Silverado "top truck"

spoon59,

Sir, you surely do have a warped sense of how a free-market economy works! By not helping a huge corporation like GM to remain viable whether by loans or bailouts, the economy would shrink drastically and your example of a $200,000 house would have slim to zero chance of being worth $500,000 in anyone's lifetime. A shrinking economy is NEGATIVE growth and citizens/persons not working are a further drag on a shrinking economy as they produce zero goods, receive no paycheck, pay no taxes, and will qualify for welfare which is even a further drag on a failing economy. Just where do you think the growth will come from to make $200,000 grow 2.5 times to $500,000?

GM's bailout was a very small fraction of the bailouts the banks, Freddie mac, Fannie may, Ins and investment entities, etc and that's taxpayer's money that will likely never be repaid! It was the housing market relaxed rule issues that actually caused the deep recession and then took the U.S. automotive industry with them. It all came to a head at the same time!

Try waving the whole dog instead of using the end of it's tail to wag him! The auto bailouts really went mostly to the unions to soften the years of false promises in the contracts and very little went to the corporations. The investors are the ones who actually took it in the shorts!

You sure could use a real course in economics 101 as it pertains to the U.S. economy and marketplace!

Im happy with my new truck, not the top truck but its BIG brother.

spoon059 wrote:
No, I get it. The government is intruding upon private business and telling them how to operate. Banks started having trouble after the mortgage crisis. Banks got into trouble because gov't forced them to lower their standards for who is approved for a mortgage. The gov't decided it was racially prejudicial to demand good credit and a 20% down payment. Banks had to provide loans to sub-prime lenders. Banks realized they were getting hosed due to a variety of reasons and started packaging good loans with bad loans and selling them off to investment firms and hoping the investment firms wouldn't realize they were buying a dirty diaper til it was too late. Surprisingly, the gov't that so desires to intrude upon EVERYTHING didn't do anything about the sneaky and questionable practice of mixing those types of loan deals.

Now this we can agree on.:) Although we don't agree with each other on the bailout I appreciate your passion about this issue .

I forgot all about the stock comments. I never said the Gov't should sell the stock at a loss. I was simply correcting a statement someone else made that the stock options "paid off" the debt. The stock options, when they finally/hopefully hit $72 a share will have only paid off a loan, not the full $49 billion in money it was given. Some people forget that some money was a loan, some money was a straight donation.

This is no different than having you buy me a house for $200,000 and giving me $300,000 cash for a total of a $500,000 gift. I get to live in that house, not worry about paying a mortgage until that house more than doubles in value. When the house is finally worth $500,000, you get the house back and I still have $300,000 cash in my pockets and have lived rent free for however many years it took for that property value to increase. Technically you got your initial investment back, but I sure made out like a bandit in the process.

Perrysburg Dodgeboy wrote:
Michael what you are failing to understand is * GM and Chrysler were fine *and would not have needed a "bailout" had the banks not told them "no we are not extending your lines of credit any longer, just to risky". The same backs the Bush gave trillions to and only got penny's on the dollar in some cases.

Why should the Government sell off their share at a loss? They will continue to receive interest on the loans and when the time comes that GM's stock hits $72 a share they will sell it. If they sell it sooner then that's not GM's fault is it?

I bought a ton of Ford stock between $1.12 and $1.80 and had to sit on it for years until it hit $13 dollars a share. It got to the point that I thought about lowering the sell point but figured I'm not retiring anytime soon so I left it there and made same nice change. Ended up losing most of the gain in 09 but that's the market.

* EDIT Both were as fine as any other company at that time. It was a good thing for Chrysler that GM's lines of credit came do at the same time! I bet if it was just Chrysler going to the Government they would have been turned away and Chrysler would have gone out of business.

Don

No, I get it. The government is intruding upon private business and telling them how to operate. Banks started having trouble after the mortgage crisis. Banks got into trouble because gov't forced them to lower their standards for who is approved for a mortgage. The gov't decided it was racially prejudicial to demand good credit and a 20% down payment. Banks had to provide loans to sub-prime lenders. Banks realized they were getting hosed due to a variety of reasons and started packaging good loans with bad loans and selling them off to investment firms and hoping the investment firms wouldn't realize they were buying a dirty diaper til it was too late. Surprisingly, the gov't that so desires to intrude upon EVERYTHING didn't do anything about the sneaky and questionable practice of mixing those types of loan deals.

Sneaky loan originators and greedy investors speculated and gambled on these subprime loans that were forced upon the lenders by government regulations. When the market started to slow and these loans stopped getting paid, the economy took a nose dive. Banks became hesitant to loan money out to anyone. If GM wasn't so poorly managed and burdened by legacy costs, they wouldn't have needed to restructure at all. Somehow all of you are glossing over the fact that GM was NOT sustainable at this point in time, or else they wouldn't have needed loans. Because of this, they were wallowed in debt and people weren't spending as freely because they used their houses as credit cards (home equity line of credit... another widespread misuse of loans perpetrated by the Fair Housing Act, probably unintentional... but another example of making things worse) and didn't have money to purchase anything, let alone an expensive vehicle.

Make all the excuses in the world that you want. Bottom line is simple. GM was financially insolvent in 2009 because of poor or weak management decisions in the past (legacy costs) and inability to properly plan for the future (slow down in sales). If GM was financially secure at the time the market went under, we wouldn't be having this discussion. Regardless of all that, I STILL do not believe that the government should be involved in providing money to private industry.

If I ran Mikes Pizza Joint and paid my employees 50% more than my competition and promised lucrative retirement plans and eventually couldn't sell a pizza for what it cost to make it (including all my overhead costs), should I expect Uncle Sam to give me money? That is ludicrous in my mind. From a freemarket capitalist based system (I understand that the US economy isn't truly a capitalist system), that doesn't hold water.

We are creating an environment whereby the best and brightest aren't given the incentive to be the best and work the hardest. We are creating a society whereby we reward the failures and further condemn the successes. This is an environment that we tax the top earners 40% of their earnings, and 46% of our adults don't pay taxes.

What message are we sending our kids and grandkids? If you give 100%, work hard, take care of yourself, plan for the future and produce in this country we are going to tax the heck out of you. If you fail, if you are lazy, if you don't want to work, if you do a poor job working, if you don't plan ahead and aren't a productive member of society we will take care of you.

GM wasn't doing well before the economic crisis, which magnified its problems when the bottom dropped out. I think I understand your arguments and I took those arguments into consideration when I made up my mind about what I believed was right and wrong. I disagree with your conclusion that GM going out of business would result in a total loss of that market share and that the majority of the laid off employees would not have been able to get a job with the "competition".

We can go back and forth as much as everyone would like to debate. I have considered all the possible angles and arguments for and against. Again, we are all making theoritical assumptions about what WOULD have happened. There is no way for either side to PROVE that they are right. Perhaps I wouldn't be so insistent about being against it if I wasn't so worried about the consequences. We are burdening my generation and generations to come with increasing debt, we are setting precedent that private businesses can become "too big to fail" and will likely receive government aid and we are getting away from what made this country great to begin with... the American spirit and the desire to make the world a better place. We are headed towards the point where it is easier to sit back and collect from the gov't rather than step forward and work for a brighter tomorrow. A lot of people on this particular forum have the luxury of not being around when its time to pay for this "free lunch", and perhaps that is why some are so supportive of it. For my wife, my daughter and me, I don't know if we are blessed with that particular luxury.

Wow, this thread took the typical ugly, hateful innuendo type post that most probably figured it would, but would never admit that it would....


Owned Chevy's since 68'....only Chevy trucks till 2010...loved them, still do...love Ram, have only owned their trucks since 2010, will stay with them......nothing wrong with Ford, they sell more trucks than anyone else.....'nuff said....What CR has to say about anything means less than nothing to me, never used them to purchase anything and don't plan on changing now. Seen over the years where their "recommendations" and "reliability" ratings, never panned out on a lot of products....

spoon059 wrote:

Charlie D. wrote:
Thank you for pointing out the reasons that a bailout of the auto makers was a good investment.

You are right Charlie, the ONLY place the government gets those taxes is from GM. Ford, Chrysler, Toyota, Honda etc don't pay the taxes and wouldn't have absorbed GM's market share. Those millions of vehicles made and sold by GM every year would have vanished and the government wouldn't have seen a penny of taxable income...

And in reference to the commentary posted, it is just that... commentary. It is an opinion, no different than mine or yours. Unfortunately, it has misqouted information. The government still owns an estimated 270 million shares of GM, which would need to sell for about $72/share for the government to recoup its losses. As of today, GM is selling for $37.25 per share... right about at 50% of what the government would need to recoup its losses.

Again, there are many theories as to what could have happened. It is all speculation at this point. I don't know what would have happened if GM had been allowed to fail like any other business. I'm not disappointed that a million people kept their jobs. I think it sets a HORRIBLE precedent moving forward.

My wife has 2 cousins that never accomplished anything. Daddy would always step in and pay their rent, pay their car note, give them money for food. On mornings when you and I don't want to get out of bed and go to work, we do because we have bills to pay. On mornings her cousins don't want to do anything, they just stop going to work. It doesn't matter if they work or not, daddy is going to take care of them. Guess what, daddy is eventually going to run out of money and/or die. Then who is going to take care of them?

My wife, on the other hand, had to take care of herself financially. She saved money to buy a car. She worked and saved money to go to school. What she couldn't afford in school bills she got a loan for them. We go to work everyday. We make intelligent decisions about how and where to spend our money. If we go belly up, we are on our own. We knew the rules of the game when we started. We play by the rules and have found a little bit of success.

What message are we sending to businesses? Hire a lot of people and mismanage the company, don't worry daddy (the federal gov't) will take care of you if you screw it up?

If you are okay with that message, thats your opinion. I was raised to be held accountable for my actions and either make wise decisions or suffer the consequences of poor decisions. I have made poor decisions in my life and have suffered for them. I learned from the bad decisions. All that GM and the large financial companies learned is that if you screw up big enough, daddy will make everything better.

To each their own...

This man speaks reality , AMEN ... Just the way i was raised and thats why today i have everything i need and can afford :)

Michael what you are failing to understand is * GM and Chrysler were fine *and would not have needed a "bailout" had the banks not told them "no we are not extending your lines of credit any longer, just to risky". The same backs the Bush gave trillions to and only got penny's on the dollar in some cases.

Why should the Government sell off their share at a loss? They will continue to receive interest on the loans and when the time comes that GM's stock hits $72 a share they will sell it. If they sell it sooner then that's not GM's fault is it?

I bought a ton of Ford stock between $1.12 and $1.80 and had to sit on it for years until it hit $13 dollars a share. It got to the point that I thought about lowering the sell point but figured I'm not retiring anytime soon so I left it there and made same nice change. Ended up losing most of the gain in 09 but that's the market.

* EDIT Both were as fine as any other company at that time. It was a good thing for Chrysler that GM's lines of credit came do at the same time! I bet if it was just Chrysler going to the Government they would have been turned away and Chrysler would have gone out of business.

Don

meanwhile at the chevy truck thread.....

Charlie D. wrote:
Thank you for pointing out the reasons that a bailout of the auto makers was a good investment.

You are right Charlie, the ONLY place the government gets those taxes is from GM. Ford, Chrysler, Toyota, Honda etc don't pay the taxes and wouldn't have absorbed GM's market share. Those millions of vehicles made and sold by GM every year would have vanished and the government wouldn't have seen a penny of taxable income...

And in reference to the commentary posted, it is just that... commentary. It is an opinion, no different than mine or yours. Unfortunately, it has misqouted information. The government still owns an estimated 270 million shares of GM, which would need to sell for about $72/share for the government to recoup its losses. As of today, GM is selling for $37.25 per share... right about at 50% of what the government would need to recoup its losses.

Again, there are many theories as to what could have happened. It is all speculation at this point. I don't know what would have happened if GM had been allowed to fail like any other business. I'm not disappointed that a million people kept their jobs. I think it sets a HORRIBLE precedent moving forward.

My wife has 2 cousins that never accomplished anything. Daddy would always step in and pay their rent, pay their car note, give them money for food. On mornings when you and I don't want to get out of bed and go to work, we do because we have bills to pay. On mornings her cousins don't want to do anything, they just stop going to work. It doesn't matter if they work or not, daddy is going to take care of them. Guess what, daddy is eventually going to run out of money and/or die. Then who is going to take care of them?

My wife, on the other hand, had to take care of herself financially. She saved money to buy a car. She worked and saved money to go to school. What she couldn't afford in school bills she got a loan for them. We go to work everyday. We make intelligent decisions about how and where to spend our money. If we go belly up, we are on our own. We knew the rules of the game when we started. We play by the rules and have found a little bit of success.

What message are we sending to businesses? Hire a lot of people and mismanage the company, don't worry daddy (the federal gov't) will take care of you if you screw it up?

If you are okay with that message, thats your opinion. I was raised to be held accountable for my actions and either make wise decisions or suffer the consequences of poor decisions. I have made poor decisions in my life and have suffered for them. I learned from the bad decisions. All that GM and the large financial companies learned is that if you screw up big enough, daddy will make everything better.

To each their own...