CARBIZ

??? Then I suppose the '82 Blazers were a mirage? Give me a break. I doubt Toyota is making money on their hybrids, but then they can afford to lose money on them, cant they? Especially considering the Japanese government paid for its development. GM has had hybrids longer than Toyota - they happen to be in buses! Stop reading Toyota's press clippings. Are 6 spds inherently better? No. They give modestly better fuel mileage and can be quieter at high speeds above 70 mph - which we aren't supposed to be driving at anyway, BTW), but other than bragging about 'my car has more gears than your car,' what was the business case for 6 spds 10 years ago? Where will this madness end? Don't big rigs have 21 speeds? If you figure out a way to dump the UAW without GM and Ford incurring a huge, crippling strike, please do let the rest of us know. BTW: Toyota's 4 spds were crap, so they had to replace them anyway. Like I said (but you conveniently ignored) WHEN YOU HAVE THE BEST 4 SPD IN THE WORLD, WHY WOULD YOU SPEND $$$ TO REPLACE IT?

Well, don't move to Toronto: not only is Toyota's Canadian operations headquartered here, but if our current Mayor and his cronies have their way, ALL private vehicles will be banned from the city - or they will just make it so expensive/difficult to drive in the city that we will all take transit. PS: Vancouver is not much better.

If I ever come across a '91-'96 Caprice wagon (loaded) with low mileage, I'd snap it up in a second. I still miss my ol' girl.

The next person who brings up GM's 4-spd trannies will be doomed to drive Kia for the rest of their lives! This has always been about allocation of tight resources. There was no business model for a hybrid at $30 a barrel gas, nor for 5 or 6 spd trannies. Both exist only as marketing points for their manufacturers. When oil spiked over the past two years (something that nobody expected), yes GM was caught flat-footed. The mileage gains of the 6 spd over the 4 are miniscule, but they do make sense at $150 a barrel. When you have the most reliable, smoothest shifting tranny that gives you close to 40 mpg (in the Impala), why would you change things? The 3 spd was the mainstay for 2 decades, followed by another 2 decades of the 4 spd. Friedman's snipes about 'innovation' are clearly coming from someone who knows nothing about cars. Technically, the hybrids still are 'fads'; in fact, so is the Mac computer. Even the iPod is 80% marketing, 20% innovation. If oil stays below $100 a barrel (and there is no reason to assume it will skyrocket above that any time soon), again hybrids make no economic sense. The point is: what are the auto companies supposed to do when the money markets and oil markets are making wild swings? How can any executive plan a model portfolio for 4 years from now in the current conditions? Oh, and tit for tat, Friedman: GM just broke ground for a new $300million engine plant in the States. Talk about biased reporting.

What is happening today is a lack of confidence thing, with respect to the global money markets. This latest blow is totally beyond GM's control. When the banks won't loan money to each other, they sure as hell won't loan to a troubled company like GM. Setting aside the 'mistakes' GM made in the '80s, I don't think many people can imagine how difficult it is in any corporate structure to plan for downsizing. First of all, the mindset in business schools for, like, decades now does not teach how to 'wind down' a company. Even if you were on the Board of GM in the '80s and were terrified of the Acura Legend, you would have been a lonely voice in the wilderness if you'd advocated closing factories, shutting down brands, getting rid of dealers. Frankly, the 40 years or so that GM 'owned' the market in North America is pretty much unprecedented. Even the so-called Ford/Chevy wars of the '50s were beside the fact that GM's other 4 divisions handily outsold the entire Ford company in their own rite. There isn't a UAW management team in existence who would have been voted back if they'd given concessions in the '80s. Unfortuntely, capitalism like democracies in general, tend to govern by crisis. I suspect that Wagoner and others new by the late '90s that the writing was on the wall and started taking evasive action. Too little, too late? Certainly. I can't wait for Wagoner to publish his memoirs at a later date. It will be a good read, I am sure.

A lot of things are changing: GM's warranty costs are going down; Toyota's (Tacoma!!) costs are going up. With new powertrains, vehicles and (hopefully) game changing technologies like the Volt coming onstream, GM is well positioned to returning to profitablility and 'outspending' Toyota in the all important R&D department. GM has had a lot of partnerships with Lotus (one example), Fiat and others that often makes their R&D spending more productive. Another example is the new 6 spd, co-developed with Ford and others. I don't understand how anyone imagines Detroit could have dealt with the UAW any differently. There was a time when GM and Ford actually stood up to the UAW and won (in the '40s, I believe), but would you advocate a return to the bitter days where guys on the line sabotaged vehicles because they were so enbittered? Are we going to let an entire industry die just because Detroit has obligations to its own workers? How is letting the industry die and indirectly paying for all the retirees in Japan going to help OUR futures? 'Pay me now, or pay me later' comes to mind. Whatever Congress decides to do, it is clear that GM was turning the ship around and was on the right track to profitability, until the wheels came off the economy. The GM of today is not the same GM of even a decade ago. I, for one, would like to see how this hand plays out. (And this is coming from someone who could easily move to Brazil tomorrow and become a house-husband!)

Paid for by the hapless Japanese consumers. Toyota has a 'guaranteed' market of 2 million units in Japan where it has been unchallenged for decades. The Japanese consumer has put up with 10 years of moribund bank stocks and flatlined real estate values so that Japan Inc can assault its foreign markets - or how else do you think Toyota can borrow monies at 0% and then ride the currency wave over here? If Congress takes an equity stake in GM, then the $25 billion investment can be paid back in spades when GM starts to kick some ass again in 2 or 3 years. It's a good thing Chrysler didn't face the same internet BS in '79 when they went before Congress.................

??? Do you even know how to balance your checkbook? Even if GM continues to 'burn' through a billion a month in cash (and there is no reason to believe that will go on indefinitely), 12X1= $12 billion, not $25 billion. Worst case scenario, the market doesn't correct itself in the next 14 months (to the end of '09) and U.S. sales are still in the 12-14 million unit range: GM would still have another $12 billion or so in cash reserves left. I have no doubt, with what they have told us about the Orlando, 'Nox, Cruze and other models coming onstream in the next 12 months or so that GM will be positioned to ride the next market upswing. Plus, the healthcare savings that were negotiated start kicking in at the end of next year, which will further ease the cashflow crunch. The real question is when will that upswing begin? Right now, it's all the negativity in the marketplace and all the f'ing rumors that are giving the market constipation!

What are we going to drop on Iraq? Moose? With what? Bush planes? (oooh, that's an unintentional pun!)

Nobody said it would be a 'free' lunch. An equity stake is better than a loan because loans have to be paid back nearly immediately at a cost, which paradoxically would only worsen things in Detroit for the immediate future. Current shareholders would have to see the logic to this plan since their current stocks are nearly worthless anything. A diluted stock base is preferable to bankruptcy; surely they can see that.

I think perhaps part of the problem is that Toyota, Nissan, etc. are all licking their chops and think that if GM or Ford go down, then they will automatically see a 20-30% surge in their business. THAT WILL NOT BE THE CASE. In the immediate short term, the sudden shock to the general economy of one or more major Detroit icons going down will only drag the economy down with it. In the long term, since it really isn't in the 'best interests' of any of the Japanese 5 to swoop in and take over the manufacturing plants, dealers, etc., the (high paying) job losses will affect auto sales for many, many years. I suspect - and this is only a gut feeling at this point, that the general blow to America's pride and manufacturing stature will be permanent, which could very likely result in a general, permanent downturn of the American economy. The 3 or 4 million ancillary jobs to the Detroit auto industry will not be replaced in the short or medium term. Even if the Japanese 5 pick up a few dealers and factories here and there, those high paying jobs are lost FOREVER. The future value-added jobs will be lost forever. Let me paint a little picture for you boys and girls from the Real World: Once upon a time I owned a little video store in a town of 15,000. When I opened (naive 24 year old that I was), there were 7 other video stores in town, plus a half dozen convenience stores that rented movies, too. I laughed and scaffawed at those puny, ignorant mom&pop operations; I imagined that myself (under the auspices of a major national video chain) would swamp them all and become a billionaire. When reality hit, I was half right: over the next couple years, one by one, the smaller operations did fold, but where did all their customers go? My sales made a slow, painful climb from the disappointing Grand Opening that I thrust upon the medium-sized town, but I puzzled as each store closed as to why I wasn't seeing a 20 or even 10% sales increase. (I also realized that the franchise I had was useless and got rid of them, but that is another story.) For years, I labored under 60 hour weeks, sweating and busting my ass, until there were only myself and two other stores in town. Most of the convenience stores had given up and taken out their video sections. I still puzzled as to why I wasn't making money hand over fist. Where were all the customers? Then along came a 'new' major chain and parked itself across the street from me. I quaked and I fumed, but I dipped into the family fund, doubled the size of my store and stood firm against this new interloper. Oddly, my sales went UP 30% the first year after this big chain opened across from me. My sales continued to climb, but so did my overhead: more staff, more computers, more maintenance, more taxes - all the joys of running a 'big business.' I bankrupted the new chain, then bankrupted their successor again. I would pour every dime I had into my store on improvements, new computers, more movies, etc., but I never seemed to get ahead. In fact, each time I would spend any money on myself personally (y'know, take a vacation, get a new car), I would get slapped down by some new outrage: economic downturn, the Goods and Services Tax introduced in '91, for examples) that would affect my bottom line and I would struggle anew. If I didn't have a family with means to fall back on (at 9%, of course), I would have gone under a couple times. Finally, success was within my grasp ( I opened a 2nd store in a nearby larger town) and the road to Easy Street was before me, then FAte threw another evil trick at me: a major cable company bought the store across from me. I had one brief flirtation with wealth (the 4 weeks they were closed for renovations), then had any hope for prosperity summarily snatched away from me forever. No, I do not want your pity or tears, but I have a deep understanding of what it takes to run a good company. On the one hand, you can never let up; you can never sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labor (as GM and Ford did in the '70s/'80s.) There is always someone out there who is jealous and will covet your customers, who thinks they can do it better than you. This medium town where I struggled for 11 years is but a microcosm of what the general economy is like. When an unknown 'foreign' entity targets you (as I later found out this cable company was prone to do), there is really nothing you can do. I had to pay my bills based on my customer service and my rentals only; this cable company treated the rentals as a (albeit major) sideline to their more lucrative cable drop off location. I didn't stand a chance. They were not playing by the same rules as me. They were much bigger than I, they were 'national,' their service was lousy. None of that mattered. As a real estate friend of mine said at the time,"nothing succeeds like success." I handed the business to my sister, and fled for new frontiers, but I earned a grudging respect for the trials and tribulations of running a company in the modern world with labor laws, government interference, monopolistic competitors and changing market conditions.

A couple years ago, I tried reading The End of Detroit by this witch: I couldn't get through the first chapter. Her myopic view of the auto industry, coupled with the clear fact that her 'advance' came from Toyota's bank, sickened me. I put the book in a biohazard bag and threw it out. What a lot of people don't understand is that there is an entire army of lawyers and 'consultants' dying for GM or Ford to fail because a lot of money is to be made by these pack of vultures. Just think of the lawyer's fees alone that will be raked in by major legal firms that will represent the unions, the suppliers, the dealers, etc as everyone piles on and sues each other in the event of a major bankruptcy. This would be yet another nail in the coffin for the American hegemony, because rather than BILLIONS being spent on R&D and productivity improvements for manufacturing, the money would be spent on legal battles - which is HALF the problem with both our countries in the first place. Again, more paper pushers would get rich, America would continue to build nothing and slide farther into obscurity and irrelevance.

'tooth: is your family adopting? This is what made North America great. People who take 'trades' in schools are looked down at today. Everyone wants to be a 'lawyer' or take 'business' (whatever the Hell that means). A nation that cannot build anything is doomed, IMO.

..... I agree with one of the first comments posted below the video: 'front row, please...and hurry!' :rotflmao:

But of course demand for oil has dropped 60% in the past 3 months, which is WHY oil has dropped in price by 60%, right? I am beside myself with vexation right now. Two years ago, we would never have thought $150 a barrel was possible; six months ago, who would have thought we'd be seeing the south side of $60 before Xmas? I really wanna be a free market believer, but the skeptic in me is getting awful suspicious about who is really in charge, or controlling things. Is this an oil producer/retailer plot to kill the hybrids/alternate fuell vehicles? Has someone cashed in their chips (at $147 a barrel) and made a ton of money? Are the middle class, once again, getting it up the ying-yang?

It's not that simple, boys and girls - and I'll be many of you understand that already. If it were only Toyota/Honda and the other Japanese multis attacking, GM and Ford probably would have done okay, but they've got Audi/BMW/Mercedes eating away at the high end (Buick/Cadillac) and Hyundai/Kia mauling the bottom end (Chevrolet). For sure GM and Ford were guilty in the '80s of not speculating whether or not Japan Inc was capable of such an assault, but how many people (myself included) looked at the Acura Legend and realized it was as big as MacArthur's beach-head? The GMT-900s had to be rushed to market, to defend what was then a million unit a year market for GM. If gas prices hadn't spiked and the housing bubble not popped, GM would have had time to roll out its new generation of eco-buggies. The timing has been lousy, but I don't see how scrapping the GMT-900s development in '05 and spending the money on moving up the Cruze, new 'Nox, etc. would have changed things today. Wagoner & the gang have had to know since '05 that they were racing against the clock, have been down-sizing like fiends, rejiggling UAW contracts, etc. This was one giant poker game since the last brush with bakruptcy in '05, but I guess Fate kept the wild card well hidden. I find it ironic (as oil drops below $60 a barrel today) that gas is going to get very cheap again but Detroit may not be around in 6 months to reap the benefits of a resurgent market.

Anyone just hear that Wells-Fargo has gone bust? I'm trying to find a credible source but our business manager was saying he was just told they've gone bankrupt. Any sources out there?

thestreet.com A reasonable explanation for some of the chaos being reported. Perhaps Bush should bomb Iraq to get GM/Ford off the front pages?

Also, the market has been fragmenting too much in the past few years: too many brands, too many models from everyone. It's not unlike the mid-50s when an economic downturn and a price war between GM and Ford shook out the likes of Nash, Packard, Studebaker and others: the market then was too crowded for the 7 or 8 million vehicles being sold. I mean, why does Japan have 5 or 7 major car manufacturers when they sell about as many as Canada in their own country?

+1 On a more broader scale, I would add that the West in general is committing cultural suicide. In 50 years, North America and Europe will be unrecognizable, if they exist at all.

It's not like the UAW hasn't given up anything. I am not a union supporter, but it isn't easy for union management to go to their members and say, 'hey, boys and girls, I have a 50% pay decrease coming up." HOW MANY ON THIS BOARD COULD ACCEPT A 50% PAY CUT? I'm with Grif on this one: the degree of malice around here and on the major news outlets is staggering. If you were on the Board of GM in '85, what would your decisions have been? They invested in new factories. They 'created' Saturn. They invented the truck bubble (because Japan had no trucks). Were all of these tactics successful? No. But there is a precedent of another industry that America once dominated and now has no play in: electronics. I wonder if the Board members of Zenith, RCA and others knew what was coming in the early '60s when Japan Inc started dumping crappy transistor radios and cheap B&W TVs on our shores. What we, as a nation(s) have to decide is: ARE WE WILLING TO SUPPORT OUR WAY OF LIFE OR NOT? It's that simple. To expect Detroit to compete with nations like Japan (closed market) and China (1.2 billion cheap laborers waiting in the wings) is ridiculous. Masterfully, Detroit has been maneuvered into a situation where they have slashed and downsized to the point where they are virtually irrelevant. Twenty five years ago, they accounted for 75% of the market and the jobs. Now, it's substantially less. Now, many pundits will tsk, tsk and declare,'well, who cares if Detroit goes down - it's not like they employ many people.' Masterful, absolutely masterful. It's a pretty simple decision, guys: are we going to be part of the solution, or part of the problem?

GM is not down 45% THIS YEAR. Stop pulling numbers out of your ass. A big chunk of the losses were paper, as they 'wrote off' things like Delphi, etc. By the end of 2010, the new 'Nox, Orlando (or whatever they call it), CTS coupe, CTS wagon, Camaro, Volt and possibly the Cruze will all be in production. It would be 2012 or later before GM's products became horribly dated again. Brazil is also working on a replacement small truck. As I said, it's only the next several months that are critical. Once the U.S. market rebounds, auto sales will recover. There is no reason to presume 2010 will see 14 million sales - it could roar back to 17 or even 18 million. GM would be in a very good position to grab market share - if it can survive the next couple quarters.

But GM is making money everywhere EXCEPT North America. In fact, even Toyota is losing money in North America. Interesting, no? The 'biggest', 'proudest' automotive market in the world is now a black pit, sucking in all those who dared enter. If Toyota is losing money here, after decades of expanding, it's no wonder that GM is in such trouble after decades of contracting here. Regardless of whether Washington/Ottawa decide to do something or not, and regardless of whether GM decides to go Chapter 11, something had better happen soon because the bad news cancer is already spreading and customers are going to stay away in droves. The timing couldn't be worse: if Obama can't do anything until mid-January and Bush won't do anything - well, generations from now, GM's implosion could be in economics text books under THE example of perfect storm.

......... sucking Ohio, Ontario, Indiana and Illinois with it, into a black hole.

If this mess does not heal itself within the next 2 or 3 months, then I am voting for a total CRASH. Even though my job would be on the line, I would rather see a total, complete melt down in North America to re-set the clock, rather than the Big 3 fall into the hands of foreign companies and compromise North America's ability to build or create anything. The reason Toyota should be scared, as should China, is that their greed and quest for total global domination may have killed the golden goose. No goose, no eggs - very simple economics. The fact that much of the greed originated on these shores (how else can someone like Buffet make $600 million on shorting currencies in '07?) is the reason why it may be necessary for a total meltdown. Judging by much of the selfishness and self-centeredness I see on this board (and others), I am rapidly losing any hope that, as a Society, we are going to be able to work this out in a constructive, expeditious manner. There are too many axes to grind, too many agendas at work.