Daimler Is Rolling In Money

The difference is what's company's/management's goal. From what I can see Daimler, BMW, Audi, Lexus, they're trying to build products that people want to buy. Attractive, (somewhat) reliable, pricy but usually worth it. With good products and sales there will be profit. GM's main goal is to make money. And they try different ways, but all fail because they don't do that one right thing, manufacture good cars. They invent incentives, leases, family buys, group buys, corporate discounts, etc. Buy the products they sell are POS (in general). It's a greed that actually kills all US car makers (and not only car makers). They'd like to make money out of nothing. They probably have more people thinking on ways how to make more money out of thin air than people who actually do produce stuff.

I'm not really worried about the how's and why's - but, the Daimler Chrysler merger spawned two of the best full sized cars that have ever existed. The Charger and 300. So if that cost $25 billion SO BE IT.

Mercedes' fictitious losses were of their own making. Chrysler was the most profitable automaker at the time of the merger. Daimler basically stole all of Chrysler's free cash, forced out their top engineers and executives, and refused to share anything with them except for what became the (execrable) Crossfire. Then, after they had stripped everything of value they had the nerve to complain that the merger didn't go well and dumped them off to Cerberus. I guess this article proves that Nickel-and-Daimler can make loads of money selling the bottom feeder C-class to people more interested in 3-pointed stars than actual value.

@bienville Chrysler was just a few steps away from bankruptcy when Daimler bought them, the years immediately preceding the buyout were full of losses.

@bienville +1 Forditude. German accounting is different from the US. And their is plenty of shenanigans that can go on in US accounting. Scoutdude, Chrysler had nothing but profits in the years before and up to when Daimler took over. Their best year was 1996, but in 1998 (the year of the "merger of equals") they still had a profit and were not in any trouble of going bankrupt. Chrysler has never been close to bankruptcy in it's 80+ year history except for 1980 and 2009. In 1980 the Shah of Iran was overthrown and the gas prices spiked, killing car sales. Up to that time Iaccoca thought they would pull through with the changes he had made and the new product coming out. But that geopolitical event was a tipping point (and one totally out of Chrysler's control (like the Japan earthquake and tsunami was for the JDM)). Hence the need to seek loan guarantees from Uncle Sam. In 2009 the credit freeze, banking crises, and housing collapse caused Chrysler to file for C11 for the 1st time in their history.

@bienville "In 1980 the Shah of Iran was overthrown and the gas prices spiked, killing car sales. Up to that time Iaccoca thought they would pull through with the changes he had made and the new product coming out. But that geopolitical event was a tipping point (and one totally out of Chrysler’s control (like the Japan earthquake and tsunami was for the JDM)). Hence the need to seek loan guarantees from Uncle Sam. In 2009 the credit freeze, banking crises, and housing collapse caused Chrysler to file for C11 for the 1st time in their history." When I read things like that, I always wonder then why did Chrysler tip all the way over? Everybody else in the world was experiencing these same geopolitical events. And today the JDM is recovering okay from their localized events. Why only Chrysler? Isn't it highly possible it also had something to do with the way the company was operated? Stronger companies seem to weather the storms a lot better. To me, it always sounds like excuses when it doesn't work out for anybody else. It's Darwinism of the corporate world, I'd say.