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You gotta love Chrysler. But not me. How in the world can they claim a right to MY tax money when they can’t even acknowledge their sales debacle on their own website? In fact, ChryCo’s sales dropped from last November’s 161,088 units to this year’s 85,260 units. Instead of admitting they’re up excrement creek without a paddle, today’s ChyrCo posting is “Why America Should Care About the U.S. Auto Industry.” How about this: why should we bail out Chrysler when its owned by a private equity group with deep pockets?
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Apparently not even the fleets want their product anymore.
CNN Breaking news:
Chrysler asks Congress for $7B bridge loan by year-end. Plans more consolidation and pledges to seek alliances to stay viable.
Chrysler asks Congress for $7B bridge loan by year-end Although some sort of bailout may still happen, and emergency $7B to Chrysler before end of Dec seems like one hell of a long shot.
Will the US Gov get their $$ back from Chrysler? Hell I think there is a slight chance it will be repaid. Really, I would like to see some of that $600 billion we have been blowing in Iraq back. Or the extra 400 Million we spent on that Capitol Vistors Center?? Maybe we could return some of those $80.00 hammers the military has bought?
If we are going to be extreme with Detroit, would it be fair to ask for all those billions we have been pouring into failing public schools with 40% graduation rates? Can we get some of that back too? Maybe I can ask the Air Force for the $6000.00 it gave my friend to relocate to another State to cover moving costs….he owns 3 suitcases and a Focus…it cost him $120 in gas money to move.
At least their an equal opportunity employer.
@derm81:
Saying we should loan money to companies that clearly won’t be able to repay that money because we’ve made bad loans to others or spent money foolishly is a silly argument.
You don’t really believe ChryCo would repay any loan. There is absolutely no evidence they would repay a nickel of the money. Poor sales, ineffective leadership, non-existent product pipeline, etc., etc.
They are going to the gov’t because NO bank is that stupid to loan them that kind of cash… its a bailout.
It almost makes me feel sorry for Chrysler/Dodge dealers… almost.
You don’t really believe ChryCo would repay any loan. There is absolutely no evidence they would repay a nickel of the money.
I wrote essentially the same thing about GM to Sweet Pete at Autoextremist yesterday, and he told me to f–k off and never visit his site again.
Clearly with Toyota and other foreign companies sharing the pain, the problem is bigger than the Detroit 2.8 albeit they are the basket cases.
The griping about tax dollars going to bail out private entities seems odd to me. It happens all the time.
The justification is that it was 8 years of Bush and the Federal Reserve mismanagement of the economy that got us to this point although the 2.8 have made equally bad management choices.
When Bush took over, the Clinton administration had given us 8 years of relative peace and prosperity. Bush and the Republicans threw it all away with wars, deficit spending and failing to deal with the energy problem.
And who put them in power? The majority of Americans. That is why tax dollars should be used to bail out these losers. Votes matter.
When we vote in a incompetent government that makes bad decisions, we all have to suffer the consequences. That’s life.
EJ_San_Fran:
“Apparently not even the fleets want their product anymore.”
Or it could be they are not selling (at a loss) to fleets. At any rate here are the numbers:
“Fleet sales decreased 63% versus last November, as planned, and retail sales were in line with the retail industry (down 36%).”
http://www.allpar.com/news/index.php
So apparently retail is off 36% which means they did better than Toyota’s total numbers.
97escort, if you think that when a new Administration takes over in DC that they hit a giant “RESET” button and inherit none of the benefits or none of the problems of the previous administration you are naive. Just google Jaimie Gorellic (sp?) and “wall of separation”. Or look at the gutting of intelligence funding by the Clinton administration. And as bad as this credit crisis is you can’t blame Barney Frank and Chris Dodd for all the bad that’s happened to the US automakers.
That video touched on one of my hot buttons. The UAW guy in the video that collects bottles and cans (who knew those people pushing shopping carts loaded with cans were represented by the UAW) brings up the old “we might have to fight WW2 again” argument. The days of Rosie-the-Riveter cranking out B-29s and tanks for the war effort are gone. Last time I refreshed my browser we were fighting 2 and a half wars and we have yet to press an auto plant into service to fight it.
Modern warfare is executed with overgrown model airplanes armed with missles taking out the leadership. It doesn’t take an auto plant to glue one of those things together. And if China ever tried anything, we’d throw padlocks on every Walmart in the US and bring their economy to it’s knees overnight.
It’s a different world and it’s time for that argument to go away.
The national security argument is complete crap. The strongest defense industries after the US exist in the UK and Israel, both of which have no domestic auto industry.
Anyway, tanks and planes are not relevant to modern warfare like they were in WWI and WWII. The US will always have military technology and equipment upper-hand against terrorists and rogue nations – the issue in those cases in intelligence and strategy.
If things go bad with China or Russia it is not going to come down to tanks and planes; it will be nuclear winter.
“Family values”? Katrina? World War II?? This video is incoherent, irrelevent, and factually incorrect. I could go point-by-point (e.g. I’m pretty sure cars don’t affect the trade deficit in any nontrivial sense), but it all boils down to these people having been mislead about the roles of the D2.8 in both the economy and history, and it’s clear they’re just regurgitating their respective PR departments’ horsecrap.
I echo the comments above about this video.
Jeez, at least with the other two ‘domestics’ you can say you are trying to help out shareholders. Here you are just helping out a private conglomerate of old boys.
I think the Jeep girl is kinda cute.
I wonder if she’d stop by and help work on my Cherokee?
“…why should we bail out Chrysler when its owned by a private equity group with deep pockets?”
No one is concerned about Cerebrus. But we can empathize with the ordinary folks who work for Chrysler, suppliers and dealers or just live in towns that will be hammered by Chrysler’s collapse.
Over on BusinessWeek magazine’s website is a story about how Cerberus (and a couple of other private equity companies) ran Mervyns Department Stores into the ground while lining their pockets at the same time.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_49/b4111040876189.htm
I don’t have any confidence in Cerberus’s management of Chrysler. Let Chrysler go under. It has the least viable lineup of products of the Detroit Big 3 and it won’t be missed very much.
When the high tech bubble burst, who bailed out the staggering number of highly educated people that were thrown out of work? No one. Why the *expletive* are auto workers more deserving?
I do not care about Chrysler. At all.
Chrysler needs to wisen up and remember that old axiom, “Two’s company; three’s a crowd!” They’re odd-man out in this deal going forward.
I could only stand to watch about half of that video.
They’re all right; we need manufacturing.
But if we bail them out, that will only encourage continued bad management by the auto company management and other companies.
Chapter 11 is there for a reason. That is the legally acceptable way for a company to begin a turnaround. One might argue that Chapter 11 is also a morally acceptable way (as opposed to asking for public funds with no discernable way of paying them back).
As one recent TTAC article’s title said, they should “learn to love Chapter 11”.
NickR :
When the high tech bubble burst, who bailed out the staggering number of highly educated people that were thrown out of work? No one. Why the *expletive* are auto workers more deserving?
Good point. Fair is fair.
And thank you for the opportunity for me to make a second post, so that I can proofread my first one.