Posted on 11/14/2008 11:27:11 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
In recent months, General Motors has been burning through about $3.1 million an hour, or $52,000 - the price of a well-equipped Chevy Tahoe sport utility vehicle - every minute.
How much longer can this go on? And perhaps more important, can GM hang on until President-elect Barack Obama and the new Congress can come to the rescue in January?
With an auto industry bailout running headlong into Republican opposition in Congress, GM's best hope of avoiding collapse might lie with the incoming Democratic administration. But the automaker is practically running on empty already, and analysts and others warn that it might be out of business by the time Obama is sworn in on Jan. 20.
The largest U.S. automaker said it had $16.2 billion in cash at the end of September, raising the possibility that GM will fall below the minimum of $11 billion to $14 billion needed for day-to-day operations by the end of the year.
If that happens, GM will be unable to pay some creditors, which could seize assets that were pledged as collateral or even try to force the company into bankruptcy.
Worse yet, some suppliers could simply stop shipping parts unless they are paid cash on delivery, said Douglas Baird, a professor who specializes in bankruptcy at the University of Chicago Law School.
"That's the nightmare scenario they're worried about, and we don't know how far off that day is," he said.
Without parts, GM can't build vehicles, make money and pay its creditors.
Eventually some creditors might try to push the automaker into bankruptcy.
"According to the bankruptcy code, it only takes three creditors to go into court and say this company is bankrupt in an involuntary manner.
(Excerpt) Read more at pasadenastarnews.com ...
“Im trying to remember when GMC ever came to my aid, nope never did. Any of you business owners ever get help from GMC?”
They never even helped me with the crappy vehicles they made. I’ve tried to be a GM customer, but they made it impossible with the horrible designs and engineering they spewed out since the early 80’s.
No one deserves bankruptcy more than GM and the UAW pension plan.
Germany is going to bailout GM subsidiary Opel with 1.3bn $.
http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/0,1518,590557,00.html
Thanks for the hyperlink! The article is very interesting!
In a perfect example of denial, the CEO of Opel (Demant) said:
"In the event that GM in the USA encountered any problems, we are dependent upon the flow of financing, and it could then happen that, sometime in the course of next year, we could [also] experience problems. Only in this unlikely case would we have to apply for credit. [...] I'm only talking about possibiities here.
According to the press agency dpa, this concerns securities amounting to at least 200 million. However, the priminister of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, Kurt Beck (Social-Democratic Party,) said in the Second German TV that "they assume that securities on the order of magnitude of 1 billion would have to be provided." Together with his fellow state priministers from the other affected states of North-Rhine Westphalia, Thuringia, and Hessia, he believes that they would assume a total of one-third to 40% of the overall risk, while the German Federal Government would assume the rest.
Regards,
The theory is that since reorganization financing is dried up, that if GM goes into bankruptcy that they will be liquidated and cease to exist.
Yeah, unionized industries seem to get that a lot.
“I think most of gM’s problems is UAW”
It may also be having to carry a pension fund instead of converting over to a 401K like many companies did in the 80s and 90s, but that maybe UAW related as well.
That’s cool eh ?
Suckin 1.3 bn$ out of the tax payers blood while boasting “we’re doing well but might only need ‘eventually’ 260 million $”. Umph.....
Pray for the german tax payers. They’ll need/deserve it more then GM.
I was just reading an article at a blog called Carpe Diem, the blog of an economics professor at University of Tennessee (I think it was Tenn. may be mistaken).
Anyway, I was shocked at the wages and benefits that UAW has squeezed out of the Big Three.
UAW average worker pay, including benefits is $72.31 an hour or a whopping $150,404 per year.
Auto workers at the US plants of Toyota, BMW and Nissan average $44.20 per hour, or $91,936 per year.
UAW is pulling down 65% more annually than the non-union plants.
Nancy and Hairy will certainly wish to subsidize more of this to keep the campaign contributions coming.
Who’s going to force people to buy their output?
Free enterprise means that entrepreneurs are free to be successful and make a profit and free to fail. The Federal government has no business paying for bad decisions by GM, especially since the decisions include adding $8,000 in union-inspired costs to each and every vehicle, for health insurance, Viagra, pension benefits, etc. Now GM is failing and the Democrats want more stealth socialism so the taxpayers can pay the $8,000 for each and every car manufactured by GM.
I do not think that the country can afford to do that without making the coming recession into a full scale depression. Let the chips fall where they may. The trillions in bailout money already committed by our government has doomed our economy already. Of course the Democrats are excellent at implementing failed policies.
So, if this happens, does anyone think the price of each and every car manufactured by GM will drop by $8,000?
didnt warren buffet invested $10 b into GM? Get him to invest some more
Yep, not even Palin.
Why not save Circuit City? I care more about that store than GM.
We never saved Studebaker, which was a shame.
I'm starting to wonder if I'm suddenly living in the Twilight Zone. It seems to me that I have read about companies heading to court more than once to reorganize, then rereorganize and so on and so on. Then, eventually, if they supply a product where there is a demand, they emerge ready to take on new challenges.
Is there something in the law preventing GM from accessing this?
It seems to me that there are plenty of things GM can do, and "bailout" should not be on the list.
See, "The Pinball Bailout?" here on FR.
Congressman Billybob
Latest article, "The Barack Obama - King George Connection"
The Declaration, the Constitution, parts of the Federalist, and America's Owner's Manual, here.
Total Compensation Per Hour, 2007-2008 (includes wages and all benefits):
Big Three automakers * $73.08
Toyota * $48.00
All workers * $28.48
Why should people getting $28.48 in wages and benefits have their tax money used
to bail out people getting $73.08 in wages and benefits? The Big Three are
failing because of poor management and greed by the UAW. In
today’s credit market, no on wants to loan the Big Three any serious money,
because they may go bankrupt. A bail out will not change this. Unless the Big Three get wage and benefit cut
reductions from the UAW, they will never compete in a global market. They, then,
need capital to to add robots and automation to their factories. This will cause
additional layoffs of UAW members. That is why the UAW have fought these
changes. In order to complete globally, the Big Three need to have far fewer
workers and more automation than their overseas competitors. They will never
match the low wage advantage the overseas factories have. The UAW needs to bail out the Big Three, not the taxpayer.
It is time for our government to bail out on bailouts.
http://bloggingredneck.blogspot.com/
“Maybe the first energy crisis in 1973 should have awakened them to the need to build fuel efficient, reliable, affordable and safe vehicles. 35 years later, it might just be too late for the Big Three.”
It did and they did, except for the fuel thing, which has been such a violent roller coaster that nobody could follow it, much less predict it.
It will be beyond irony if the Detroit three, now that they have fixed quality, reliability, safety and even pleasing design, now go under because no one notices the fixes. It sounds like you haven’t noticed them.
So what?
Let someone else buy those plants and put them to work.
The Government doesn’t owe ANYONE a living, whether they be in a Red or Blue state.
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