...it looks like People's Automobile Manufacturing Collective #2 is going to be filing for Chapter 11 today.
It's sad, really. UAZ was making some of the more interesting vehicles to come out of Autograd. I'm sure their new .gov managers will guide them with the same deft touch they showed in the mortgage and mail delivery fields.
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Ok, so we conducted two auto bailouts so they wouoldn't go into bankruptcy. Now, after billions of our dollars are gone, they're going into bankruptcy anyway.
I hope people remember this in 2010.
Damn does this mean there's no more Dodge Rams? And Jeeps? Hope somebody buys those out...
The most immediate colloquialism that comes to mind is one from my Sainted Grandmother...
'...pissing money down a rat hole'...
and yes, I'm quite old enough to recall how Dodge truck beds completely rusted to nothing in 1976-77.
Between a Lada and a K-car, I'd take walking.
Regards,
Rabbit.
Introducing the new Chrysler Trabant!
It's not just the .gov pulling the strings - isn't the UAW getting 55% of the steering wheel in this adventure now?
Joe R.
I'm going to go way, way, way, waaaaayyyy out on a limb and predict this collaboration will produce some real junk.
But I thought the bail-out money was supposed to, you know, bail them out? I'm perplexed as the annointed one couldn't possibly have been wrong or lying to us. Karl Rove must have a hand in this, punishing our UAW brothers for not supporting McCain! That's it for sure!
BUSHITLER!
Gesundheit, Joseph.
Gosh, am I the only one who was looking forward to the UAW reps making a demand of GM only to race to the other side of the table and deny the demand?
I may also be one of the few who remembers Al Capp using Li'l Abner to complain that "General Bullmoose" was trying to run the country. My, how things have changed.
"I'm going to go way, way, way, waaaaayyyy out on a limb and predict this collaboration will produce some real junk."Surely, you must be joking.
I mean, it's FIAT we are talking about here. They are only slightly below Alfa Romeo in build quality these days.
Fix It Again, Tony.
Does anyone remember the dreck they used to actually sell on these shores?
WV: foostan, yes, I think that's where they're built.
Capitalism, anyone? Yeah, I know-- it's been dead for a long time. Still, a man can dream of poorly-run companies failing and making room for hungry start-up companies.
The unheralded tragedy here is that those hungry start-up companies will now fail to materialize. -- Lyle
Oh, it's not going to be allowed to die! Dr. Governmentstein is hooking up the electrodes to the Tesla coils even as we speak!
(Of course, we all know how the story ends, with Chrysler shuffling clumsily across the stage, bellowing "Puttin' on the riiitz!" and then going berserk...)
The spin is already starting: the gubmint "deal" wasn't turned down because shareholders and loanholders would get less than what is left of a clapped-out mine, but because they wanted at least of a return as the gubmint was going to take. Greedy sos-and-sos wanted fifty cents on the dollar like UAW//Feds, not ten. For shame!
And yeah, Fiat?
Well, at least my bank should be safe - it was bought out last month by a conglomerate based in Spain...
Actually it ends with Chrysler in bed with Madeline Kahn who looks somewhat unsatisfied...
and someone, presumably Honda or Toyota, making Teri Garr break into "Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life!"
Ok, B.S.philosopher wins the Internets today.
Rabbit.
wv=hemis. I shit you not.
"Does anyone remember the dreck they used to actually sell on these shores?"
I owned a Fiat 850 Sport Coupe for several years before I found someone silly enough to buy it. If you were into a skateboard like ride with a maximum amount of discomfort in an 850 CC car it was the perfect fit.
As far as Chrysler? It's really to bad fedco shoveled all that taxpayer money into the fire before the creditors saw they were about to get screwed hard and took the only way out that they could to recoup some of their investment.
Gmac
wv: sheapt What the investors felt like as they saw themselves getting fleeced.
This whole megilla reminds me of a joke from Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In... Workers go on strike against GM. Meanwhile, across town, Walter Reuther, acting on behalf of the United Auto Workers, bought GM.
It got a big laugh back then. We were rather closer to the "good for GM, good for the country" days then. Little did anybody suspect that the Union would get the government to do the dirty work.
Naive, I guess.
M
Oh, it's not going to be allowed to die! Dr. Governmentstein is hooking up the electrodes to the Tesla coils even as we speak!
(Of course, we all know how the story ends, with Chrysler shuffling clumsily across the stage, bellowing "Puttin' on the riiitz!" and then going berserk...)What a filthy job!
It could be worse.
How?
Could be raining.
Couldn't pass this one up...
WV: solls (what was sold when voting for Obama).
Yeah, B.S. Phil gets my vote too. Oohrah!
So, a question for those more learned in the law than me.
If GM dies, and the intellectual property, tooling, and name get bought out and moved to the same all Caucasian, no union/R.T.W. Appalachin counties in which the Japanese set up shop, what, if anything, can the unions/government/media conglomerate do to stop it?
Consider: Toyota and Chevy have been coproducing autos in the same plants for several decades now (Google up NUMMI). Honda builds most of their vehicles in former GM plants, with former GM people.
Anyone who believes there is a quality difference between GM/Ford on the one side, and Toyo/Honda on the other,is smoking better stuff than I am. Nissan, like Mopar, is having some QC problems. Even it's name is a bad pun in Japanese.
Consumer Reports tends to glorify the Japanese named brands, since the snob effect still flavors the replies they get from buyers. But the NHSA keeps tabs on all complaints to dealers, and hasn't seen any statistical difference between them in almost two decades.
Without the union legacy of around $1,600 per vehicle, GM would be a viable operation, and they've turned out some fairly innovative product. Something Chrysler management hasn't been able to say since the K.
The giving of GM and Chrysler on a platter to UAW was the payoff for helping elect The Lightbringer.
And yes, long before GM and Chrysler finally expire, their products will be absolute crap.
I'm sure their new .gov managers will guide them with the same deft touch they showed in the mortgage and mail delivery fields.
Hey maybe Joe Biden can help them managing a crisis. He did such a bang up job this morning with the airliners and subways. LOL!
(Of course, we all know how the story ends, with Chrysler shuffling clumsily across the stage, bellowing "Puttin' on the riiitz!" and then going berserk...)Fuckin' brilliant! What an image! That is perfect!
The unheralded tragedy here is that those hungry start-up companies will now fail to materialize. -- Lyle
4:13 PM, April 30, 2009
I sure as hell would not risk anything to start a company when anything I make is going to get confiscated......
I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of crap rolls off the assembly lines now that the workers are the owners of the means of production. what can go wrong, these nimrods think they are smart enough to make a system that's never worked in the past, work properly.
should be entertaining.
I'm not sure Chrysler is going to come out of this. They are in really bad shape, the debt holders have a strong legal position (they don't have to take Obama's pennies on the dollar offer). A judge just might decide to liquidate the whole thing. Fiat isn't offering any cash, so what gets sold could go to anyone with money.
In other words, we flushed billions of taxpayer down a toliet.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124113528027275219.html
"Without the union legacy of around $1,600 per vehicle, GM would be a viable operation, and they've turned out some fairly innovative product. Something Chrysler management hasn't been able to say since the K."
Please excuse me Ed, but that wasn't exactly a high water mark, there, regardless of the K-car sales phenomenon that brought Chrysler out of it's collapse, 30 years ago. I'd really hesitate to say it was a good car.
As for the General, well, I've personally had to do a few too many repairs on a relative's late-model that shouldn't have problems that were ironed out in other manufacturer's engines years ago. Same dumb mistakes being made over and over. Ain't goin' there.
Between the Ram, the LH platform, and the 1st Gen Neon, it looked like Chrysler had turned the corner before they got looted by the Jerries. Then their product design cycle took a wrong turn into weird SUV land at precisely the wrong time (Could there have been a worse time to replace the Neon with the Caliber than the summer gas hit $3/gal.?), which was just the bullet between the eyes.
How many times do we bail out the same company before we say enough is enough?
They don't seem to learn much from their mistakes. I can't believe anyone would buy out a company like this and keep the same dunderheads that run it in the ground time after time.
I figure the Chevy truck I drive now will last until I retire. Once that happens all I need is a bike or a horse.
Let all these big corporations self destruct. No more bailouts. No more bankruptcy. Just bye-bye lard ass.
My 2 cents,
Joe
P.S. - Where's Anonymous? I'm sure an intelligent question is in the works from that one.
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