Bailout Watch 345: Chrysler Extends Shutdowns at 5 Factories
As an unwilling investor in Chrysler Corporation, a zombie automaker owned by a bullet-dodging private equity company, I’d like to ask a simple question: can we let the ailing American automaker die already? I know there are tens of thousands of workers whose livelihoods are threatened by a ChryCo C7, but their jobs were already sacrificed on the altar of corporate malfeasance, back when Daimler was calling the shots. Watching this end game is as excruciating as clocking the twenty-ninth move of the first game of the 1972 Fischer Spassky tournament. Anyway, here’s the carmaker’s latest attempt to escape/prolong the inevitable. “Chrysler LLC will extend shutdowns at five factories one week beyond the scheduled reopening date of Monday, Jan. 19,” Automotive News [sub] reports. “Plants in Belvidere, Ill.; Sterling Heights, Mich.; and Toluca, Mexico, will reopen Jan. 26, the company said today. Chrysler’s Global Engine Manufacturing Alliance engine joint venture and its Trenton, Mich., engine plant also will take an extra week and reopen Jan. 26.” You could say this is a cynical move to blackmail Uncle Sugar to cough-up the second installment of Chrysler’s $7b teat suckle, but it’s most likely a simply cash flow problem. You know: no income, lots of expenditure, no cash. Oh and get this: to cheer everyone up, Chrysler also announced it will reopen its Windsor, Ontario (minivan) and Conner Avenue, Detroit (Viper) plants as scheduled on Feb. 2. Of all the vehicles to start building again…
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Let's just hope there's $7B in assets left to go back into the taxpayer's purse after C7. If not - can we go after Cerberus?
Jack Baruth, please look here ... www.trader.ca. Remember, the Canadian dollar is at 80c right now, so you have to do the currency exchange. Can I be your friend?
@NickR: For what should I be looking? :)
If you think promising to open your plants is a way for Chrysler to get back to normal, think again. With no orders, fleets slowing buydown (hertz rental laid off 4000 today), and the worst product line of any domestic or foreign builder, who is to buy these new Chryslers? I suggested in another blog to make them the official cars of the US and State and local governments. Millions of somber gray sedans for the officials. This way our nationalized auto company can sell "yankee doodle" models for the govt. No, maybe that's a bad idea, we pay twice. Once to subsidize building them, and then to have the taxpayer pay retail for them.