GM Declares Bankruptcy

[Ben Kenobi]

Man all over the news last night.

Canada pitching in money to save jobs up here from being transplanted to the US. Yes, this is exactly why I pay taxes...

It's an asteroid in the process of making a crater. If that's appealing to you, then by all means invest.

All I know is that I won't be buying GM ever again.

Ford.

[DinoDoc]

All I know is that I won't be buying GM ever again.

I wanna know where my company car is now that I own GM.

[Ben Kenobi]

That's only for union members.

Remind me why I pay to bail out jobs that make more then I do.

Shouldn't they be bailing me out?

[Dinner]

Not sure how Zkrib can even pretend Unions have no blame here. Delusional or evil, not sure which he is.

I don't believe he's saying the unions have no blame, I believe he is disputing Kuci's claim that the union and only the union is to blame.

[DanS]

Kuci didn't claim that.

[Dinner]

I don't want to bail out the unions that caused the problem in the first place

He would seem to be saying that the union alone caused the problem.

[DanS]

I don't agree.

[Kuciwalker]

DanS is correct.

[Darius871]

Kuci, you magnificent flying jackass, this bankruptcy was NOT caused by the unions.

Oh come on, being a lawyer you of all people should know the difference between but-for causation and proximate causation. Nobody on any side of any aisle can sanely deny that at least hypothetically speaking, more gigantoramic concessions on the union's part would have prevented this bankruptcy, and therefore the unions' intransigence was a but-for "cause" of it. Whether or not concessions of that size would have been "just" (or whatever you want to call it) is another matter entirely.

[Drake Tungsten]

The 31-Year-Old in Charge of Dismantling G.M.

WASHINGTON — It is not every 31-year-old who, in a first government job, finds himself dismantling General Motors and rewriting the rules of American capitalism.

But that, in short, is the job description for Brian Deese, a not-quite graduate of Yale Law School who had never set foot in an automotive assembly plant until he took on his nearly unseen role in remaking the American automotive industry.

Nor, for that matter, had he given much thought to what ailed an industry that had been in decline ever since he was born. A bit laconic and looking every bit the just-out-of-graduate-school student adjusting to life in the West Wing — “he’s got this beard that appears and disappears,” says Steven Rattner, one of the leaders of President Obama’s automotive task force — Mr. Deese was thrown into the auto industry’s maelstrom as soon the election-night parties ended.

“There was a time between Nov. 4 and mid-February when I was the only full-time member of the auto task force,” Mr. Deese, a special assistant to the president for economic policy, acknowledged recently as he hurried between his desk at the White House and the Treasury building next door. “It was a little scary.”

But now, according to those who joined him in the middle of his crash course about the automakers’ downward spiral, he has emerged as one of the most influential voices in what may become President Obama’s biggest experiment yet in federal economic intervention.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/01/business/01deese.html

Jesus Christ...

[DarkCloud]

Let's see. The gov't buys tons of stock at rock bottom prices, turns the company around, makes it profitable, and then sells its stock for a big gain. GM trives. The government coffers are full.

How can anyone milk out 40 billion ++ dollars from GM even in 10 years time? These car companies never made more than 2 billion a year net (I believe) even in good years.

And GM is contracting... ???

Canada and the US taxpayers are getting taken for a ride.

[DinoDoc]

The more I hear of this story the less I like. Is that really the guy my money paid to watch over my new property?

[Wezil]

How can anyone milk out 40 billion ++ dollars from

Canada and the US taxpayers are getting taken for a ride.

It's political expediency in this country.

Our conservative PM is desperate to shore up crumbling support. The auto industry is centered in Ontario which happens to be a province that is vote rich and conservative wary.

[Asher]

Ontario will be the downfall of our country.

[Wezil]

Why not blame the Albertan? He's the one continually sacrificing his principles like a political whore.