ellives

You're both, in actuality, saying the same thing with different words. "Market capitalization" is the "public perception" of what the company is worth. In effect this is really the belief (or lack thereof) the company can generate profits or not. The only real way to change this perception is to actually generate some. Until then, the stock price will continue to stay in the toilet and hamper GM's ability to compete. In fact it would seem as though they'd be a prime target for acquisition at a $15B price target for a company with hard assets that far exceed this number. Consider that Warren Buffett gave away $37B of his wealth yesterday. Yikes. If Toyota bought GM, would they bring out the Camaro again or would they call it the "Camara" a la the "Solara?"

Sadly he responded to my post, which was directed at this post:

He never said anything "just started." He was speaking about specific losses in the 2000 to 2006 timeframe.

Thanks for your opinion. Next time back it up with some reasoning so the rest of us can understand your basis.

Ditto. Well put. Kinda like how these guys were unaware of what was going on in New Orleans until 24 hours after the crisis commenced. Seems like you'd want to ADD avenues of communications if you found yourself in this kind of mess.

Baloney. Email is to the point and very effective. A lot less chit chat where time is wasted. Spam is another issue that can be resolved with technology. I stand by my original statment.

On a side note, Michael Chertoff is an idiot. And we wonder why FEMA is whacked.

The damage was done long ago. It's better (much better) to be a profitable #2 than and unprofitable #1.

S&P is another bunch of lemming analysts. Just ignore them and use a dart to pick your investments and you'll make more money.

.... thus the problem. They should send the letters with "return receipt requested" so they can wave it in the customer's face when they come back later and bitch.

While this thread has degraded into one-liner critiques of Buickman, there are some valuable questions asked here. In some ways, GM epitomizes the big company culture that permeates the US - both good companies and bad - which lavishes wealth on their senior team whether they perform or not. This behavior I hope will end some day.

And so your point?

Or lack thereof or mixed with something other than....

LMAO

I do not see the wisdom of replacing an existing nameplate (STS) with a suffix-based designation (DTS-L.) Hell the STS has more brand recognition than the DTS which has existing in it's current form for only a few years. I'm not talking DeVille - but DTS. I've never understood this approach even in the Yukon / Yukon XL approach. We all know the big one is just a Suburban. Personally I think Cadillac as the right idea with the three models. The DTS should be the full-blown maxed out (S/7-Series/S- product. The problem is they don't have the product. It needs to be RWD/AWD and it needs to be a deep car. No bench seats. No column shifter and none of this base product crap for the guy that wants to make the jump from the top-of-the-line Buick to the base Cadillac product. If he wants the Caddy, he should get the Caddy. It's a Cadillac for a reason. I never understood this at any time in the history of GM. It blurs the product lines unnecessarily.

Corvette.

A Harvard education is not a guarantee of intelligence OR success. Experience makes for a lot of wisdom. Keep this in mind.

General statements like "GM products aren't all that great" are useless. For every example of mediocre GM product you point out, I can point out another that's great. Let's stop using them unless you back them up with facts we can all confirm and make them at least defendable. This one isn't. "Insanely cheap price" is an interesting observation but no one in the car business can survive on price alone. Yugo proved this point among others. $10B in losses is what's providing for the "insanely cheap price" and of course this can't continue for long.

Constructive criticism and political grandstanding are two different things.

How about some actual sources to back up your statements?

The reference "number 1" can be measured in a lot of ways. We're focused here on number of units sold which of course GM appears to retain for the time being. The true measure is, again, profits. With profits you can become number 1 in unit says or any other measure you want to be. When you're losing money, no other measure really matters. You're right to dislike the "you owe me" mentality. It's pervasive throughout US society. Unfortunately when you look at Social Security, for instance, it has become a "catch all" for much more than it was originally intended. This will need to change and people will need to take more responsibility for their own retirement via things like 401K's and IRA's. The days of the feed bag paid to that fat GM retiree you referred to are coming to an end. If he lives long enough he's going to lose the whole damn pension if the current trend continues.

We don't want tax increases *nor* VAT's. Nothing good ever comes out of paying taxes. Nothing. The problem we have in the US is a fundamental shift of what has been a paternal approach to retirement in the past. The country is moving from a defined benefit approach ("you pay in this much and we promise to pay you this much when you retire") to a defined contribution approach ("we'll both pay this amount and you'll manage whatever you're able to amass during your working career and it will pay out in whatever way you want it to until it's gone.") Most of the old defined benefit program, whether it's pensions or Social Security, are dying in there current forms. They need to be changed radically. No one can predict the future which is why they're a bad idea and why they'll all failing. GM is trying to compete having the burden of it's old programs against competitors structured with the new. Something is going to give eventually. Unions are going the way of the dinosaur in commercial enterprises. They are just bad for business and I'll gladly debate this statement with anyone who chooses. Unions will continue in municipal enterprises because it's the only way these employees will ever get a decent wage and it's the recent why the expression "government employee" will always have a negative connotation and why the US will continue to decline. Personally I'd be embarrassed to tell anyone I was a government employee.

Huh? Something is a bit whacked with this post. Care to edit it?

The problem with generalities is they are certain to be wrong a large percentage of the time and I'm quite sure your statement below falls into this category.

... which would be??? (Didn't know the G6 and Aura had been "gotten")