General Motors Heading For Bankruptcy Again.

Forward!

[T]he federal government owns 500,000,000 shares of GM, or about 26% of the company.  It would need to get about $53.00/share for these to break even on the bailout, but the stock closed at only $20.21/share on Tuesday.  This left the government holding $10.1 billion worth of stock, and sitting on an unrealized loss of $16.4 billion.

Right now, the government’s GM stock is worth about 39% less than it was on November 17, 2010, when the company went public at $33.00/share.  However, during the intervening time, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has risen by almost 20%, so GM shares have lost 49% of their value relative to the Dow.

So it could be said that GM stock has lost over half their value since the government took over. 

Related:  "Now I want to do the same thing with manufacturing jobs, not just in the auto industry, but in every industry." [emphasis mine]

If Obama Brought The Economy Back From The Cusp Of Destruction. . .

. . . Then why are food stamps at an all time high?

The number of Americans who are receiving food stamps rose to a record 40.8 million in May as the jobless rate hovered near a 27-year high, the government reported yesterday.

Recipients of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program subsidies for food purchases jumped 19 percent from a year earlier and increased 0.9 percent from April, the US Department of Agriculture said in a statement on its website.

Participation has set records for 18 straight months.

Unemployment in July may have reached 9.6 percent, according to a Bloomberg News survey of analysts in advance of the Aug. 6 release of last month’s rate. Unemployment was 9.5 percent in June, near levels last seen in 1983.

An average of 40.5 million people, more than an eighth of the population, will get food stamps each month in the year that began Oct. 1, according to White House estimates.

One thing I've noticed about this administration's policies is that they all are designed to put more and more people onto the public doll. Every. Single. One.

Obamacare will burden insurance companies to the point of bankruptcy. Ushering in the single payer public option.

Cap And Trade will drive the cost of coal and oil up. Artificially causing the need for 'Green' energy products that will be tax payer subsidized for use.

Perpetual bail outs for Freddie and Fannie. They're 'Too big to fail'.

It will drive the middle class to extinction with a slow bleed on the wallet. Higher costs will mean spending less money on other things like vacations, a nicer car or larger house.

All with an end game of a population at the behest of a government service. At that point, the real control happens.

It's all a bit of an abstraction on what I laid it out above. Much of it depends on a complacent election this November. Which might not happen after all.

Sort Of Related: Government Motors no longer wants to be known as Government Motors. But Ed Whitacre has a problem. He's trying to tell the 800 pound gorilla to get off the couch and leave.

Steven Crowder In Detroit

And he made it out alive.

From last winter but it's new to me.



During my time there as a low voltage tech in Michigan, I had to install a replacement alarm system in a house where the original was stolen. Yes, it's that bad there.

Government Motors Spent How Much On This?

To begin with, Chevy is synonymous with Chevrolet. The same way FexEx is the same as Federal Express and Coke is the same as Coco-Cola (Certain middle American countries not withstanding).

The problem isn't name recognition.

General Motors Corp. employees should no longer refer to Chevrolet automobiles as "Chevys," sales and marketing officials said in an internal memo.

Alan Batey, vice president for Chevrolet sales and service, and Jim Campbell, GM vice president for marketing, said in a memo issued Tuesday to employees at the corporation's Detroit headquarters "consistency" is important for the Chevrolet brand -- and it would be helpful in that regard to stop referring to Chevrolets
at Chevys, The New York Times reported.

The management at GM needs to look at their contract with the UAW if they want to be realistic about getting competitive.

Besides, this song wouldn't be the same if I drove my Chevrolet to the bidet.

I Me Mine

From Victor Davis Hanson at the Corner.

I think our president needs to invest more in the use of the third-person "government," since his speeches more and more center on the narcissistic "I" and "me." Even the car-takeover speech was "I-ed" to death. E.g.

My Auto Task Force

And so today, I am announcing that my administration will...

In this context, my administration will offer General Motors adequate working capital over the next 60 days. During this time, my team will be working closely with GM to produce a better business plan.

I am committed to doing all I can to see if a deal can be struck...

Now, I know that when people even hear the word "bankruptcy" it can be a bit unsettling, so let me explain what I mean. What I am talking about is..

What I am not talking about is a process where a company is broken up, sold off, and no longer exists. And what I am not talking about is having a company stuck in court for years...

It is my hope that the steps I am announcing...

let me say it as plainly as I can ...

I'm directing my team to take several steps.

I want to work with Congress to identify parts of the Recovery Act..

I am designating a new Director of Recovery for Auto Communities and Workers...

And on and on . . .

So, in honor of Barack Obama.

It would be funny if it wasn't so true.

Good for a chuckle or two. Then the five stages of denial. Michael Ramirez captures the UAW in his editorial cartoon perfectly.

22 pounds.

This is the United Auto Worker's contract with Ford. There might be a page or two difference between GM and Chrysler. Not too much in there on how to make a better car to compete with imports.

I’ll tell you this much, those 2,215 pages don’t include much regarding efficiency and competitiveness. What you’ll find are hundreds of rules, regulations, and letters of understanding that have hamstrung the auto companies for years.

This is why the Big Three are sucking wind when the UAW labor contracts are sucking the life out of the Big Three. Any pontential 'bail out' from the federal government will be going on to pay off the unions. Even when the bill was voted down in Congress on the Senate side, the White House may still set aside a chunk of change for the automakers. Which will be passed on to the Union workers. If GM, for instance, would be forced into Ch. 11, one thing they can do is to cancel a 22 pound labor contract and have 'Right to Work' instead to get by. Even catch up with Toyota in terms of profit.

Thanks to Ace and Hotair

The Big Three Bail-out.

Hat in hand and fresh off private planes, the CEOs of GM, Ford and Chrysler asked for part of their bail-out pie on Wednesday.

The 'Bail-out' will not even go to the company but to help keep paying of the UAW. Why not when they pay their employees more than Toyota, Honda and Nissan. As well as paying workers to sit in a room to do crosswords while getting paid to do so (yes, it's from 2005 but nothing has changed since then). It's throwing more leaves on the fire to give it the impression that it's still burning when the fire needs to be put out.

Ace and Drew at Ace of Spades has more about the UAW sucking down GM, Ford and Chrysler and how SUV's helped them out. For a while.