Jan 15
Tags: Cars, China, Economy, General Motors, Global News, GM
Jan 10
- Secrets and Lies of the Bailout (Rolling Stone, Jan 4, 2013):
It has been four long winters since the federal government, in the hulking, shaven-skulled, Alien Nation-esque form of then-Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, committed $700 billion in taxpayer money to rescue Wall Street from its own chicanery and greed. To listen to the bankers and their allies in Washington tell it, you’d think the bailout was the best thing to hit the American economy since the invention of the assembly line. Not only did it prevent another Great Depression, we’ve been told, but the money has all been paid back, and the government even made a profit. No harm, no foul – right?
Wrong.
It was all a lie – one of the biggest and most elaborate falsehoods ever sold to the American people. We were told that the taxpayer was stepping in – only temporarily, mind you – to prop up the economy and save the world from financial catastrophe. What we actually ended up doing was the exact opposite: committing American taxpayers to permanent, blind support of an ungovernable, unregulatable, hyperconcentrated new financial system that exacerbates the greed and inequality that caused the crash, and forces Wall Street banks like Goldman Sachs and Citigroup to increase risk rather than reduce it. The result is one of those deals where one wrong decision early on blossoms into a lush nightmare of unintended consequences. We thought we were just letting a friend crash at the house for a few days; we ended up with a family of hillbillies who moved in forever, sleeping nine to a bed and building a meth lab on the front lawn.
Tags: AIG, Bailout, Bank of America, Banking, Barack Obama, Ben Bernanke, Bush administration, Citigroup, Economy, FDIC, Fed, Federal Reserve, Financial Crisis, General Motors, George Bush, Global News, GM, Goldman Sachs, Government, Great Depression, Henry Paulson, Jamie Dimon, Larry Summers, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Neil Barofsky, Nomi Prins, Obama administration, Politics, Ponzi schemes, Sheila Bair, Society, TARP, Taxpayers, Timothy Geithner, U.S., Wachovia, Wall Street, Wells Fargo
Dec 20
- Treasury announces GM exit strategy; automaker buying 200 million shares from U.S. (The Detroit News, Dec 19, 2012):
Washington — The Obama administration said Wednesday it will sell 200 million shares — or 40 percent of its remaining stake in General Motors Co. — back to the automaker and announced plans to completely exit the Detroit automaker by March 2014.
Tags: Bailout, Barack Obama, Economy, General Motors, Global News, GM, Government, Obama administration, Politics, Stock Market, Taxpayers
Dec 04
- Chart Of The Day: The Unprecedented Implosion Of European Car Sales (ZeroHedge, Dec 4, 2012):
The graphic below, which presents an unvarnished picture of Europe’s true economic state, needs no explanation:
Source: FT
In the context of the above, no explanation is also needed that quietly, and without much fanfare, French car-maker, Peugeot, and Europe’s second largest after VW, was recently GMed, and received a government bailout.
Carmaker Peugeot gets $9.1B government bailout
The French government has agreed to underwrite up to €7 billion ($9.1 billion) of bonds issued by Banque PSA Finance SA, the financing unit of carmaker PSA Peugeot Citroen SA, allowing the French automaker to offer low-cost credit to its dealerships and clients amid a slump in sales.
Tags: Bailout, BMW, Cars, Collapse, Economy, EU, Europe, Fiat, Ford, France, Global News, GM, Government, Peugeot, Politics, Renault, VW
Sep 10
- GM Loses Over $49,000 On Every Chevy Volt (ZeroHedge, Sep 10, 2012):
Watching Phil LeBlow providing Ford with a reacharound this morning reminded us of total farce that is both the forest and the trees of the US auto industry. We have discussed the FUBAR channel-stuffing and the subprime-lending SNAFU but now, as Reuters reports, we see the ugly truth about GM’s little baby “the Volt is over-engineered and over-priced”. Nearly two years after the introduction of the path-breaking plug-in hybrid, GM is still losing as much as $49,000 on each Volt it builds….
Furthermore, there are some Americans paying just $5,050 to drive around for two years in a vehicle that cost as much as $89,000 to produce. And while the loss per vehicle will shrink as more are built and sold, GM is still years away from making money on the Volt, which will soon face new competitors from Ford, Honda and others. Continue reading »
Tags: Bailout, Bankruptcy, Barack Obama, Chevrolet Volt, Economy, General Motors, Global News, GM, Government, Obama administration, Politics, U.S.
Jun 03
- GM to cut about one-fourth of U.S. pension liability (Reuters, June 1, 2012):
DETROIT (Reuters) – General Motors Co will cut nearly a quarter of its U.S. pension obligation by transferring the management of its pension plans for 118,000 white-collar retirees to a third party and offering lump-sum buyouts.
The two moves unveiled on Friday will cut $26 billion from the automaker’s massive U.S. pension liability of nearly $109 billion. GM’s pension overhang is a top concern for investors. It was one of a handful of issues left untouched during GM’s U.S.-financed bankruptcy restructuring three years ago.
Nov 17
- U.S. boosts estimate of auto bailout losses to $23.6B (Detroit News, Nov. 14, 2011):
The Treasury Department dramatically boosted its estimate of losses from its $85 billion auto industry bailout by more than $9 billion in the face of General Motors Co.’s steep stock decline.
In its monthly report to Congress, the Treasury Department now says it expects to lose $23.6 billion, up from its previous estimate of $14.33 billion.
Tags: Bailout, Cars, Economy, General Motors, Global News, GM, Government, Politics, U.S.
Mar 18
A 2011 Chevrolet Colorado ZQ8 Crew Cab. GM is suspending production at the Shreveport, La., plant that makes it and the sibling GMC Canyon because of a parts shortage due to the Japanese earthquake.
General Motors plans to halt production Monday of the Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon compact pickups made at Shreveport, La., because some parts come from Japan and aren’t available now.
The GM move is the first production halt directly linked to the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that wiped out portions of the northeast coast of Japan.
“We have suspended production at Shreveport for next week due to parts shortages due to the crisis in Japan. We will resume operations as soon as we can,” GM manufacturing spokesman Chris Lee tells Drive On. He wouldn’t identify the parts involved. Japanese companies often are the sole suppliers of electronics part for many vehicles.
Tags: Cars, Economy, General Motors, Global News, GM, Japan
Feb 26
Congratulations Centrally Planned Garbage Motors: GM slides to below its IPO price, hitting $32.75. And now we get to see if GETCO has been swimming with no bathing suit on the entire time.
(Click on iimages to enlarge.)
As a reminder, 112 hedge funds hold GM stock. Oops.
And time to remind the retarded market making robots of what we posted a week ago:
And some bad news for the world’s worst car maker (recently bankrupt), which has bet its entire “growth” platform as per the recent IPO on the one market that is so far unfamiliar with said carmaker’s “quality” reputation. In January, the Shanghai-based China Passenger Car Association reported that sales of passenger cars fell 10.3 percent in January from the month before to 965,238. Per Manufacturing.net: “Chinese bought 13.7 million passenger vehicles last year, up by a third from 2009. But that robust growth is forecast to cool this year due to the expiration of tax incentives for some vehicle purchases and a renewed effort by cities to bring traffic under control.”Is the recent collectivist action to cool off purchasing actually going to have an adverse impact not only on GM’s margins but its sales as well? Why yes. But the market will be stunned when this is publicly announced shortly.
Furthermore, the deterioration in car sales is accelerating:
Tags: Cars, China, Economy, Ford, General Motors, Global News, GM, Government, Stock Market, Wall Street
Sep 01
See also:
- US: Record 1 in 6 Americans in Government Anti-Poverty Programs
Aug. 31 (Bloomberg) — U.S. auto sales in August probably were the slowest for the month in 28 years as model-year closeout deals failed to entice consumers concerned the economy is worsening and they may lose their jobs.
Industrywide deliveries, to be released tomorrow, may have reached an annualized rate of 11.6 million vehicles this month, the average of eight analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg. That would be the slowest August since 1982, according to researcher Ward’s AutoInfoBank. The rate would be 18 percent below last year’s 14.2 million pace, when the U.S. government’s “cash for clunkers” incentive program boosted sales.
“Home sales are way down, the stock market is way down, the unemployment report is very disappointing and consumer confidence is sputtering,” Jesse Toprak, vice president of industry trends at TrueCar.com, said in an interview. “People just don’t want to make big-ticket purchases because they’re uncertain about their jobs and the value of their homes.”
While automakers increased discounts by 1 percent from July to an average of $2,864 per vehicle, sales to individuals probably fell 7 percent from last month, according to Santa Monica, California-based TrueCar.
Tags: Cars, Chrysler, Economy, Ford, General Motors, GM, U.S.
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