Bailout Watch 502: Feds Give GM an Extra $1b ($5.5b 'til C11)
Back at the beginning of March, GM and its camp supporters were touting the fact that they could go all the way ’til April without a fresh infusion of federal funds—sorry, “loans.” See? Things aren’t as bad as they seem, GM CEO Fritz Henderson pronounced. Cuts are paying dividends already! Deeper, faster, oh baby! Yes, well, as we said at the time, bullshit. The actual reason for GM’s small push away from the bailout buffet: GM’s outgoing CEO had sucked a cool half a billion dollars from The General’s Canadian subsidiary. And now it turns out that current CEO Fritz Henderson’s prediction that GM would need “between $2 and $4 billion” to get it to June 1 misled taxpayers by a billion dollars. “General Motors Corp. will get up to $5 billion and Chrysler LLC $500 million in short-term aid, according to a 250-page government report obtained Monday by The Detroit News.
The Detroit News reported Friday that GM would get about $5 billion and Chrysler $500 million, citing an Obama administration official, which prompted a denial from the White House.” Are we really at the point where the left hand doesn’t know what the other left hand is doing? Where a billion dollars can get lost in the back of GM’s proverbial couch? I don’t know if it’s ridiculous or frightening. I’m thinking both.
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On Sunday I visited the Cadillac, Buick, Pontiac and GMC dealer where I bought my '08 Vibe in January '08. I would say that he has about half the cars that were there in '08. And this is going into the spring selling season. He hasn't moved his '09 Vibes. I counted 7 on the lot. He had no GMC Canyons at all. He had two G3s with sicker prices of over $17,000.00. GM simply is not getting the cash flow coming in it did last year and is spiraling ever downward on all the bailout and bankruptcy talk.
Curious-I'm not experienced in these matters, but is it possible to get drunk enough to pay 17k for a G3 and still be able to sign the paperwork? Bunter
Bunter: I'm sure they're desperate enought that you just need to be able to put an "X" somewhere in the general vicinity of the dotted line and the turd is yours.
petrolhead-maybe GM needs to "invest" some Obamabucks in some serious liquid refreshments at the dealerships. More than a few partiers have woke up in the morning and found that they brought home something regretable. ;^D Bunter