General Motors is Head For Bankruptcy -- Again

Forbes ^ | 8/15/2012 | Louis Woodhill

[Harley]

President Obama is proud of his bailout of General Motors. That’s good, because, if he wins a second term, he is probably going to have to bail GM out again. The company is once again losing market share, and it seems unable to develop products that are truly competitive in the U.S. market.

Right now, the federal government owns 500,000,000 shares of GM, or about 26% of the company. It would need to get about $53.00/share for these to break even on the bailout, but the stock closed at only $20.21/share on Tuesday. This left the government holding $10.1 billion worth of stock, and sitting on an unrealized

[wally_bert]

I had an 83 K10 4wd that gave me about 212k miles. The 305 3 speed wasn’t a powerhouse but it did ok.

The rear shock mounts on the frame developed cracks and it rode like a covered wagon.

[humblegunner]

Yesterday, you didn't give Blog Boy even half what you gave common English here.

Lack of oversight is the problem.

The blame is firmly landed upon management.

I was on a break, as per the schedule.

[TheGunny]

Thats because their cars suck!

[nascarnation]

the parts were made by others towards the end.

So those dozens of GM engine and transmission plants were just decoys for Russian bombers?

I can't believe some of the stuff on FR....

[SVTCobra03]

The Corvette ZR1, Camaro ZL1 and the Cadillac CTS-V are decent vehicles. I do appreciate the Camaro ZL1 putting the pressure on Ford to produce the 662hp 2013 Shelby GT500.

[Walrus]

Thug government + thug unions

What could go wrong?

[muawiyah]

you ever work in an engine plant? most of them are assembly operations. typical of the Big Three they got into contracting out rods, caps, crankshafts, blocks, etc.

"PARTS".

decades ago. I worked on a line that made PARTS for all the Big Three. transmissions are different. for a very long time the Big Tree made their own transmissions, then gradually phased out of that. even Ford gave up machine screws and began buying them on the world market. I grew up about 3 miles from that factory. today the blocks are rough cast in Brazil and Argentina ~ since they are the world's low cost producer AND they seem to have no clean air laws so you can just blow dust all the time.

you need to keep up on this stuff.

[Ouderkirk]

If they all had that as a seat cover they wouldn’t need sales people, just a cash register. LOL !!

[rawcatslyentist]

LOL

[muawiyah]

BTW, ICBMs started coming on line in the 1960s ~ that was JFK's argument ~ that Eisenhower had allowed a missile gap to happen and we were dreadfully behind the USSR.

At that time there were still several transmission plants in Indianapolis. Chrysler, Allison, Ford ~ still all there and smokin' day and night, and then gradually through the 1970s and 1980s their operations were minimized, work farmed out to newer, smaller, more automated plants, and finally just terminated or REMOVED entirely from building devices used in cars.

Today those plants are targets for ICBMs, just like they were 30 and 40 years ago. More recently - June 2007 in fact —GM announced that it was selling Allison Transmission to private equity firms. Still, it'd been a good 25 years since they'd made anything other than top of the line heavy duty commercial transmissions ~ with what looks like a worldwide lock on bus transmissions. They quit making anything for automobiles ages back.

BTW, GM had built a new facility in Indianapolis for transmissions ~ but in the end there were only 2500 employees there. Used to be FAR MORE employees.

American manufacturing has shifted, in general, to top end stuff ~ with a lot more mechanization, automation, computerization and robotics than factories making similar products in other countries. We still have the stuff, but we don't make the more labor intensive small stuff, and we don't need to hire on the employees like the old days.

General Motors was gutted by its management and its value dissipated in dividends.

[Gil4]

Possibly the least annoying double-post ever.

[nascarnation]

So GM isn’t making blocks, heads, transmission housings, etc? These are all decoys for Russian bombers?

Central Foundry Defiance Ohio
Cylinder Blocks, Cylinder Heads and Crankshafts
2010 5.8 million produced
http://media.gm.com/media/us/en/gm/company_info/facilities/powertrain/defiance.html

Bedford Indiana
Automatic transmission and converter housings
http://media.gm.com/media/us/en/gm/company_info/facilities/powertrain/bedford.html

Bay City Michigan

Piston Pins
Connecting Rods
Camshafts
Oil Pumps
Balance Shafts
http://media.gm.com/media/us/en/gm/company_info/facilities/powertrain/baycity.html

Saginaw metal casting
Aluminum engine blocks and cylinder heads
2.2L/2.4L L850 I4 blocks
5.3L/6.0L Gen IV V-8 blocks and heads
5.3L/6.2L Gen IV V-8 block pre-machine
2010 2,017,103 castings
http://media.gm.com/media/us/en/gm/company_info/facilities/powertrain/saginaw.html

[nascarnation]

You need to get over to Indiana.
The Chrysler transmission plants are in KOKOMO and are going strong.
And btw they make their own die cast cases.

Fords transmission ops have been in Cincy forever, not Indianapolis. Indy was the steering gear plant.

[muawiyah]

Little you know about the transmission business.

[nascarnation]

You post gibberish.
I post links to verifiable facts.

[muawiyah]

Just like to note for your information that final point of assembly is not where everything is made. The old Indianapolis International Harvester facility is still up and able to run blocks and build engines ~ for whatever you want ~ and they had what was called an automated line to build just about every part of a transmission except the case ~ but most of that facility was designed for medium and large V8 truck engines.

Still, during peak operations they contracted with the Big 3 to manufacture PARTS for every part of the drivetrain ~ but the only finished product counts you got out of that plant were ENGINES PRODUCED

Along the way I do believe I visited virtually every major manufacturing facility in Central Indiana and worked in some. The GM question focused on what happened to the company ~ and not it's assets ~ but the company, and the company was busy converting every asset it had into cash to distribute. Eventually (and I think "eventually" was something like 2009) they'd had to dissolve the company and sell most of their industrial base for the value of the land, steel, and reprocessed used brick facades.

[muawiyah]

Go ahead. Do whatever you want. I have dozens of first cousins ~ and virtually all of them spent years in the automotive manufacturing industry. Those still working are employed by Japanese parts companies. News gets out.

[nascarnation]

So you’re saying all those GM Powertrain plant links and manufacturing data are bogus?

cause you told us in #15:
“35 years ago ~ from that time onward about all they manufactured were the body shells for several cars and three types of SUV”

[xp38]

During the first GM bankruptcy there was a post comparing the bailout to what happened to British Leyland. The government saved the company only to later see it collapse anyway. The post said this is likely what would happen to GM as well.

[muawiyah]

Depends on whether you are talking about heavy duty commercial grade products or the light weight items for use in passenger cars.

Even then, the part's manufacturing is of greater importance than the assembly ~ and what you are giving out are assembly statistics. That's just a shell of the real activity of basic manufacturing parts which can be taking place in Korea, Japan, China, India, MExico ~ and you'd never know it.