Anyone miss me?

Does anyone out there remember me?

Did anyone wonder where I disappeared too?

Yes....I am still alive and kicking. Sorry I disappeared for a long period of time, and no
I didn't drop dead or for that matter....even become seriously ill. I've just been on other
missions over the past several months.

....anyways, I dropped by to see what you guys had to say about the future of the US auto industry
and learned there weren't any topics created, so I took the liberty of creating this one!

Some of you may have remembered I am a longtime auto enthusiast, and do follow the industry closely.


To start out the 'fun & games', the whole process related to saving the US auto industry has been nothing more
than a total farce, and that began in the Bush administration when someone decided to start giving
GM & Chrysler bailouts....off course out of the pockets of we...the taxpayers. I opposed the bailouts
and agreed with the likes of Romney, Corker and Shelby. As it turned out, the results are the same. and I was correct in my prediction. Only difference, we...that taxpayers are out of billions of dollars and eventually GM & Chrysler will go down the same failed path as British Leyland when that company received similiar 'gubmint' help.

Of course enter the Obama administration & Obama himself, who in my mind hasn't a farking clue what he is doing.
As long he keeps his minions and the clueless buffoons who elected him...'happy', don't look for anything to improve
in this country as long as he is in office.

That being said. What do you people think will happen to the US auto industry? My thinking is......GM & Chrysler will eventually
die and the only US automaker that will survive this 'failed Socialist experiement' will be Ford.

As I have stated here often, Gm, Ford, Chrysler should have cratered long ago along with their political benefactors and made room for auto upstarts. Unfortunately the barrier to entry due to gubment regulations and taxes is incredibly high. Auto market should be like the PC market. Select your favorite standardized components, integrate them, install the operating system, apply power, drive...

Pretty simple really.

If the dems manage to stay in contol for the next few years the industry will become government business where all activity will eventually be conducted through the DMV until it collapses from lack of funds and an eventual demand for a genuine product (foreign).

If the repubs regain control its current demise will complete much faster and a possible rebirth along capitalistic lines will be much more probable.

Hi GT, great to see you back!

Perhaps the biggest event is the non-failure of Ford, when even Toyota has gotten some aid from their government.

GM and Chrysler will be a complete failure in five years.

Hi Space,

In case some don't realize, all brands are taking a pretty big hit presently. If your not selling cars, you're not making money.

Here's an example:

"TOKYO - Toyota Motor Corp. lost US$7.7 billion, about 765.8 billion yen, in the January-March quarter - a bigger loss than General Motors reported - resulting in its worst fiscal year since the Japanese automaker was founded in 1937.

Toyota also warned Friday that because of the global auto slump its net loss would deepen in the year through March 2010 to about $5.55 billion from $4.4 billion in the just-ended fiscal year."
http://ca.autos.yahoo.com/s/08052009/2/biz...arter.html?p=10

May sales yesterday were dismal.

May Auto Sales: Toyota Off 38%, GM Down 30%, Ford Off 21%
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/economy-w...ml?hpid=topnews

Ford looks to be in the best position of anyone. Their sales were off the least. They have several new models due out within the next 18 months.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/openroad/index

I don't give Chrysler 2 years.

1. They haven't developed any new models to compete with the competition.
2. They will be owned by a European auto company (Fiat) that hasn't done business in the US for 25 years.
3. The first vehicles which will be produced under Fiat will be based on a Fiat 500 which is smaller than a Mini-Copper.
Can't you just picture suburbia America rushing down to trade in their SUV's, Crossovers and MiniVans for a golf cart sized vehicle?
Won't happen.

GM, will last longer and could survive depending on how long the recession last. Their problem is being under the control of Obama
and the UAW. There are many people totally p*ssed off about this whole deal and swear they will not purchase a GM vehicle.
Time will tell if consumers follow through on their threat. My prediction, GM will eventually be gone. Let's hope not!

A lot of folks around here still like to buy GM products. Like you, I hope they succeed, but I don't have much confidence given the record of government owned auto companies in Britain.

I SWEAR TO GOD that I was thinking about you last night. Down to thinking of what GT stood for.

You may well be right, Ford being the one to make it on their own they may be up against favoritism though. So even if they survive it will be tougher and the socialized companies will cost us all more whether they survive or now.

I wonder if my kids can hoist an engine in....

Government regs are only going to get worse now that they have companies of their own to protect.

Russia, Yugoslavia....

Shoot, look closer to home and another transportation-based industry - AMTRAK.

Great profitability record there, eh?

And Chrysler may not make it past 15 Jun - a lawsuit by Indiana-based funds may kill the whole deal and force liquidation, since Fiat has the option of going away from the deal (government-ordered) on that date. Without a buyer, CHRYCO is done, since the government ordered them to find one - unlike GM.

Must be our minds were 'connected', since I was wondering what you guys were saying about this auto industry fiasco.
FYI, my family has purged itself of any foreign brands. We are now an all Ford family. My wife's 2002 Toyota Rav4 decided
to call it a life at 98,000 miles due to the transmission not wanting to work properly anymore. (almost completely gave up the ship as we headed to the dealership to exchange it for a new vehicle.)

That vehicle got replaced with a 2008 Mercury Milan Premier 4Cyl. What an amazing vehicle. 14 months of ownership, almost 20,000 miles and not one single issue. Looking at this vehicle from the perspective of lifelong auto enthusiast and a mechanical designer who knows something about automobiles. They don't build them much better than this one.

That being said, for Ford to succeed they must keep their quality levels up. If they screw up just one model, then the consumer will head on back to Asian brands. Gm & Chrysler have a different problem. IMHO, their vehicle's... quality wise are just as good as the rest of them. The question becomes, will the consumer rush out and buy a product that is controlled by the Gubmint? I know in my case, I wouldn't. (That can be due to the fact, I can't stand Obama) But that's me.

The fatal mistake is going to be with what kind of vehicles GM & Chrysler will be producing? Obama wants everyone to drive little 'golf cart sized vehicles'....and in a couple of years, the market will be flooded with more little cars than there are consumers wanting to downsize to little 'puddle jumpers'. Thus someone....is going to go without... at the dinner table. Of course Obama, could always pull a fast one and put both GM & Chrysler at an advantage (or the other automakers at a disadvantage) to save his sorry ass from his failed Socialist experiment. Then again, he does own a Ford Escape Hybrid doesn't he?

For any automaker to succeed in today's market, they have to produce what the consumer wants (not what the government wants) an do it with the highest quality possible.

Hi Russ, Nice to see some of the ole timers are still here!

I hadn't even thought of the AMTRAK fiasco, until someone brought it to my attention yesterday.

I hadn't really followed the Indiana-based funds lawsuit that closely. I can't see someone would be stupid enough to jeopordize
the whole Chrysler/Fiat deal. But then again....there are those out there who would take everyone else down with them to make a point. If Chrysler does go into liquidation, I can picture another unknown Chinese company coming in and scooping up the Jeep brand at rock bottom prices.

Good to have you back GT.

You being gone that long is truly..........

P

A

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Did ya'll catch any of the Senate show today on auto dealerships... Save all the dealers...

And all the whales..

What a joke.

I actually liked some of the cars Chrysler designed in the last few years. The Magnum?, Charger?, 300?

Of course, I didn't like them enough to buy any of them. They used to make total shitboxes and still have those memories of the shitbox Dodge Monacos, Chrysler Cordobas, Dodge Darts.

Chrysler shitboxes rivaled those of AMC, such as the Gremlin, the Pacer and whatnot.

Total and complete shitboxes.

I'm drivin' my dad's oldsmobile...

Do you have one of the kewl old boats?


I wish I had a Delta '88 convertible.

Big mofo with plenty of chrome.

I am glad someone missed me. On another thread, I got the impression Davis hadn't missed me at all. (not that I care)

The only Chrysler I really liked is the 300. Nice enough where I would buy one. On one of our recent trips to Arizona, we rented a 300 Touring sedan. I enjoyed the vehicle
for the 16 days I had it. Here's the kicker, the darn thing averaged 30 MPG over 1,600 miles. In comparison, some guy on a radio show earlier in the week learned of a guy who drove one of those little 'Smart' cars from Buffalo to NYC and averaged a whopping 32 MPG.

I like my Ford Escort. Nothing fancy but it hasn't given much of any trouble in 25k miles. I'm glad they didn't take the government money and can do things their own way without Obama deciding their business plan for them.

Hi, backatcha!! Yep, still here, just not as active as I used to be. Various reasons.

Nice to see you back as it were.

I don't think any of the Big Three are gonna last - especially if Big Gov keeps doing their we-know-better-than-you-how-to-run-your-business act. Ford will go last but unless there's a huge backlash from the public in a way they will listen to, this single party government will find a way to clamp down on them too. I do not see this as having any good result. And I suspect autos and healthcare are not the only targets.

{{{{{{{{{Shaking Head}}}}}}}}}}}

I swear the nutjobs have taken over the whole country. Looks like it might be the whole auto industry going down the sh*tter
not just the big 3 if this kind of nonsense keeps up.

"TOKYO (MarketWatch) -- Toyota Motor Corp., maker of the popular hybrid Prius, would likely have to spend more than $1 billion to comply with California's requirement for zero-emission cars, according to a published report Thursday."
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/californi...rt?siteid=yhoof

Someone can correct me if I am wrong. In order for a consumer to wanna purchase a vehicle. It must be a model which fits their needs, one they wanna own, and one they are willing to pay the price to own. Sounds to me....Toyota is getting punished for selling too many cars.....just not the right type to make the clueless Utopian regulators happy. Geez....are we seeing the dumbing down of the human race?

The government is purposely lying about the cost of regulations at all levels. Just wait until the cost of cap and trade becomes known.

All automakers refusing to sell any cars in Cali would be fun...

I already have a pretty good idea of what 'cap and trade' will cost us. It's beyond my understanding what our elected officials in Washington are thinking?????? Perhaps some of them really want the USA to become a 'Third World Country' or perhaps some of Inyer's alien creature buddies have already taken over many of our politiician's brains!

Anyways....here is a link to the Waxman-Markey Bill.....and I thought Al Qaeda was dangerous.
This is really scary stuff.....and the really scary thing is.....THIS COULD PASS AND BECOME....LAW!

http://greenhellblog.wordpress.com/2009/04...ill-introduced/

Guys, I know lots of you laugh at me from time to time when I continue to bring up the growing/maturing plants from the many seed planted in our nation by the International Comintern back in early last centruy, but if you have kept up with the "progressive movement", the socialists democrats, they have gained control of the most important communication areas/institutions/agencies of our system beginning with most of the Great Universities and then in the 1960s, with an extended push, have now already moved down to the early grades of the public schools, the MSSM (main stream state media), many of the once prominent Churches under the umbrella of the National Council of Churches (an off shoot of the World Council of Churches and do remember their support of the commies in Nicaragua), Hollywood and of course too many in "The Government" especially Congress and the very active Unions of the non-elected administrative bureaucracy.

Even though the Kommunisticheskiĭ Internatsional supposedly was disbanded in the US in 1943, we know it simply went "subterrestrial" and found "safe" foster homes in other agencies and organizations as I listed above. As recently as the 1990s we had a similar movement when the USSR fell and caused so much grief for the hardened commies of the USA. Many who were not already placed in other agencies decided to move to a convenient and "safe" foster home of the Radical Envirionmentalist Organizations where they certainly have the opportunity to carry on their attacks upon the free enterprise system of the US and I suspect you can see their work has been been having the intended and expected effect.

How many of you saw, and remember, the Movie, Warren Beatty's "The Reds" (1982), the story of John Reed, American Communist, journalist and activist? (I saw his grave beside the Kremlin Wall Necropolis in Red Square when I was in Moscow in 1961.) It won every major directorial award and best picture prizes through out the world. It was/is a good lesson of the times and how so many of the elite saw 'commieism' as the "chichi" thing of the day.

I bet you had no problem with Bush/Rove's permanent majority plan.

God damned hypocrite.

Liberalism is a mental disorder and destroys everything it touches! Remember that when you manage your $$$$.

its touched you hard

Just a little review
for your examination
this AM!


http://www.answers.com/topic/communist-par...ates-of-america

Communist Party, United States of America, was formed in 1919 when the left wing of the Socialist Party became convinced that the Bolsheviks in Russia had discovered a swift road to socialism. One left faction attended the Socialist Party's convention in Chicago in hopes of seizing control. When that failed, they walked out and on 31 August founded the Communist Labor Party (CLP), led by John Reed and Benjamin Gitlow. The CLP thundered that it had "only one demand: the establishment of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat," and sent Reed to Russia to win support from the Communist International (Comintern). Another faction met on 1 September, also in Chicago, and founded the Communist Party of America (CPA), announcing that "Communism does not propose to 'capture' the bourgeoisie parliamentary state, but to conquer and destroy it." Led by Charles Ruthenberg, the CPA sent Louis Fraina to Russia to seek Comintern endorsement. The CPA's membership was about 24,000, organized largely in immigrant federations whose members spoke little English. The CLP's membership was about 10,000 and also largely immigrant. Meanwhile, U.S. attorney general A. Mitchell Palmer launched a series of raids to round up alien radicals. His chief targets were syndicalist and anarchist groups, but the Palmer raids netted many communists and about a thousand were deported, with more leaving voluntarily. State governments also prosecuted citizens who were communists, and New York jailed the CLP's Gitlow and the CPA's Ruthenberg. Both parties went underground, losing more than half of their members in the process.

Unity, Stalinization, and a Revolutionary Program

The Comintern ordered a merger, but the two parties were unable to agree on terms. In May 1920, a minority CPA faction merged with the CLP to form the United Communist Party. Comintern representatives forced the remaining part of the CPA into a merger in May 1921 that created a single Communist Party of America. The Comintern also provided this new, united CPA with secret subsidies that allowed it to establish a daily newspaper, numerous foreign-language newspapers, and a large staff of organizers. Sections of the syndicalist Industrial Workers of the World shifted to the Communist Party, and the movement gained a labor arm when William Foster brought his Trade Union Educational League into the movement. After government attacks ceased, the Comintern ordered formation of an aboveground arm, which was done in December 1921 with the creation of the Workers Party of America. The CPA remained underground until dissolved in 1923. In 1925, the Workers Party became the Workers (Communist) Party of America, which in 1929 was renamed the Communist Party, United States of America (CPUSA).

Throughout the 1920s the party remained small, inconsequential, and beset by internal factionalism, with Comintern representatives stepping in to pick leaders, guide policy, and impose unity. In early 1929, the CPUSA expelled James Cannon and his supporters when Cannon became an adherent of Leon Trotsky, the Bolshevik leader who had lost out to Joseph Stalin. Later that year, the Comintern expelled Jay Lovestone and Benjamin Gitlow—then the party's chief figures—along with scores of veteran CPUSA militants for being followers of Nikolai Bukharin, another rival to Stalin.

By the early 1930s, the CPUSA had become thoroughly Stalinized, internal factionalism had ended, and Earl Browder had become the party's leader. In response to the Great Depression, the CPUSA offered the abolition of capitalism and Soviet rule. William Foster, its presidential candidate in 1932, promised in Toward Soviet America (1932) that when communists came to power "all the capitalist parties—Republican, Democratic, Progressive, Socialist, etc.—will be liquidated.…The press, the motion picture, the radio, the theatre, will be taken over by the government" (pp. 275, 317). Foster received 102,991 votes, less than 1 percent of the vote. After the election, communists denounced Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal as "social fascist." The party's agitation for unemployment relief and its leading role in several dramatic strikes brought attention to it, but by 1934 membership was still only 26,000.

The Popular Front

In 1935 the Comintern proclaimed a Popular Front policy that downplayed revolution and emphasized alliances with reformers and other leftists against the common menace of fascism. Embracing this stance with the slogan "Communism is twentieth-century Americanism," the CPUSA shifted to support of Roosevelt and sought a cooperative role on the left of the broad New Deal coalition. Communists achieved a limited but nonetheless significant presence in main stream politics through their participation in New York's American Labor Party, the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party, the End Poverty in California movement, the Wisconsin Farmer-Labor Progressive Federation, and the Washington [state] Commonwealth Federation. Two members of Congress, Representatives John Bernard (1937–1938) of Minnesota's Farmer-Labor Party and Hugh De Lacy (1945–1946), a Washington State Democrat, became secret members. Two open communists won election to the New York City Council.

Communists also took leading although usually secret roles in numerous liberal-left advocacy groups such as the American League for Peace and Democracy, National Negro Congress, American Writers Union, and American Youth Congress. Communists had no role in founding the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), but in 1936, after secret negotiations, CIO leaders hired more than fifty communist organizers and brought into the CIO several small communist-led unions. Working from this base, by the end of World War II, communists led eighteen CIO affiliates that represented 1,370,000 workers, a quarter of the CIO's total. CPUSA member-ship also grew, reaching 66,000 members in 1939. At the party's origins, most members had been impoverished working-class immigrants, predominately of Russian origin. In the mid-1920s, Finnish immigrants were briefly the largest group in the party. By the mid-1930s, the majority of communists were native-born, while college-educated professionals were a growing proportion of the party's membership and Jews were the largest single ethnic group. Communists championed black rights and devoted significant resources to organizing African Americans, but black membership remained small. Throughout all of its history a large share of the party's members lived in the New York City area.

The Nazi-Soviet Pact, World War II, and a Postwar Reversal

The CPUSA supported the Nazi-Soviet Pact of August 1939 without reservations, and shifted from avid support for Roosevelt's foreign policies to savage rejection.

It's not a cost, it's a feature.

Like the clap is a feature on a whore.

Don't forget tomorrow is D Day

US Military History Companion:
D‐Day Landing
6 June 1944


(1944)
Operation Overlord was the greatest amphibious attack in history. Nearly 175,000 American, Canadian, and British troops landed in Normandy on D‐Day, 6 June 1944, supported by 6,000 aircraft and 6,000 naval vessels ranging in size from battleships to 32‐foot landing craft. The object of the attack was to win a beachhead in France in order to open a second front against Hitler's armies and to use the beachhead as a springboard for the liberation of France and Belgium, and the eventual conquest of Nazi Germany.

I think I may have originally posted this in the wrong thread.

Grand Theft Auto: How Stevie the Rat bankrupted GM
by Greg Palast

Screw the autoworkers.

They may be crying about General Motors' bankruptcy today. But dumping 40,000 of the last 60,000 union jobs into a mass grave won't spoil Jamie Dimon's day. Dimon is the CEO of JP Morgan Chase bank. While GM workers are losing their retirement health benefits, their jobs, their life savings; while shareholders are getting zilch and many creditors getting hosed, a few privileged GM lenders – led by Morgan and Citibank – expect to get back 100% of their loans to GM, a stunning $6 billion.

The way these banks are getting their $6 billion bonanza is stone cold illegal.

I smell a rat.

Stevie the Rat, to be precise. Steven Rattner, Barack Obama's 'Car Czar' - the man who essentially ordered GM into bankruptcy this morning.

When a company goes bankrupt, everyone takes a hit: fair or not, workers lose some contract wages, stockholders get wiped out and creditors get fragments of what's left. That's the law. What workers don't lose are their pensions (including old-age health funds) already taken from their wages and held in their name.

But not this time. Stevie the Rat has a different plan for GM: grab the pension funds to pay off Morgan and Citi.

Here's the scheme: Rattner is demanding the bankruptcy court simply wipe away the money GM owes workers for their retirement health insurance. Cash in the insurance fund would be replaced by GM stock. The percentage may be 17% of GM's stock - or 25%. Whatever, 17% or 25% is worth, well ... just try paying for your dialysis with 50 shares of bankrupt auto stock.

Yet Citibank and Morgan, says Rattner, should get their whole enchilada - $6 billion right now and in cash - from a company that can't pay for auto parts or worker eye exams.

Preventive Detention for Pensions

So what's wrong with seizing workers' pension fund money in a bankruptcy? The answer, Mr. Obama, Mr. Law Professor, is that it's illegal.

In 1974, after a series of scandalous take-downs of pension and retirement funds during the Nixon era, Congress passed the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. ERISA says you can't seize workers' pension funds (whether monthly payments or health insurance) any more than you can seize their private bank accounts. And that's because they are the same thing: workers give up wages in return for retirement benefits.

The law is darn explicit that grabbing pension money is a no-no. Company executives must hold these retirement funds as "fiduciaries." Here's the law, Professor Obama, as described on the government's own web site under the heading, "Health Plans and Benefits."

"The primary responsibility of fiduciaries is to run the plan solely in the interest of participants and beneficiaries and for the exclusive purpose of providing benefits."

Every business in America that runs short of cash would love to dip into retirement kitties, but it's not their money any more than a banker can seize your account when the bank's a little short. A plan's assets are for the plan's members only, not for Mr. Dimon nor Mr. Rubin.

Yet, in effect, the Obama Administration is demanding that money for an elderly auto worker's spleen should be siphoned off to feed the TARP babies. Workers go without lung transplants so Dimon and Rubin can pimp out their ride. This is another "Guantanamo" moment for the Obama Administration - channeling Nixon to endorse the preventive detention of retiree health insurance.

Filching GM's pension assets doesn't become legal because the cash due the fund is replaced with GM stock. Congress saw through that switch-a-roo by requiring that companies, as fiduciaries, must

"...act prudently and must diversify the plan's investments in order to minimize the risk of large losses."

By "diversify" for safety, the law does not mean put 100% of worker funds into a single busted company's stock.

This is dangerous business: The Rattner plan opens the floodgate to every politically-connected or down-on-their-luck company seeking to drain health care retirement funds.

House of Rubin

Pensions are wiped away and two connected banks don't even get a haircut? How come Citi and Morgan aren't asked, like workers and other creditors, to take stock in GM?

As Butch said to Sundance, who ARE these guys? You remember Morgan and Citi. These are the corporate Welfare Queens who've already sucked up over a third of a trillion dollars in aid from the US Treasury and Federal Reserve. Not coincidentally, Citi, the big winner, has paid over $100 million to Robert Rubin, the former US Treasury Secretary. Rubin was Obama's point-man in winning banks' endorsement and campaign donations (by far, his largest source of his corporate funding).

With GM's last dying dimes about to fall into one pocket, and the Obama Treasury in his other pocket, Morgan's Jamie Dimon is correct in saying that the last twelve months will prove to be the bank's "finest year ever."

Which leaves us to ask the question: is the forced bankruptcy of GM, the elimination of tens of thousands of jobs, just a collection action for favored financiers?

And it's been a good year for Señor Rattner. While the Obama Administration made a big deal out of Rattner's youth spent working for the Steelworkers Union, they tried to sweep under the chassis that Rattner was one of the privileged, select group of investors in Cerberus Capital, the owners of Chrysler. "Owning" is a loose term. Cerberus "owned" Chrysler the way a cannibal "hosts" you for dinner. Cerberus paid nothing for Chrysler - indeed, they were paid billions by Germany's Daimler Corporation to haul it away. Cerberus kept the cash, then dumped Chrysler's bankrupt corpse on the US taxpayer.

("Cerberus," by the way, named itself after the Roman's mythical three-headed dog guarding the gates Hell. Subtle these guys are not.)

While Stevie the Rat sold his interest in the Dog from Hell when he became Car Czar, he never relinquished his post at the shop of vultures called Quadrangle Hedge Fund. Rattner's personal net worth stands at roughly half a billion dollars. This is Obama's working class hero.

If you ran a business and played fast and loose with your workers' funds, you could land in prison. Stevie the Rat's plan is nothing less than Grand Theft Auto Pension.

It doesn't make it any less of a crime if the President drives the getaway car.


http://www.gregpalast.com/grand-theft-auto...ted-gm/?print=1

I'm not buying the whole enchilada. The workers health care benefits were never funded - they always depended on the companies future earnings and cash flow from those earnings. Therefore, there was no cash to divert to paying another creditor. The unions end up with stock - a claim on furure earnings much like what they had to begin with.

I would be interested to know the details of the Cerberus purchase and disposition of Chrysler - if they got significantly more cash from Daimler than they will pay Fiat that does seem to be a conflict of interest.

They're expropriating the pension plans (the investments) and handing them over to Citi and JP Morgan.

Cerebus Capital controls 80% of Chrysler and Chrysler Financial. Also, they have a 51% stake in GMAC.

Space, this is really unbelievable.

I think that the pension plans and healthcare plans are seperate entities, and it is the health care plans that are at issue. I would like to know more, preferably from someone who is more reliable and informed than Greg Palast.

My impression is that the unions have received favored treatment in this whole deal.

Is there any surprise there? It's Obama's constituency. It's true they've had to sacrifice some, but not like the stock holders who were wiped out or the bond holders that get very little.

To be expected - in the imortal words of "Dick Cheney - it's our due".

As for the bondholders -

I think that all the players have benefited from the US intervention - whining because your piece of the bailout wasn't as large an "excess rent" as you wanted doesn't go very far with me.

I just hope that they have been "tough enough" with all parties to end up with a viable business.

We got the change, is there any hope left?

Yeah. Screw the little people and reward the stockholders. That makes sense.

The whole thing sets a bad stage for future disasters. As you know, I'm no fan of the UAW, but this sets a precedent for other companies to destroy union contracts via bankruptcy. The stage is being set for the complete deindustrialization of the United States.

Also, to say the UAW received some preferential treatment, is a little disingenuous by the media. Ron Gettlefinger and his cronies will end up benefiting from the deal, but the average UAW worker is finished in this country. The whole Great Lakes area is going to descend into abject poverty.

And I will remember Republicans and their anti-union, anti-worker pro-corporate bias. They have made me a political enemy for life.

I also find it funny GM had to grovel for a bailout, yet Obama had no problems giving 14 trillion dollars to investment banks, hedge funds, foreign central banks, etc. Now wonder why the Chinese laughed at Geitner. I'm sorry, this whole right-wing critique of Obama has no basis in reality. The guy is a TOOL of finance capital.

They got NOTHING.

And a lot of them are little people.