The only scenario that makes sense is if the companies were actually losing money with every car they sold. It makes me think of “The Producers”, where two guys tried to scam investors by selling 10,000% of a Broadway show and then doing their best to make it a flop so the investors wouldn’t be expecting to see any return. The show was a hit, so the guys had to destroy the show.
So, let’s see, who owns more of the car companies than they’re worth... hmmm?
The only scenario that makes sense is if the companies were actually losing money with every car they sold.
Sorta sounds like they are losing money by the bucket fulls. I guess it depends upon how you qualify the loses whether by each car sold, car manufactured, or some other measure. The following is from an article about GM’s 2008 year end financials. The first qtr of 09 produced a loss of almost $6 billion as reported in other articles. GM is leaking money like a bucket with multiple holes in it.
http://money.cnn.com/2009/02/26/news/companies/gm_results/index.htm
snip
For the full year, GM reported a net loss of $30.9 billion. The automaker has posted net losses of $82 billion over the past four years as its U.S. sales and market share plunged and it closed plants and slashed staff in an unsuccessful effort to stem losses.
end snip