January,” Wagoner said.
The second payment was not mentioned in an initial restructuring plan issued by GM earlier this week.
Yesterday, I guessed the final price tag would be $70 billion by the time the bailout gets signed. I think I’m going to have to kick it up another $20 billion.
***
Related read: Jim Manzi on GM’s Magical Thinking.
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Trackbacks
- Beggars Can Be Choosers (If They’re the Big Three) « Grand Rants
- GM Tries to Slip $4 Billion More Past the Keeper « Jane Q. Republican
- GimMe GimMe More GM « Combating Moonbat News
- American Auto Industry Doomed | Hennessy's View
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That’s the same thing GM is thinking.
Everytime they go away they come back asking for more. My have negotiations changed.
$90 bill is too optimistic. It will go on and on forever.
I will be happy with 1% of that. Wheres the love???
GMAC Give Me Additional Crap sandwiches!
What’s good for GM is good for America
JUST SAY NO !!!
Not to worry though - the Bush Administration assured us that they would stick to their guns….
All government programs usually come in under budget though, right?
Whack! Oww! Who hit me?
I saw a clip on Fox this a.m. between a National Review spokesperson & the mayor of Lansing. While the mayor was hyperventilating and railing against the NR person for “not being for the worker“, the NR person calmly and factually continued to make the point, paraphrased as, “How does this really help?” And I would add, “Where does it all end?” Just prolonging the inevitable bankruptcy, and trying to take us all with them.
I have a plan - Let’s make EVERYONE’s debt ZERO, today, now. After that EVERYONE is responsible for their debts (and how they do business) from this day forward. This way ALL of us will be able to benefit from the Bailouts.
Wouldn’t that help?
My other suggestion: we, the taxpayers, pay NO ADDITIONAL taxes. IF we ALL refuse, they can’t put us ALL in jail.
So far, all I see is the middle getting the squeeze from the top and bottom (as usual) and even tho my ideas may not truly be sound…I can dream…at least that is still affordable!
These so called ‘loans’ will never be repaid - just throwing money down the crapper.
Why buy a car from these turkeys when $2000 goes to the UAW stranglehold , I would rather have the $2000 in content - thats why the foreign ones have better residual value.
We need to get tough. The UAW has had these guys bent over for years, proving they are wusssies, Congress needs to do the same to them.
This monster just gets bigger and bigger. BOHICA (bend over here it comes again) folks we are going to get it again with another taxpayer funded bailout. The lying big 3 CEOs are talking smack about beginning to pay back loans in 2011 and fully pay off in 2012. How the hell you going to do this with all of your UAW contracts? How are you going to do this with no one wanting to buy your over priced crappy products?
Now the head of the UAW is using the good old well used empty platitudes about the UAW negotiating to make the big 3 viable, without giving one little sound bite of how they are going to do it. Now Gettelfinger is talking smack about the UAW members being scap goats for the big 3’s financial problems and Chapter 11 is not an option (the only viable way to save this failed industry). I am going to have to turn off the TV before I throw something at it.
ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE (mo-lone lah-veh) Translation: Come and take them!
He’s right about one thing…Chapter 11 is not an option to maintain the union’s stranglehold on the industry.
Which, of course, would mean it is the ONLY option that makes sense.
Dear GM
Have you cut your labor contracts by 30% yet? NO.
Then go away.
Signed
The American people
My favorite comment was a labor union official saying that the UAW had given so many concessions that their members won’t be able to afford the products they make. I wonder how he’ll feel when the gravy train leaves the station.
So they ask for more money with every new proposal they make? Sounds to me like they understand very well how Washington works.
This is a show put on for the American people. They keep asking for more because they know they’ll get it. It’s ridiculous to think otherwise. Eventually, the UAW and the pig3 will go down the toilet in spite of Washington’s best efforts to keep them afloat. Unfortunately, by that time, we will all be going down with them.
There is a goob testifying now about how the Auto industry MUST be Bailed out, because they buy some of their producs from Women and Minority owned businesses.
Next they will claim all their “Grease and Lube” is bought from gay Owned Businesses.
Oh and how the UAW and the pig3 help the starving kids in Africa! Ah huh! With the Auto industry helping so many minorities and underpiviledged, they must be saved! Heck, it worked for Obama.
Let the UAW bailout the Big 3; Let the Big 3 go Chapter 11 and see if the UAW has any interest in ownership; Not a chance!; Someone in congress should ask them that; Their cash cow is about to dry up and wither away; The transplants(Honda,BMW,Mercedes,Toyota,Nissan,Hyundai) in the southeast are hurting as well, but they will survive due to their own sound business models; They are hyper-efficient in their operations, all with employee involvement, and without the constraints of the UAW.
Let the big 3 go bankrupt. Then we can open the non-union Feenix car company (rising from the ashes, etc). Good design, engineering and manufacture, fuel economy, stylish, lots of nifty features. Start from scratch and do it right!
The guy who runs http://www.researchtrends.com has already forecast tax revolts, so you’re right on the money. But by the time we get to 2012, he predicts an America that looks like Bladerunner, with global food and water shortages to boot. Tent cities, scrounging for food and “survival of the fittest” to come. If you’ve got a place in the country go there. Mr. Celeste predicted the financial meltdown, BTW.
During the congressional hearings, will anyone ask CEO Rick Wagoner about GMAC, the GM financial arm that is heavily loaded with Collateralized Debt Obligations(Toxic Mortgages) that they themselves created?; Not likely; That is one reason they need a bailout; Will anyone ask him about the $300 million dollar plant they just opened up in Russia to build SUV’s?; Not likely; Will congress eventually capitulate; You betcha!
I’m sooooo sick of this. Am I supposed to be impressed by a Hybrid parade? By corporate panhandling? In what universe is it a good thing to “loan” (big fat lying euphemism) money to companies with one foot in the grave and the
other footUAW kicking dirt into the hole? Give me a freakin break.Send these chuckleheads back to Detroit to prepare their bankruptcy filings.
D. O. A.
They’re going to need the ’second’ 4 Billion to pay all the bonuses in January.
Besides the managers, who have agreed to salary cuts, there are hundreds of thousands of working Americans who will lose their jobs if the auto companies are liquidated. Not just auto workers, but lots of people in the supply chains around the country.
Also, the auto makers make military equipment. The US is able to make good tanks because it has car manufacturers. Do you want the next generation of tanks made by Toyota or Lada?
If the autos fold, the US stock market will plunge so far that Americans will lose more than $35MM from falling stock prices.
Bottom line: there is more than one side to this story. Life isn’t simple.
Anyone else think these bailouts are only about getting the multi-million dollar parachutes in place for the bigwigs (including in the union) before they all go under?
Just a sec, let me check my pants…I know I’ve got some spare change somewhere…
Aw, nuts. I’ve got a hole in me pocket…
henry ford figured out how to build cars cheaper by assembly lines, and then put out the call to southern blacks to come to detroit for a decent job. now detroit needs to vacate detroit and it’s black urban union workers and migrate back to the south without the union contracts. otherwise, they could just shut down the manufacturing, and start importing their foreign manufactured vehicles, which get great gas mileage and perform very well. same with gm, get out of union made or get out of manufacturing altogether. take your pick.
LGM
You are right life isn’t simple. This is not life. This is simple. I have not seen anyone say that the companies should be liquidated or shuttered. What people want is a restructuring through chapter 11 to relieve the companies from the stranglehold of the UAW and to get the inept management out so new blood will get the companies producing quality products that the public wants. This can be done without dumping billions down the drain first.
See? Simple, now sit back and let the adults discuss this issue.
I want to see GM, Ford & Chrysler lock their doors right now. Terminate all operations, let the suppliers & dealers close up. If the economy crashes, so what. My pension & health care will vanish, but no big deal; I’ll just live off the taxpayers. Retired in 05 after 40 years at GM.
#31 - The tax payer is going to pay for this crap one way or the other! Your post infuriates me!
Correction #32, Dave from Flint
read our lips….no more bailouts at our expense….biz 101 states that there is NO guarantee when you have a business that it will be successful…that takes hard work, a product people actually want to buy, and good business decisions….throwing more money at a bad business model won’t work!!!!
“Corporation: An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.”
Ambrose Bierce
Just round it off at $$$$100B$$$$ Michelle.
it will end up there or higher anyway. I’d rather have this bailout than the first one, that was a joke thet opened up the treasure trove for gimmie gimmies.
Would’nt it be cheaper if the Fed just bought each of us a car?
One thing that’s not getting much play with the auto unions contracts is how similar these auto union contracts are to many public union retiree medical and benefit contracts. The advantage for public unions is government budget shortfalls don’t put productive people out of work.
Government shortfalls just cause government to stop fixing leaky roofs, close a few parks and soon enough, the wheels are greased again with higher taxes, without addressing the core of the problem — benefit heavy union contracts.
GM stands for GiMe? I though it stood for GotMo money?
Again, why is the President of the UAW not sitting alongside those CEOs getting grilled by Congress?!
“Mr. Gettelfinger, how can a sane person believe it’s reasonable for a company to be forced to pay thousands of workers nearly full wages to NOT work?”
LGMsaid:
They already make more and the better cars inside the US than the big three original automakers…why not?
What is killing the Ford, GM, and Chrysler is the UAW. The UAW demands on the three companies is what is driving them out of business. Making the banks and automakers file for chapter 11 is a NECESSARY thing, or our dollar will be as celebrated as the Mexican Peso from all these bailouts…oops another subject is at hand, folks!
Has anyone stopped to ponder,
How many Billions of Dollars have the Automakers paid to the Gov’t in taxation, over the years?
Me First and the Gimme Gimme’s!
Now playing in DC!
Direct from Detroit!
No room for those three
gangsta’s in my new Nissan!!!
GM, Ford, and Chrysler have seen how the transplants operate successfully over the last 20 years; They have made improvements where they could, but the UAW has and always will be a millstone around their collective necks; They have no future viability in the automotive business regardless of any bailout amount as long as they continue to partner with UAW President Ron Middlefinger and the union as a whole.
These companies seriously need a top-down house-cleaning and restructuring.
Who are the CFOs? (they may be sitting in DC with the CEOs for all I know)
Their financial departments/groups need to be replaced because they have no idea what they do or dont need.
I know GM was doing a 2 Billion dollar computer system fork-lift upgrade a couple of years ago (thats a complete overhaul). I dont know who runs their financial accounting systems though.
I know that because they offered me a job and I spent a week debating as to whether to move to Detroit or not. Hmmm, maybe I should have taken that job…. not.
After watching these proceedings for the last 2 days one thing is clear to me. Nobody in the room has a real passion for the actual auto business. Everyone speaking has their own monetary interests at heart, while noone actually cares about the underlying businesses. The CEO’s are all simply hired guns. The UAW fellow only cares about getting money for his union membership.
It also seems to me that Chrysler is already owned by the unions. At one point, they asked why cerberus would not invest more, and received no answer. They briefly touched on just who is behind cerberus, but they only went as far as mentioning ‘pension funds’.
Bottom line is: With none of these various companies having ‘a love of the business’ they are all doomed to failure.
With all the outsourcing and hiring of illegals, why aren’t any of these companies being charged with treason? We are at war.