GM Well On Its Way To World's Largest Carmaker

We're all hoping for the best. But this is just an illusion. GM was the world's largest carmaker for a very long time prior to 2008 and that did not stop it from dying an arduous, decades-long, slow death. Are we to believe that somehow in someway GM has been resurrected with tax payer money and that now, miraculously, it can weather its own? Not likely! We're not even talking about repaying the bail out bucks, nor are we talking about interest. Breaking even is the goal. But as long as the tax payers own GM we can be deluded into thinking that somehow GM is making money? That doesn't even fly in a sophomore Intro to Business 101 class. Face it, the tax payer money is lost. GM is headed to China, if China wants it. By 2015 GM's presence in North America will be a mere shadow of its former self, with more product being made outside of America. And the tax payers will be the biggest losers, just like they were with the bail out of Chrysler. GM the world's largest carmaker? Deja vu all over again......

@highdesertcat Taxpayers were big winners because of the bailout. The fact that GM and Chrysler and their employees and their suppliers' employees are still around at all to pay taxes is evidence of success. You really think we would be better off not collecting taxes from the formerly employed while paying out even more in unemployment insurance to those same thousands of people? Oh, and 1/3 to 1/2 of the US auto industry would be gone forever. Never again to employ anyone this year, the year after or 10 years from now. What were all those people going to do? Start writing gaming software? Seriously, put down the Murray Rothbard please.

@highdesertcat If Gee M and Crapsler were allowed to die a natural death (and they should have) Ford and the imports would pick up the slack. They'll build more factories to cope with rising demand. And maybe some annoyed patriot like Penske would start one from scratch. Or another annoyed one would give a generous funding to Tesla or Fisker (God, I hope not). Basic economics. One man's loss is another man's gain. Take a hint from Britain and don't bother with an industry you're not good at and instead concentrate on what you do best. In America's case, it's those computer animated penguin films. lolz

@highdesertcat If GM and Chrysler had gone down the tubes, then Ford would have eventually followed after them. They use many of the same suppliers and those suppliers would have collapsed along with GM and Chrysler (not to mention Ford was in a precarious situation with cash on hand for only about another year and a half if the auto market hadn't turned around). This would have turned the Great Recession into another depression.

@highdesertcat Ford, Toyota and Honda would never have allowed the supply chain to simply collapse. Statements given at Congressional hearings need to be taken with a grain of salt, and it helps to learn the difference between conjecture and fact.

@highdesertcat Agree with geeber. Toyota/Honda had enough cash to buy those suppliers out. Ford, being the only domestic car maker left, will be thought to expand its market share and thus would be able to obtain enough loans to buy the suppliers as well.

@highdesertcat So why did both Toyota and Ford support gov't aid to GM & Chrysler? I think the supply chain would have been seriously disrupted.

@highdesertcat getacargetacheck, the American tax payers lost their shirt and everything else in this bail out gambit. It was wrong when Bush did it. It was far worse when Obama continued it on a grander scale. All this bail out money wasted and we still have millions and millions of unemployed because bail outs do not work. The 99rs got 99 weeks of unemployment and most of them are still unemployed and no longer collecting. After 99 weeks of money wasted on unemployment checks these same people still stand to lose their homes, their cars and everything else they worked for. Not an effective economic strategy. No doubt you'd want them on the dole forever, right? The US auto industry IS already gone forever. What we have now is a conglomeration of joint ventures and niche market manufacturers with more alignments and realignments to come before the shake out of the global auto industry is complete. The way things are going for Toyota it would not surprise me if Ford and Toyota may jump in bed together. I look for GM to break apart into different pieces and hook up with other global manufacturers, like Chrysler is now a subdivision of Fiat. Nothing wrong with that. The US tax payers lost more than money here. GM the largest carmaker? It's a sham! An illusion. We're deluding ourselves. The tax payer money is still lost. GM's liabilities are far greater than their assets and will remain so far into the future. But you must think that's OK because the tax payers of America are footing the bill to keep the UAW working, right? What the UAW pays in taxes doesn't even come close to the billions of dollars we have wasted on the US auto industry. There are plenty of car makers in the US who would take up the slack if GM were to go down the tubes. It's not like we're in dire need of automakers in the US. We've got plenty of them right here on our soil and they employ a bunch of Americans. Your perspective is based on UAW ideology, not a sound economic basis. The UAW bargained their members out of their jobs and drove their employers into financial ruin and bankruptcy and will no doubt do it again in the future.

I expect this doom and gloom (mixed in with general ignorance or deliberate naivete) on Canadian blog sites, but not on an American one. Let's try a different take on this age-old argument: Is America today better off with or without a television industry? When Zenith finally went down in 1999 and LG gobbled them up, so went America's last hope for any sort of presence in the TV market. So all future patents, developments and design is being done where? Illinois? California? Yeouido-dong, Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul? In 20 or 30 years as 3D storms the market, or holography blossoms, will the technology belong to an American company, or a Chinese or a Korean one? When Roosevelt referred to the 'arsenal of democracy,' was he referring to Qingdao, Shandong or Detroit? Just asking....

@carbiz I've said it before and I'll say it again, it doesn't matter if you give away current tech. What matters is who can innovate faster. And my money's still on Germany, Japan and Korea. China won't be a real threat until next decade aka the Roaring 20s ;) And it won't matter who holds the patents. Japan will always be the first to improve it, anyway. If it weren't for them, we'd still be using CRTs and floppies now.