Posted on 04/20/2005 8:21:13 PM PDT by WildPlum
That would be FUN. I've got the experienced LBO lawyers and investment bankers (both pre- and post-bankruptcy) - all we need is a buyer.
Isn't negotiating fun?
The decline of GM is merely the extension of their leviathan type attitude - and that exists from the top of management all the way down to the newest hire (new hires? Yeah.). Just like the machine tool operators at Boeing out here, GM's workforce has outpriced itself, their management has shown ZERO forward thinking skills or true innovation for decades, and their quality control isn't exactly legendary. Plus, when you've got several excess divisions trying to compete against each other with essentially the same crap with mere trim levels to differentiate product lines, you might as well get out the popcorn to watch the circular firing squad.
The fact that GM has lasted this long is testimony to the loyalty of many of their customers. (Which doesn't speak highly of the intelligence of those customers. The fleet customers should have been screaming at GM years ago.)
The real kicker is Toyota studied Henry Ford's production line and manufacturing processes.
Just a correction - the new Mustang is on the DEW-lite platform, which was derived from the all-new DEW98 platform of the Lincoln LS and Jaguar S-Type. It's not an ancient floorpan. The only problem with it is that Ford decided to be cheap and make it with a live rear axle instead of an IRS. Most of the technology in the Stang is now pretty recent, too. It's no G35C, but it's not all that far off, either.
No, the real kicker is that Ford, GM, and Chrysler all told Deming to p*** off. He then went over to Japan, where his methods and ideas were taken up as a new corporate religion. And then the Japanese came back and started kicking Detroit butt.
Detroit *still* resists Deming's TQM philosophy.
The unfortunate difficulty in shorting a stock, well, I discussed that in my recent book (hint: NOT a commercial -- do NOT even think about buying the book unless you happen to be interested in trading options, ok?).
Trading stock shares in the US is an almost entirely asymmetric process; the system will support your **purchase** of shares in numerous ways, but will -- and does, every day -- attempt quite effectively to prevent your sale of shares, bar those you own outright.
I suppose I'm lucky in some sense...never bought a single share of a dot.com outfit. OTOH, Elan Pharma bought out my shares of Liposome some years ago, and those ELN shares have been up to 40-odd, down to 5, up again to 28, and now (grrr!) back down to 3.5. It's not quite as bad as it sounds, though. I've written almost $18.00 of calls against them, so, on this trade, I'm underwater with some decent little possibility of getting back into the profit column. Nonetheless, still a kwappy trade.
Candidly, gents (I assume you're both gents, apols if this assumption is in error), just now I'm doing 3 things.
1) Establishing ratio-spreads (buy 1 call, say w/a striking price of $11.50, and simultaneously writing (selling) 3 calls with a striking price of $15.00) in January 06 Natural Gas, at a net credit on entry of $1100 or better,
2) buying mineral royalty trust shares, Canadian or American, on sharp dips (PBT (NYSE), for instance, recently dropped intraday to $10.75 -- I wasn't clever enough to get anything near that price, of course, but did buy a bit at $11.48; the dividends are exceptional, and it seems rather unlikely that the price of the underlying minerals/resources will crash before year-end, so I can cheerfully anticipate the 0.8/1.2% per month -- not a typo, btw, per month dividend), and
3) shorting FNM and FRD, and possibly other quasi-government ''lending'' outfits (read: organised subsidy outfits -- gov't always pushes this sort of thing far too far, and it'll get ugly when the chickens come home to roost) on any good bounce in their respective share prices. Feel quite free not to accept my word on this, but Fannie, especially, right this very minute, is even MORE highly leveraged than was LTCM when that group of traders collapsed in 1998.
The bailout for Fannie will beggar description. Come on down, Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer.
It will be sort of ruefully amusing to watch the process...assuming (very reasonably) that the Regress will NOT rein in Fannie and Freddie from doing the derivatives version of ''Disco Inferno''.
Well, I suppose that's why we all get out of bed in the morning; to see what'll happen, right?
Good trading and FReegards to you both!
Deming went overseas at the FedGov's request. Lean thinking, lean manufacturing, agile manufacturing, six sigma can be linked, in some fashion, back to some of Ford's early work. Toyota sent a rep to come to America and study Ford's procedures. They took back all the knowledge and steadily tweaked their model and created TPS (Toyota Production System). Corporate America is head over heels for TPS and "kaizan" - the new buzzword - they think it's all new concepts
More like "at the Feds' behest after they were pressured by both the unions and big industry on the out of sight out of mind principle."
But they still have to give give big incentives to make them leave the lots before the end of the model year. When will they learn?
Around here, the GT versions don't need incentives. The V6 versions do, though. The gas crunch isn't helping, though.
They're actually good cars with a good interior, easily the best with a Ford, Lincoln, or Mercury badge at the current time.
We are Third World bound.
NUMMI (New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc) didn't make trucks until after Toyota took over the place from GM, IIRC.
The first NUMMI truck was the 4x2 Toyota Hilux (or Pickup, as we know it) in 1991. They've since expanded, and are making almost all the US market Tacomas there. GM's response: More S-10s built by drunk union Cajuns in Shreveport LA.
NUMMI was building a car exclusively for export back to Japan, the Voltz. It was a crossover. GM's response: The Pontiac Aztek.
NUMMI builds Toyota Corollas and Pontiac Vibes (also known as the Toyota Matrix). The Vibe/Matrix is the first true joint venture for NUMMI production - Toyota provided the platform and drivetrains, GM donated styling and interior design. Toyota can't sell any of the Matrixes, because they have too many GM idiot features in it (acres of cheap looking plastic), and it completely kludges up an otherwise perfectly good Corolla. Pontiac can't sell Vibes, either, because it's a hopeless kludge and looks just like the rest of GM's recent styling disasters.
Corollas do have incentives, and they are losing some sales - to the Scion brand, which is also Toyota. They don't fly off the showroom floors like they used to, but neither are they selling like Malibu sedans, i.e., not at all except to fleet buyers looking for cheap wheels to fill quotas.
NUMMI produced the Corolla as the Chevy Nova from 1984-1988, and then as the Prizm until 2001. GM's response: More Cavaliers.
Ford is actually doing far better - they're using platforms from the companies they've taken over. There are Ford products on Mazda and Volvo platforms now. The Ford 500 chassis was built with input from Mazda, Volvo, and (reportedly) Jaguar.
Ford appears to have a plan for rebuilding itself. It's still confused, but it knows where it wants to go. GM has no plan, no clue, and is still trying to figure out what the word "plan" means outside of a beancounter's spreadsheet.
This sums it up nicely. Meanwhile, execs loot the ship before she sinks!
The only downside is that the US taxpayer will probably also get the shaft as a side-effect. Oh well. Another day in paradise.
The UAW janitors at the GM Arlington plant make $33.50 an hour for sweeping floors, last I checked.
Too timid. GM's board should replace the current management with managers from Toyota.
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