Posted on 07/05/2006 7:39:54 PM PDT by Flavius
Kirk Kerkorian is, according to the sources, 87 years of age. Whatever it is he has planned to do he'd best do it fast ~ before he forgets it for one thing ~ and so he can enjoy it a couple of years.
GM's interests haven't been America's interests for a very long time. Who cares how this ends.
its overblown - their pension problem will be solved as the retirees die off. yes, it will take time, but it will happen.
if this deal goes through - GM is gone.
nonsense. they are a great american company - a company that actually makes things, as opposed to companies that just provide services, or retail sales, or swap bonds another paper assets. they are a company that provide lots of good middle class private sector jobs for american workers.
The French are really going to have the corner on the automobile business - they already own B.F. Goodrich and Uniroyal as well as Michelin, control "Car and Driver" and "Road and Track" magazines, and just for good measure, have majority interest in Motel6......
yet their cars are c.p and with gm in the mix, toyota should take over the world
Billy Durant. GM was founded by a gambler. Got thrown off the board, started an independent automaker named after a Frenchman (Chevrolet) and used that company to leverage his way back into GM.
In my opinion, the best outcome for the US, GM and the auto industry as a whole is a chapter 11 Bk, reorganization, stop returning phone calls from the unions and start building cars.
well i would just add one thing , remove all the people responsible for current car designs
all of them
Being a GM employee at the blue collar level pays far better than even French welfare.
yes now it does, but once they 'streamline' that so it looks more like an mexican ran operation that french welfare will be a dream
GM, as mucked up as it is, remains an industrial powerhouse. Just needs to relieve itself of pensions, healthcare and lifetime union wages.
The pension problem is overblown, IMO - the health care problem is not. Underfunded health care benefits for retirees dwarf the pension underfunding at GM and Ford (think 3 to 1). The pension underfunding could be solved overnight as both companies have more than enough cash on hand to eliminate the underfunding (though that might create other cash flow problems). Heck, last year Ford eliminated quite a large chunk of their underfunding even while losing money. And that's not counting pension changes pushed through this year which reduce future benefits (ie, make the gap smaller). Exxon made a fortune and hardly put a dent in theirs.
Actually Louis Chevrolet was Swiss.
And he is buried in a Catholic cemetary here in Indianapolis.
I believe the GM PENSION is overfunded.
OPEB is a whole other story though
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