Daily Podcast: GM Loses $84.7m a Day

Robert Farago
by Robert Farago

Somewhere in the background, a White House spinmeister is busy telling the cross-dressing Fox News anchor (if he doesn’t, he should) that his viewers should chill about the $3.6 trillion deficit generated by her boss’ budget. “The average taxpayer knows that this is an investment in America that will reinvigorate the economy and, thus, generate new tax revenues and hey, presto! It will make itself disappear!” Or some such crap. The average person knows his or her government is out of control. They are also increasingly aware that GM is doomed. As I stated in last General Motors Death Watch, as the enormity of this collapse reveals itself (-$3,529,166.67 per hour) the American taxpayer will draw a line in the metaphorical sand. In fact, the coming tussle over the Detroit bailout could be the beginning of the end of Bailout Nation. We shall see. Meanwhile, lightly used Ford GTs are selling for $130K, a 2000 Ferrari 360 is going for $90K and today’s Maserati GranTurismo (or a Quattroporte) can be had for less than $100K. At the low end, prices are also slip sliding away. And yet, it’s still not time to buy. How scary is that?

Robert Farago
Robert Farago

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  • JMII JMII on Feb 27, 2009

    How much is that Iraq mess costing us per day?

  • JJ JJ on Feb 27, 2009

    Is the looking at used 360s online somehow related with the IS-F Fiasco by any chance? In Germany the cheapest acceptable ones out there are about EUR 60K just like they were a few months ago when the credit crunch was alledgedly not going to seriously affect Europe according to most politicians (seriously, I know you can't say anything else, but really?). Anyway, there are about 250+ on sale in Germany listed on mobile.de. I'm not looking to buy one, but I just check it out sometimes. I would seriously rather have a 360 than an F430. On another note, I too am totally not seeing the point of the Toyota iQ. I just don't see it working, the base model iQ is EUR 12,990 in the Netherlands, the bigger Aygo with the exact same engine is EUR 8,690. There's really not one reason that they are selling this car in Europe, so probably, they won't do much of it.

  • King Bojack King Bojack on Feb 27, 2009

    @JM II Two wrongs don't make a right.

  • Anonymous Anonymous on Apr 19, 2009

    [...] GM, are in trouble: like the dinosaurs, their bigness – once anadvantage – evolved into a fatal gigantism. In the economic realm, this condition distanced management from the market it was supposedly [...]

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