GM to shut most US plants during summer

[Angel Heart]

"Factor" producer (and GE shareholder) Jesse Watters attended the annual GE shareholder meeting on April 21 in Orlando, Florida. During the Q&A period, Watters asked Chairman and CEO Jeffrey Immelt about the recent ugly comments by Janeane Garofalo on MSNBC. Watch "The O'Reilly Factor" at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. ET for the full exchange!

Audio of the exchange:

FOX Nation Exclusive! GE CEO Confronted at Shareholder Meeting! | The FOX Nation

 

[Xenophon]

The crowd booing Immelt's lame excuse at the end says it all.

 

[Angel Heart]

I'm looking forward to seeing the full report tonight.

 

[Xenophon]

I'm sure Olberman will have Jessie as his 'worst person in the world' for doing this.

 

[RodISHI]

The executives are the ones sending jobs overseas and if they get to renig on pension, EVEN BETTER FOR THEM!!!

GM is just doing what the bankers did. Privatize the profits and then socialize the losses.

Then that is who the workers will have to take it up with isn't it? Just think you could all own overseas companies by the time it is all said and done.

 

[ItsFairmont]

I have a Toyota and a Honda.

One is eight years old and the other four years old.

They start up and drive like they day I bought them.


By the time my 83 Ford Fairmont was 8 years old, it looked 20 years old, had many handles missing, failing electronics, an oil leak, and more. It looked like a car from 1975.

I had a brand new 2002 Ford Explorer (for a couple years). It drove well enough, but had a small oil drip from day one. Glad it was a lease. Turned it in.

My Honda Civic? Replaced the battery after seven years. 45 bucks.


Regardless of what anyone says or how they feel politically, Toyota and Honda make a superior product to GM, Ford, and Chrysler.


But don't take my word for it: Consult your local classifieds or autotrader and see which cars and trucks say things like "12k miles on rebuilt engine" or "new transmission with only 6k miles on it."

It won't be a Toyota or Honda.


The American auto industry is going the way of the American television manufacturing industry.


The big three have themselves to blame. They made excellent cars up until the late 60s (and even into the first two years of the 70s). But the mid-seventies to the early 90s were a quality disaster. Total pieces of junk. Ever see a 1985 Mustang? They were actually making 4-cylindar mustangs!

I'm sorry. I love this country, but our auto manufacturing days are over.

And, yes, it's also the Unions' faults, but the unions didn't design those crappy cars.


This IS my father's Oldsmobile.

 

[Iriemon]

If GM Goes Bankrupt, Obama can expect to be a one term president.

They have a plan, it includes the banks, natch:

GM Is Becoming a Royal Debacle - WSJ.com

APRIL 22, 2009
GM Is Becoming a Royal Debacle
By HOLMAN W. JENKINS, JR.

It's good to be the king -- until you start tripping over your own robe.

So King Barack the Mild is finding as he tries to dictate the terms of what amounts to an out-of-court bankruptcy for Chrysler and GM. He wants Chrysler's secured lenders to give up their right to nearly full recovery in a bankruptcy in return for 15 cents on the dollar. They'd be crazy to do so, of course, except that these banks also happen to be beholden to the administration for TARP money.

Wasn't TARP supposed to be about restoring a healthy banking system? Isn't that a tad inconsistent with banks just voluntarily relinquishing valuable claims on borrowers? Don't ask....

They've already seen that the rights and privileges of shareholders are not worth diddly when the king is throwing his prerogatives around. He dispensed with the services of GM chief Rick Wagoner, though the king owned not a single share of GM stock at the time. His minions communicated the king's pleasure that GM consider discontinuing its GMC brand, maker of pickups and SUVs that offendeth the royal eye -- though these vehicles earn GM's fattest profit margins.

His minions haven't asked GM to give up the Chevy Volt, even after determining it will be a profitless black hole, because of the king's fondness for green.

No wonder the king's mediation of 40 years of stalemated labor and business issues in the auto sector isn't going so well. There's a reason royal discretion has long been outmoded as a way to run an economy: Things just work better if a realm's subjects are left to resolve their own disputes and interests through the impersonal mechanism of the markets and the law.

His current bailout strategy amounts to asking thousands of bondholders and GM retirees to buy stock in a GM that the king's own policies mean they'd be loony to buy. Add the fact that passenger cars and trucks in the U.S. are a trivial source of greenhouse gases in any case -- they could all become carbonless and it would be irrelevant in the face of China's and India's coal use. King Barack has only been on his throne for three months. His policies already have devolved into savage incoherence....

Wow, and people laugh when I suggest the Murdoch Street Journal isn't "fair and balanced".

 

[mash107]

This is to be expected. Bailing out failed businesses only allows them to waste resources for a longer period of time. Anybody that thought GM or Chrysler would be able to reform themselves enough to become competitive within a few months is crazy. We should have allowed these companies to fail before we invested billions of taxpayer money into them, because we're never going to see it back.

Hell, if they chapter 11'd a year ago, restructured and downsized, they might be profitable now, and we'd be talking about what a great turn around GM was able to do, instead of continuing to insist common sense is abided, and let bad companies to fail.

 

[DavidS]

Why prop up GM? Just imagine if the thousands of workers being furlowed by GM for six weeks this summer were being permanently laid off.

Talk about a declining spiral of recession!

It's nine weeks.

 

[raceright]

If GM Goes Bankrupt, Obama can expect to be a one term president.

Hope your right, probably the only time I will agree with you losing GM is worth it and I own three GM vehicles

 

[Annie]

Why prop up GM? Just imagine if the thousands of workers being furlowed by GM for six weeks this summer were being permanently laid off.

Talk about a declining spiral of recession!

It's nine weeks.

At over 70% of salary for union workers.

 

[Toro]

I see no reason why GM going bankrupt would cause Obama to lose the Presidency in an election 42 months from now.

The US automakers position are simply untenable. They must restructure and that will almost certainly happen through bankruptcy.

 

[Zoomie1980]

Part of me is disturbed by the fact that all those pensioners are having their contract broken. Worked all those years, planned retirement based on the pension and now it is gone and they are too old to do much about it now.

But then, I've always been told to never fully depend on a pension, corporate or public (Social Security and Medicare) as they may not be there when you are ready to use them.

But it all comes down to a company that made promises it couldn't keep and a union that demanded the promises, when it, too, probably knew it was untenable over the long term. These pensions were designed when the average life expectancy was roughly equivalent to the retirement age. They were designed to pay out for only a year or two...if that. They all (including SS) should have been tied to the average life expectancy much the same way SS and Military off base housing subsidies have COLAs tied to the CPI.

 

[jreeves]

I see no reason why GM going bankrupt would cause Obama to lose the Presidency in an election 42 months from now.

The US automakers position are simply untenable. They must restructure and that will almost certainly happen through bankruptcy.

Agreed, I think other stuff will happen to help usher Obama away from the White House. But GM going bankrupt won't be a major cause.

 

[foggedinn]

I wonder what recourse the bond holders really have.

If, through the courts they seize assets, they will be seizing worthless assets. The only thing that makes auto industry assets worth anything is the fact that they are being used to create wealth. Once seized, they become de facto worthless.

The GM bondholders find themselves in much the same position as the banks who foreclose on ninja loans. Ninja loans made sense in a real estate market going up 10-15% a year. It's a self-induced disaster for banks to foreclose in a market dropping by that same 10-15% a year.

It would make sense for all stakeholders to give up a lot to keep GM a going concern. So, of course, that won't happen. We will all lose because no one is willing to give up what they consider their financial "rights".

 

[Annie]

Whether or not GM/Chrysler going bankrupt, most likely both, will impact electorate? Hmm, I really don't know. But do know the fallout is much more than the unions. All the makers of parts, bye, bye. Ford will be buying from overseas. Those jobs that used to be manufacturing, bye. Thousands?

Those folks, well they will not be spending at Walmart, etc....

 

[Zoomie1980]

Whether or not GM/Chrysler going bankrupt, most likely both, will impact electorate? Hmm, I really don't know. But do know the fallout is much more than the unions. All the makers of parts, bye, bye. Ford will be buying from overseas. Those jobs that used to be manufacturing, bye. Thousands?

Those folks, well they will not be spending at Walmart, etc....

What leads you to that conclusion? They will still make cars, even in bankruptcy. The workers will still make the going wage as the southern automaker wages are not that much different than the wage of the big three. The big losers will be the retirees. The difference in cost between a GM and Toyota vehicle is about 7% or so. Almost ALL that 7% is in 'legacy" costs GM has that Toyota does not have. Very little is the actual wage being paid the factory worker. It is the pensions that are going to be lost in a bankruptcy.

 

[Annie]

Whether or not GM/Chrysler going bankrupt, most likely both, will impact electorate? Hmm, I really don't know. But do know the fallout is much more than the unions. All the makers of parts, bye, bye. Ford will be buying from overseas. Those jobs that used to be manufacturing, bye. Thousands?

Those folks, well they will not be spending at Walmart, etc....

What leads you to that conclusion? They will still make cars, even in bankruptcy. The workers will still make the going wage as the southern automaker wages are not that much different than the wage of the big three. The big losers will be the retirees. The difference in cost between a GM and Toyota vehicle is about 7% or so. Almost ALL that 7% is in 'legacy" costs GM has that Toyota does not have. Very little is the actual wage being paid the factory worker. It is the pensions that are going to be lost in a bankruptcy.

The parts workers, with only Ford left standing, not going to hold. You can wish all you want, those jobs are going overseas.

 

[Zoomie1980]

Whether or not GM/Chrysler going bankrupt, most likely both, will impact electorate? Hmm, I really don't know. But do know the fallout is much more than the unions. All the makers of parts, bye, bye. Ford will be buying from overseas. Those jobs that used to be manufacturing, bye. Thousands?

Those folks, well they will not be spending at Walmart, etc....

What leads you to that conclusion? They will still make cars, even in bankruptcy. The workers will still make the going wage as the southern automaker wages are not that much different than the wage of the big three. The big losers will be the retirees. The difference in cost between a GM and Toyota vehicle is about 7% or so. Almost ALL that 7% is in 'legacy" costs GM has that Toyota does not have. Very little is the actual wage being paid the factory worker. It is the pensions that are going to be lost in a bankruptcy.

The parts workers, with only Ford left standing, not going to hold. You can wish all you want, those jobs are going overseas.

GM is going nowhere. Bankruptcy cp 11 is merely a reorganization, not a "going out of business" act. In fact, GM will continue operations throughout the entire process and the workers still employed will continue earning their wages. There will be new union contracts brought mostly in line with what Toyota and BMW are paying in Tenn and S. Carolina and they will divest themselves of their pension obligations. The Feds may pick up some of the pension load, but much of it will simply be lost.

The only way those jobs go completely away is if GM gets in such bad shape it goes Chptr 7 (going out of business), which is not in the cards at all......

 

[Annie]

What leads you to that conclusion? They will still make cars, even in bankruptcy. The workers will still make the going wage as the southern automaker wages are not that much different than the wage of the big three. The big losers will be the retirees. The difference in cost between a GM and Toyota vehicle is about 7% or so. Almost ALL that 7% is in 'legacy" costs GM has that Toyota does not have. Very little is the actual wage being paid the factory worker. It is the pensions that are going to be lost in a bankruptcy.

The parts workers, with only Ford left standing, not going to hold. You can wish all you want, those jobs are going overseas.

GM is going nowhere. Bankruptcy cp 11 is merely a reorganization, not a "going out of business" act. In fact, GM will continue operations throughout the entire process and the workers still employed will continue earning their wages. There will be new union contracts brought mostly in line with what Toyota and BMW are paying in Tenn and S. Carolina and they will divest themselves of their pension obligations. The Feds may pick up some of the pension load, but much of it will simply be lost.

The only way those jobs go completely away is if GM gets in such bad shape it goes Chptr 7 (going out of business), which is not in the cards at all......

Shutting down for 7-9 weeks, w/o declaring bankruptcy, you think they are doing what?