The only winner of the GM bailout was Obama 2012: GM Should Have Been Allowed to go Bankrupt

American Thinker ^ | 11/30/2018 | Silvio Canto Jr.

[SeekAndFind]

Back in 2012, the Obama reelection team reminded us that they got Osama bin Laden an

d saved GM.  It probably gave Obama Ohio at less than 200,000 votes out of 5 plus million cast.  It did not hurt in Michigan.  It certainly energized the unions to cast ballots for the man who "saved" their jobs.

Yes, they got Osama bin Laden.  But they didn't really save GM or do the workers any favor on a long-term basis.

Looking back, the GM bailout was a partisan band aid.  I like what Kevin D. Williamson wrote about this:     

What did U.S. taxpayers get for their $11.2 billion bailout of GM? About ten years of business-as-usual, and one very expensive lesson.

Bailouts don’t work...

GM’s sedan business is weak because GM’s sedans are weak: Virtually all of the best-selling sedans in the United States are made by Toyota, Honda, and Nissan. 

The lower and middle sections of the market are dominated by Asia, and the high end of the market by Europe: Mercedes, Audi, BMW. GM can’t compete with the Honda Civic at its price point or with the Audi A7 at its price point. 

Consumers like what they like, and they aren’t buying what GM is selling. It isn’t winning in the dino-juice-powered market, in the electric-car market, or in the hybrid market, either: GM is not exactly what you would call a nimble corporation.

So, things are grim for GM.

On the car front, anyway. GM has a much healthier business selling trucks and SUVs, a business that it now will focus its resources on -- as it should have done long ago. 

Why didn’t it do that?

[JohnBrowdie]

no, it was the UAW. the obamites didn’t bail out the auto industry, they bailed out the UAW, who would have been crushed if GM had gone through a normal restruturing.

the freaking UAW OWNED a big chunk of GM after obama was done, and it was pure political payback for the $100 million he got from organized labor during the capmpaign that he JUST finished.

the quid pro quo was astounding, yet you heard nothing about it.

[Alberta's Child]

2017 U.S. employee figures reported by the Big Three auto makers:

GM: 97,000
Ford: 85,000
Chrysler: 57,000

That's around 240,000 U.S. workers employed by these companies.

There are somewhere around 725,000 retired employees in the UAW's benefits plan.

Do the math. The union worker employed today isn't the problem. The real problem is the other three former union workers who are still supported by the Big Three but don't add a single penny of value to the company anymore.

[JohnBrowdie]

you’re confusing TARP with a ton of other stuff. you’re also ignoring the fact that the recession was over during the first quarter of 2009 (which is pretty much day 0 of the obama administration), and that it was the actions of the bushies in late 2008 that steadied the ship during the storm.

now, all of the crap that the obamites inflicted on the economy in the name of a recession that was already over is a completely different conversation.

[yuleeyahoo]

GM is a social welfare program with a loss leading car division.

[2CAVTrooper]

I agree, GM should have been allowed to go bankrupt.

That way they could have told their bloated UAW union to go pound sand, eliminate the “job banks”, and emplement new work standards to improve the engineering and build quality of their vehicles. All while lowering the price of their vehicles.

[Buckeye McFrog]

Yeah but the union organization itself is a major GOTV, street muscle and money laundering point for the Democrat Party. It’s pretty valuable to them.

[fishtank]

This is General Motors.

The first four cars I ever drove and owned were all GM.

I despise the brand now.

[Wuli]

While I wouldn’t argue the more essential point, however if GM is weak in the North American home market it is not because it’s sedans are weak.

It is because it’s because it’s top selling SUV ranks fifth in sales, with little Ford even doing better than GM in that category. Sedans are weak, period - all makes and models. It is SUVs that are now the biggest sellers, along with pickup trucks (there are also GM ranks 2nd to Ford).

Yes, in Sedans, Toyota still outsells GM, but even Totota knows it is the SUV and truck markets that are growing, not Sendans.

What supports GM today? It’s China where it sells 1 million more vehicles than it does in the U.S.

[ealgeone]

Actually he did neither. ST6 got bin laden and GM is still in financial trouble.

[Soros Billions]

Mom and Pop Shareholders lost everything. All Shareholders lost everything. It was Govt forced Bankruptcy.

[Mr. K]

AND THE LOSERS WERE THE STOCKHOLDERS

AND GM DEALERSHIPS (That were owned by republicans- because why keep a successful dealership open to sell your product if it is owned by a republican)

[Vaduz]

GM finds out making ugly cars don’t sell 6 models gone not many cars now look good most look like a fish out of water sucking for air.

[DCBryan1]

I'm a broker....when a client wants to buy autos, either ford (F) or GM, I tell them:

"You are NOT buying a car company. You are buying a healthcare plan and pension company that just happens to make cars".

Let that sink in.

[DannyTN]

If we had not lowered the tariffs in the 1960’s, American car companies would never have been in trouble.

Bailouts were a bandaid on a hemorrhaging cancer due to low tariffs. We should have cured the cancer, then the bailouts would have been more successful.

[Freee-dame]

Is this graft/extortion/bribery (?) still going on. I read early in Trump’s administration that It was going to be cancelled. How disgusting to fine a company billions or millions and then reduce it significantly if the company donated the reduced amount to a left wing (or any) organization.

I am in favor of ending all tax exemptions for any organizations.

[Howie66]

When Obama stole those shares of GM stock from the true owners of GM and essentially gave them to the UAW, I was furious. It has always been a matter of time before GM was run into the ground. Let them go belly up. I do not care at all.

[dfwgator]

GM should have been broken up as a condition for the bailout.

[2CAVTrooper]

IIRC Saab was a GM holding.

[Pelham]

“That’s why you’re reading a story like this about GM even as Asian and German auto manufacturers are opening new plants all over the Sun Belt.”

Foreign car firms collaborate with their governments with the goal of increasing their American market share, while keeping their home markets free from American competition.

Japan uses their keiretsu structure to do this. Koreans the chaebol.

The Reagan administration was the last that refused to turn a blind eye to this and pretend that American firms are operating on a level playing field with their foreign competitors.

[Pelham]

“That’s why you’re reading a story like this about GM even as Asian and German auto manufacturers are opening new plants all over the Sun Belt.”

Foreign car firms collaborate with their governments with the goal of increasing their American market share, while keeping their home markets free from American competition.

Japan uses their keiretsu structure to do this. Koreans the chaebol.

The Reagan administration was the last that refused to turn a blind eye to this and pretend that American firms are operating on a level playing field with their foreign competitors.