You don’t need GMC to be the truck brand. Chevy can manage cars and trucks, just like Toyota and Nissan (and to a lesser extent, Honda) do.

RF has said it 17,437 times, and I’ll say it again: Chevy and Caddy.

Git ‘er done…or die tryin.

GMC – trucks(3-4), SUVs(mid-size and large)
Chevy – sedans(subcompact, compact, full-size), 1 minivan, 1 CUV
Cadillac – luxury sedans(3) and 1 luxury SUV(Escalade)

No more overlap, distinct brand identity. This would work!

What a waste of money. They haven’t even shown a business plan on how they plan to use the money and turn things around! What new, exciting, market changing products do they have on the horizon?

It’s a public company and the government gives them money to keep the doors open and the lights on? If Microsoft was going broke; I can’t imagine the gov bailing them out.

I just saw on yesterday’s 60 Minutes that our brain-dead Congress, in “helping” the financial industry, wrote a passage in a law that completely barred the states from enforcing their laws in this area. WTF???

Anyway, since we have that precedent, when they are baling out GM the Congress should write a passage in the law barring all of the state franchise laws that make it so hard to kill all the excess dealers.

So, Board members would be appointed by the President and confirmed by Congress. That’ll keep politics out of running the company! The UAW will block any “cruel” efforts to trim payroll. White collar workers will seek Civil Service-like protections. Suppliers will demand regulations to ban “unfair” competition. Dealers will lobby Washington to maintain a “level playing field.” Mayors will plead for factories to remain open. And the White House and Congress will of course be sympathetic to anyone who votes. Courts may intervene, reasoning that full employment and community welfare must be given at least equal weight to profit-making.

If the GM BOD had been truly accountable to the shareholders over the years, the company would not now be in such a predicament. What a bunch of duds.

BOD: Sure, fire all of them, but their replacements will be Wash DC insiders.
CEO: Ex-DC campaign chief now working for a lobbying firm.
Fin Creds: Politically connected and government guaranteed. Still have houses in Martha’s Cove for political fundraising needs.
Shareholders: Nationalizing 401Ks anyway, so who cares?
Organized labor: Jobs for life.
Dealers: Tort attorneys get rich. Keep funding the DNC.
Product? What product?

Sorry to go all negative, but corruption and incompetence are just as likely in government as in the private sector. Sure, maybe the government will choose some combination of Takeo Fukui, Thomas Edison and Dale Carnegie to run the whole thing, but we are more likely to get a combination of The Three Stooges, Marx Brothers and Dumb and Dumber. Why do I keep seeing that scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail: “Bring out your dead!”? (“I’m not dead yet……”)

“Inside the merger negotiations, the growing feeling is that a combined GM-Chrysler effort, while daunting in its complexity, may be the best way to bring federal money into the mix.”

Brings more support for what Holman was saying last week.

I highly doubt our current administration has the stones to demand anything of GM.

Look at the recent bank problem. Washington gave billions to banks and asked that they loan that money to those who qualified.

Instead banks are using that money to buy other banks – loans be damned.

Now GM is asking for billions to buy another car company. I suspect the only thing our politicians will ask for in return is campaign contributions.

-ted

If we do a smoot-hawleyII and imports are essentially banned, just what do you suppose everyone is going to be wearing within 2-3 years, after their current clothing wears out?

I’ll need the options on some cotton too.

On second thought, why bother when – if by chance – “plan C” (for “clothing”) actually were to succeed. If the Obamanation gets in and I were to be wealthy, they’d simply take it all and redistribute it anyhow.

So guess we’ll be joining the emperor within a few years and will just have to ignore the fact that we’re all running around nekked.

Wow it’s going to be cold up here in Michigan.

Unfortunately, voters who pay taxes are becoming outnumbered by voters who consume (or aspire to consume) taxes.

It’s looking bleak – lots of bipartisan government intervention. Worse, the next congress may go HooverII via a Smoot-HawleyII.

Slightly off topic, an excellent article in the Sunday Times Business section by Floyd Nocera. Pretty much zero of the 700 B is going to free up the system and get the banks to make loans. They are sitting on it. (He got to hear a recording of the REAL deal conference call).

In the end, everything but YOUR debts will be nationalized/socialized/bailed out.

“So, doesn’t this make it dead cert that it’s going to happen, then?

I mean, looking at what the bailout boys in Washington have done over the past 3 weeks, and all?”

On a purely rational level, of course that is how it appears. However, those bailouts involved complex derivatives that no one really understands and mortgages and home equity loans that people do understand were irresponsibly given and taken. I think people realize on some level that Main St. really did have a hand in this problem and are thus amenable to the $700B for some complex related banking stuff that they don’t understand.

However, I don’t see anyone feeling responsible for GM’s plight. Or for Chrysler/Cerberus’ plight. Even if giving them money is the exact same thing with the same outcome as the banking bailout, it will be much harder to sell it that way. It will be much easier to see it for what it is, a handout to a Hedge fund at the expense of Chrysler and likely GM as well. This would get prime press coverage. Axed workers would be out protesting, Granholm would be lamenting, and Pelosi would be grandstanding. It would be a bailout too far.

let me tell you a quick story that will summarize the domestic car makers problems in a nut shell.

just moved back to the east coast from a 16 year stint in the Midwest.

I am jogging along a street @ 5 AM which is lined with upper-middle class priced homes that lack garages, so all the cars are on the street.

therefore on the street there is a row of 30+ cars & trucks. as i am plodding along i suddenly realized that except for 1 work truck and 3 CUV/MiniUVs not a single one is a domestic car!

if you can not make a product that this demographic wants to buy then, as sorry as it for me to say: game-over, lights out.

undershaft.

The “perception gap” exists for a reason: decades of shoddy, inferior products. GM is just now creating a few models (Corvette, Malibu, CTS and trucks)that can genuinely compete with Japanese and European models, but the bulk of their products are still third-rate. It will take GM at least as long to rebuild their reputation as it did to destroy it.

So that makes a pretty significant part of the financial market the government will control, a large portion of people’s mortgages will be in fed ownership, and soon the big three will be under fed ownership. Does this not scare the bejesus out of more people than just me? Perhaps Rabid Rick has managed to keep his job because this was the plan all along.

Ok, tinfoil hat off now. This is still a disaster waiting to happen irregardless.

Marketing doesn’t sell; it only alerts one to a product/service’s existence.

Naturally, after becoming aware of it, one Google’s for info. Professional reviews might be paid for, but consumer reviews (mostly) provide more value. Anecdotal experience is more important to me than a print ad or TV spot.

I beg to differ. The problems at GM boil down to PRODUCT. Perception will only change with great product, and years of it. Marketing to folks who won’t consider your vehicles is wasted money.

They’ve spent untold millions marketing their 4 versions of the good (not great) Lambda-based CUV’s, rather than using those monies to build ONE great CUV.

They’ve spend more millions marketing the Volt VaporCar, instead of developing the batteries needed to actually sell it.

More millions on NASCAR; does anyone think it really sells Impala SS’s?

More millions marketing the Pontiac G8, which should have been the new Impala. Supporting another dead brand…

GM got in this mess through decades of poor leadership and even worse cars.

They’ve driven off three generations of car buyers.

They’ve destroyed the single most successful industrial corporation IN HISTORY, and now the taxpayers are supposed to bail them out?

So they can buy freakin’ CHRYSLER??? The one car company that’s even more screwed up than GM?

With the exception of the Jeep Wrangler, EVERY new Chryslerberus car and truck has landed in the marketplace with a thud.

The new Dodge Ram? Yeah, GM needs even more trucks…

Viper? GM doesn’t need it.

Aspen/Nitro/Compass? etc.? Don’t need ‘em.

Sebring/Avenger? GM already has the Impala for rental fleets. Does anyone else buy them?

300/Charger? See G8 above.

Challenger? Good for a few thousand old dudes, but they’d have to kill it to support the Camaro.

Caravan/T&C: GM could use a minivan, but it would take many millions to fix the terrible interiors and quality issues. Millions they don’t have.

This is all about GM desperately trying to become “too big to fail”. Unfortunately, we have government officials who will once again show their generosity with other people’s money and give in to them.

So, doesn’t this make it dead cert that it’s going to happen, then?

I mean, looking at what the bailout boys in Washington have done over the past 3 weeks, and all?

Love it, sort of like Superman’s fortress of solitude. Perhaps the name “Fortress from Despondency” is more appropriate. A magical place that shields GM execs from reality and creditors.