Oh, thank you!

–Can’t we just have Jason Bourne assasinate Henderson, the unnamed staffer & the other offending parties in room 645 of the Hotel Brecker?

What matters here, I think, is that a junior staffer was sent rather than someone higher up in the organization who had some ability to make decisions. Consider the 0bama administration’s general treatment of allies of the U. S., and you’ll see what I’m getting at.

2. “Disorder in the Court” remains one of the finer Stooge films. In an odd way, Curly shows he’s smarter than everyone else. Much smarter. And in this case, Marchionne might be playing Curly.

At the end of this month the bottom is falling out of GM. Opel will be another casualty of that.

Now, I know revisions have been made to the spelling of German, so maybe my command of the language is lagging behind the times…

It looks like GM throwing in a last minute 630 million dollar poison pill worked. FIAT is checking out.

I wonder if Marchionne would have stuck with the Chrysler deal if the US government had insisted on a half billion dollar earnest payment. The Jeep brand alone would have been worth that much.

Let them die, GM, Chrysler, Opel… if their technology is worth anything, VW, Toyota will buy it. If their employees are any good, VW/Toyota will hire them for their increased production. In case the employees are worthless (whiny UAW???) they don’t deserve a well paying job anyway.. i assume the R&D employees and patents will find a buyer if they are promising. So there is no loss to society.

I would just tell GM/Opel: “you need my billions by tomorrow and I’m the only one who would give you any money, so you are in no position to demand anything. comply or die.”. that’s how it should work.

As for the poverty rate: If you want to be poor, then I recommend doing it in Germany. It’s not worth making less than $3K a month while working. Welfare is the better and less stressful option.

200 kph in a Benz? Puhleeze, move over.

Morea: The staffer’s identity is a well-kept secret. Probably better that way.

OldAndSlow: As for the obtuse accounting procedures, there are persistent rumors that they may not hold up to intense scrutiny by the German tax authorities. The “patents” caper is a classic tax avoidance scheme. For everybody’s edification, in Germany, bankruptcy always involves some sort of criminal investigation, simply because more often than not there are obtuse accounting procedures before a filing. As everybody from Chicago should recall, Al Capone was convicted on income tax evasion. I wouldn’t insult a whole government if I had a collection of skeletons in my basement.

Second, a major component of GM’s and much of corporate America’s business model is broken – which is their accounting. Due to tax laws, cooking the books for Wall Street and keeping their real costs of doing business a mystery to labor, their accounting procedures are at best obtuse. I’d bet donuts to 10 dollar bills that not even Fritz Henderson has real numbers at his disposal.

I’m sure that German politicians are well aware that a guarantee of public financing to keep Adam Opel in business won’t be the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning for that matter. Plus, there are a great number of other German businesses in the same boat, i.e. they are in need of bridge loans to get them through the Great Recession. American companies weren’t alone in depending on cheap credit. Just ask Porsche.

The question that remains is will the Christian Democrats play a Margaret Thatcher card or an Obama role during the great unwinding?

How come we never get the name of this person or a description of their position? Are they career or political? What are their qualifications to be engaged in these negotiations?

Personally, I hope it all goes belly up. I hope no buyer is found in Europe and GM file for bankruptcy in the United States. Why?

Because I’m bored. Since the banking crisis has subsided and the UK’s economy is gaining strength (yes, you read that right), I’m getting bored. A massacre in the auto industry is just what I need. Naturally, I’ll feel for rank and filers who lose their job, no-one wants that, but GM’s management must be held accountable, no-one can disagree with that, surely?

Back to Europe. If shuttering Opel/Vauxhall is the cheaper option (and I’m still not sold on the idea), then, why don’t our German brothers and sisters do that? What’s it going to cost them? 100,000 votes at the most? In an electorate of 40 million (roughly and that’s a conservative estimate), that’s got to be minor.

In the long term, it’ll be better for the economy. It’ll free up market share for Germany’s stronger makers (mainly VW) and the rest of Europe to pick up.

Too many resources have been thrown at this issue. I wish it was a simple procedure for someone to buy Vauxhall/Opel, save all those jobs and carry on. But it isn’t. And if it costs more money to keep Opel alive, than to close it, then you have to ask yourself:

What’s the point of this exercise?