No help or wrong help for Detroit?

John Delorean or any of the other upstarts that have failed or hung on in
the last 3 decades have had their loans secured by the government?

 

Michael Jackson isn't a corporation whose assets are valuable only when
they're *combined* with cash, in order to make a product that can be sold.
It's pretty apparent, Brent, that you're being deliberately obtuse. I knew
there was a good reason I'd put you into my killfile; thanks for the
reminder. Bye again!

 

Corporations can and do borrow this much money all the time. It is
called corporate bonds and you can help. Just go out and buy some GM
and/or Ford bonds right now. They are paying very good interest -
maybe 10 - 12% depending on term. GM and Ford together have about
$300 billion in outstanding debt right now and they are always free to
issue more.

What GM and Ford are lacking is income to service that debt. At 7%,
that is about $21 billion just to pay interest on the bonds. Even
Exxon couldn't afford that. And the new loans will be at 10% or more.
With increasing debt and continual refinancing at higher interest
rates, it isn't hard to imagine these two paying $40B per year in
interest in a couple years. With that in mind, if you want to loan
them your money, go ahead.

 

This is contary to the arguement you and the rest of the chrysler fans
were making that the assets had value greater than that of the loans so
there was no risk to the taxpayers. My arguement is that if there was no
risk, the taxpayers (government) would not have been needed.

If the assets only had that value by making cars, that value was a matter
of guesswork because the cars are only worth what people would pay for
them. Thusly the taxpayers cosigning the loan was needed and there was
considerable risk to the taxpayers doing so.

Obviously this was more than the cash flow problem you and the rest of
the chrysler fans are trying to make it out to be. It was a serious
fiancial crisis where they did not have the free-and-clear assets to
secure further loans to continue operations.

Not at all. You're the one trying to assign me an arguement of 'chrysler
should just sell some assets'. Never argued anything of the kind, yet
that is what you are attempting to do out of your brand loyalty. My
arguement is very simple, if you and the rest of the chrysler fans are
correct, that chrysler had significant _real_ assets with value in
excess of the loans then they would not need the taxpayers to cosign.
Simple as that. The future value of cars those assets might make is not a
real asset, it's speculation, and speculation shouldn't be confused with
real assets like land, buildings, equipment, etc.

Fine Daniel. Your ever increasing brand bashing and loyalty was wearing
thin on me. Makes the group seem like a highschool discussion of Chrysler
is great, Ford sucks.

And when it comes down to it, that's what is being dealt with here.
Chrysler fans want a spin that Chrysler never really needed the
government's (taxpayer) help but because of this or that excuse... That's
nothing but high school variety brand loyalty. Something most people
out grow shortly after highschool.

 

Perhaps those offering the loan thought that Chrysler would not be able
to make use of those assets to make and sell their products. I believe
the situation is analagous to someone attempting to get a loan having
sufficient material value assets but is not currently employed.

 

Perhaps that was one of the angles being attempted. But that is a
different arguement than the one's I had been addressing.

 

saturn redline, dodge neon R/T, ford focus SVT, chevy cobalt SS?

you meen *those* kinda cars?

 

yes the unions do have a little impact, but the root cause of failure is the
upper management that does run the company
i worked at the grounds and seen it first hand
any one remember lloyd Royce who was in charge of gm north american op's
well his son runs the hipo program for gm and i worked with both of them in
buicks shop there.
i'm the boss so my kid will get a job now! was the feeling we shop workers had
at buick and by the way we were contract labor there, but lloyds son was a
direct hire
the amount of waste from the management of gm is staggering, just in the pet
projects they have and had! wanna talk earned bonuses! for exec's now
no union makes those calls
when a company fails 9 out of 10 times it's management's fault not the workers
i really have to wonder now that lutz is a gm guy? is he going to sell the usa
out again by deviding gm and selling it to the highest bidder so he can get a
another golden parachute retirement

 

This is a winner... you respond to the wrong post, you top post, and
cannot format the post properly.

Nobody has said it's all the worker's fault. However to ignore the
contribution of the union contracts which have become as fat and bloated as
the excutives is just plain silly.

 

Whatever thread that you found yourself in a logical dead in was
something I've long since forgotten, so your childish personal sniping
really seems funny.

But for those that weren't paying attention this time:

1) "loan guarantees" = "bailing Chrysler out with taxpayer money"

I was addressing a fairness arguement that chrysler should get whatever
the government ends up giving ford and GM. Chrysler had a turn before and
Ford and GM didn't get anything. However, rather than comprend that, the
chrysler fans got their panties in a bunch over 'taxpayer funded'. My
arguement was regardless of the semantics, regardless if it was money
directly from the government or a government co-signer, the taxpayers
were still on the hook. It might make chrysler fans feel better playing
the loan guarantees technicality to make it seem that chrysler wasn't in
deep shit, but in the end, the taxpayers had to back up that corporation
and chrysler was in deep shit.

2) "No risk means the government was not needed"

It is the chrysler fans arguing it as if the taxpayers were never in
danger of being on the hook because chrysler had free-and-clear real assets
more than that of the loans. If so, the assets could secure the loan and
not the taxpayers. When I brought that up, the chrysler fans admitted
that the assets were not real but speculative value of future vehicles
sold and that what real assets there were had already been used to secure
loans previously. You want to talk about misleading?

3) Ports.

How you draw that conclusion given my actual views and what I have posted
is bogglesome and merely some sort of personal attack. It's sad that you
are so bitter about something that you feel the need to write such a
post. The media mis-reports things all the time and I do care about it.
However focusing on something so trivial as the two words that got
chrysler fans' panties in a bunch while droping everything else is
classic usenet and nothing more.

 

No, I do not. Those lines might be "entry level" for those particular
divisions/makers, but those *models* have the most standard features of
the line. The most decked out.

I'm talking about *base* level cars of any particular line, with a line
item option called "performance group", where the car gets the hot
engine, the manual tranny, better suspension and the better brakes, on
the bottom-of-the-line car, such that the price comes out lower to mid
range of the line.

E.P.

 

The problem with "performance group" packages with deleted content is that
the market for them is very small. Although enthusiast magazines and
performance enthusiasts speak very highly of such setups, not enough people
purchase them to make them commercially viable, especially for a model where
demand for "normal packages" is equal to or greater than the automaker's
production capacity for that model or the manufacturer's profit is greater
for a "normal" package.

I believe Porsche offered a package like Ed Pirrero is describing, and it
sounds like the Police Interceptor packages on the Ford Crown Victoria and
the police version of the Chevy Impala seem to fit Ed's description.

 

I think I know what Porsches you're thinking of, and IIRC they actually
cost MORE than the base model. So that doesn't qualify. Neither to the
Police Interceptor Crown Vic, because it's not available to the general
public, nor does the Impala, because it's a FWD shitbox.

I know exactly what he's thinking of; say a modern equivalent of a Chevy
II, Falcon, Valiant, Lark, etc. with a big V-8, 4-speed, heavy duty
springs and shocks, and sway bars - and nothing else. Pretty much
everyone offered same back in the day, why don't they now?

In fact, IIRC the only R3 Lark ever made (R3 being the badass
Granatelli-built supercharged 304 engine) was a 2-door post Challenger
(low trim level.) just a little car geek trivia for you.

nate

 

like the WRX, basically. its ALL riced out.

that would involve a trip to the dealer, and seeing if you can just
order the "hot engine" as its own option.

automakers are under the impression that if you want a cheap, stripped
car (honda CX hatch, anyone?) you arent going to want to pay extra for a
top of the line engine.

 

Rice is just "look fast" stuff. The WRX actually *goes* fast.

Usually not. You have to buy a package, and that translates into a lot
of other "stuff" that is luxury (not performance) based.

It used to not be like that. You could option up on drivetrain,
suspension and brakes, and not have to fork over for electric windows,
electric sunroof, massive multimedia entertainment center, etc, etc.

Since Detroit is in trouble, the way to do something is to *not do it
like it's being done right now.*

E.P.

 

except for Porsche, who gets it.

 

Your rantings might seem less like rantings if you canned the clichés.
I mean throwing one in once in a while is OK, but the repetiveness
destroys the impact that what you're saying might otherwise have. Not
that the impcat would be great without them, but it would be better than
it is with them.

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

The last such car was probably the 1993 Ford Mustang LX 5.0L. Especially
in the notchback body style. Ford made a sort of effort at a similiar car
in '94 and/or '95. A few were made and it wasn't well known that it was
available.

Marketeers don't want to offer such cars, dealers generally don't stock
such cars. They are often 'found' by careful study of options sheets and
the like. The way options are now packaged instead of line-item is a huge
part of them not being around. Oh, you want the V8, well that comes with
heated leather seats...

 

Thanks for proving me correct regarding your intent.

 

One issue may be book value versus resale value. The assets such as
tooling and factories may have been worth hundreds of millions to a
going concern. But sold off at auction (as a bank would have had to do to
recover if Chrysler failed) they might have been worth very little.