It's official. GM is has filed. The general should now be called government motors. Obama has vowed to push up the time frame for the governments car fleet to be replaced and guess who is going to supply that.....GM. I wish the government would just stay out of the middle. To much is going on both here and over seas. Then to make things just a bit harder the emissions standards are going up 4 yrs sooner. nothing like getting a helping hand then getting backhanded with the other. At some point and time the money is going to run out..well it already has but you know what I mean. GM will be set up with how the president thinks it should be set up. GM and Chrylser will always come back to this point from now on. Chrylser already has. Still curious how all this will turn out. I am glad to see that the unions are taking steps to do their long over due part. We'll see how long that lasts too.

 

I hate to say this guys, but I think you and I are in for a rude awakening. If anyone has been keeping up with what is going on on Capital Hill, the future of muscle cars in general is looking bleak. The president gave a press conference this morning stating that with their 67% stake in GM (pretty sure that is right) he has come up with guidelines and standards for how the New GM will operate on a day to day basis. He has plans for greener more fuel efficient cars. Along with being able to pick who the new board members will be, and having Fritz Henderson at the helm I don't see GM making Camaros for too much longer.

A lot of people are comparing this to the governments take over of AMTRAK. They were in a similar position in the 70's. Going bankrupt and believed to be necessary for the U.S. to continue, the government gave them huge amounts of money to keep them alive and have been doing so ever since. Amtrak posted $2 billion in revenue generated last year, but $3 billion in expenses. They have been trying to get AMTRAK out from under the gov. for a while.

I drive a 95 GT that I have spent a good chunk of change on. I have been a mustang enthusiast for quite some time. Don't mistake this as gloating. The government is already telling other companies what kinds of cars they will be making by imposing ridiculous CAFE standards. 39 mpg on passenger cars and 30 mpg on trucks/SUVs are pretty high numbers. Even if it is just an average, what kind of mpg will cars have to get to make up for their GT500/SS counterparts?

 

GM is a huge welfare queen -- enough already. 70% public ownership of a private company?! Can you say fascism? Like government needs to bailout GM -- let them rebuild with private money, not OUR money. There is no accountability in government.

What is this, the new Obama bumper to bumper warranty? Mancow did a funny song about this in the morning...

 

Beware of the bigger plan for the FTAA -- these are steps on the way to a North American Union ala the EU -- it also spells the end of the united States' sovereignty. Note the lower-case united and uppercase States, as it was originally written -- i.e. sovereign states coming together...

See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Tr...f_the_Americas

Oh, and it has NOTHING to do with *Free Trade*, it's more like managed trade, and destructive of sovereignty.

 

I think that conflict of interest is written all over this and I'm actually kinda shocked that no one has filed suit.

 

seriously...why does it take a government bailout to enact what GM has known it has had to do for so long? if this country was founded with the free market and capitalism in mind why must we intervene and deprive innovation to these companies in the long run? because that is exactly what we're doing! yeah GM lives to see another day as a fat-trimmed company similar to Jared from the Subway commercials, but now, just as Jared is to Subway, GM is, for lack of a better analogy, the government's little ***** ha ha no offense to Jared but seriously!! Yeah GM will live to see another day but what the government is depriving GM of is the ability to innovate and triumph for its own survival making it twice as strong as any company that is saved in the short run...

Free market is what we began with so why change something that does work when companies open their eyes and actually take part in competition and fight for their own survival?

Ohh...don't even mention the North American Union there are few things I fear more haha...I know I was the one talking about how it doesn't really matter getting parts and stuff from Mexico because honestly as someone who studies International Management I better be saying stuff like that (from an international competitiveness standpoint) but I would never promote a North American Union that would be the worst thing that could happen to the United States (as a future member of the armed forces I'm proud to say I would die to keep this country what it is)...My argument with the parts from Mexico is just from a cost per quality standpoint in which all quality processes are the same (because we transferred them to Mexico through joint ventures [namely in the maquiladora sector]...which by the way, as I mentioned before we in the United States are barely getting a grasp on Six Sigma whereas Toyota invented it and has been employing it for years (and when I say years I mean yeaaaarrrrrssss.....I don't remember exactly when Six Sigma came around but if I'm correct I believe it was in the 80s...I might be completely off by a decade but the point is that they've been employing that kind of quality for a while...) So as the American car companies began to realize that they could get the same quality at a cheaper price without as many union concerns the Mexico option became quite attractive...So that's where my Mexico argument came from...But believe me I do not believe an economic union is the way to go for North America it takes away waaaayyyy too much sovereignty and that's not a smart thing to do (and as a matter of fact few people actually realize that the EU doesn't even have an economic union that matches the theoretical model 100%...)

Ha ha too much government intervention is not only going to make us pay more as taxpayers but it's ultimately going to mean a cycle that keeps returning to this in the long run for a lack of domestic ability to innovate for our own competitive survival...

It seems like my arguments are tending to be a little redundant aren't they? lol maybe it's because no matter how many times we come back to this issue we are going to keep drawing the same conclusions that GM should have just gotten its **** together by itself and it, along with countless american workers and taxpayers, would be better off...

but at least it is official now...goodbye hummer, saturn, and pontiac and with the way things are looking with those emissions and MPG requirements goodbye camaro pretty soon (i'm hoping i'm wrong on this part at least lol)

 

I don't think muscle cars are about to die out. I'm sure back in 1970 people were thinking the same thing. Okay so maybe it took a few years before the auto makers were able to still make real horsepower but technology caught up. The same will happen here. I imagine the 2011 camaro ss will be a real barn burner...remember the '70 chevelle ss? How's the saying go..."necessity is the mother of invention". I'm keeping my fingers crossed about GM and Chrysler.

 

but isn't there something wrong with a government owned (67%) car company? I mean come on... this is America, not Russia. the govt has no business owning banks, car manufacturers, etc etc... I got a bad feeling about all this...

 

yeah I totally agree, a government-owned car company is not right at all...I have a pretty bad feeling about it too and I'm thinking long-run for the good of domestic car companies and American taxpayers...this is not how a "free market" system should run

 

well what I do not understand is why Ford or even some of the other car makers have not voiced objection. think about it... the govt is the one that sets the guidelines for the cars... AND they own one of the bigger car makers. in my mind I would think it has conflict of interest all over it.