Somebody shoulda told that douchebag Nardelli that the US-fuckin-A has “other fiduciary obligations” too.

my overriding concern with this auto industry bailout thing is that I simply have no confidence in Nardelli and Wagoner, period. None. Zip. Solutions that leave them in control, and companies like Cerberus standing behind them, don’t really work for me. The rethugs want to get rid of the UAW. I feel as strongly as the rethugs about getting rid of management as the rethugs do about the UAW. Now that everything is back on the plate, we should be pushing for partial nationalization and then strategic sale of operating businesses to people we can actually rely on. Mandating an acceptable deal with the unions for any successor businesses would have to be a condition of the whole package.

I love each and every specific fight you’re picking lately, Jane. On a personal note, I remember you wrote something a while ago about feeling a little fuzzy after some medical stuff. But your writing seems incredibly sharp to me, as good as ever.

But as Marcy Wheeler notes, Chrysler has little to offer GM — they already have too many brands and too many dealerships. How is forcing them to take more going to do anything but help a big private equity firm cash out of a bad deal?

Yes but more is the bushie way. The financial institutions are making bad decisions with the money so give them more, The defenders of Iraq didn’t have enough American soldiers to kill so send them more. These people have the concept of hole digging bassackwards

As a holder of worthless HD stock options, I would like to tell him something else.

Socialize the losses, privatize the profits, business as usual.

If UAW Must Make Concessions, Why Not Dan Quayle’s Cerberus Capital?

Because they are a rapacious politically well connected hedge fund. This has been another case of simple answers to . . .

All is going as planned.

Has Paulson gotten his next $350,000,000,000?

Better hurry!

yes, and the public will only realize the solution when we run out of money and troops.

Bush is just representing his base:

“This is an impressive crowd – the haves and the have-mores,” quipped the GOP standard-bearer. “Some people call you the elites; I call you my base.”

The Bushes are in the habit of rewarding incompetence, look at Dubya !!

Bush’s “snack” for the auto industry will be the last thing the goopers do about this before riding off into the sunset. The actual solution will be left to the new administration. Let’s hope that they have some good ideas.

Make Quayle give up his golf clubs- watch REAL pain.

Dan Quayle, with a great three-headed-hell-hound Cerberus Logo backdrop, should address the Nation at The Obama Inaugural. Right after Rick Warren. Disagree don’t need to be disagreeable. All voices and all that.

the last thing the goopers do about this before riding off into the sunset.

Surely you meant before riding off from the smoldering ruins.

I think that the prez should challenge Quayle to a Spelling Bee for all the marbles. If Bush wins, Quayle finances the bailout.

I wonder if the VEBA stock payment happens before the stock value is diluted by the 2/3 bond swap. Or after.

Is Quayle actually dumber than GW?

not sure that the sun will still rise by the time these guys get done with it. Cerberus, in mythology, does in fact live in the underworld.

I think the good thing is that we’re inside of the rule-making window now, so if the new administration objects to whatever shrub dose, they can always move to reverse it…. so hopefully, the rethugs don’t have that much time to actually disburse funds which can be mysteriously “lost” or the companies don’t file and get liquidated by then. Any deal to screw the workers/unions he tries to ram down everybody’s throats can be reversed.

Jane – “pure culture warriorism.”? I assume that you meant Class war, correct?

Stock price is still bouncing around $4. ESOP anyone? LLC with union participation?

one generally assumes that private equity people are supposed to be smart. Sleazy and crafty perhaps, but certainly bright. That Cerberus is clearly being run by a dolt isn’t very promising for anybody. Again, to my point, any deal to save the big 3 must be predicated on dumping management.

Bush to the unions:

“Come on- just bend over here- I’ve gotta at least PRETEND ta be fuckin ya- mah BASE demands it”.

UAW hands Bush the Vaseline

Re VEBA, it is one of a series of targets. This would indicate that there could be considerable wiggle room or dropping of these requirements under Obama.

Thanks Jane

digg

Bob Nardelli has been one of the biggest donors to the RNC and Shrub campaigns. He’s also been extremely vocal about his love of the Shrubbery.

http://www.autodealerscam.org/…..fm?ID=1600

Who could’ve ever predicted the leech of the Heavies?

Thanks. I missed that post.

b

I’m seriously beginning to think that the entire rethug “dark side” of America is structured to award incompetence. Dan Quayle at the head of a big private equity firm, million-dollar-a-year jobs at Carlyle all around for party elites, maintenance jobs for everybody else, especially the sacrificial throwaways, at AEI and Heritage, the presidency for the alcoholic bully, a vice presidential nomination for Bible Spice, federal agencies for Arabian horse traders, con men and washed out legislators, ambassadorships for everybody else.

tho i’m retired i was always in a union when i worked… but as i recall – didn’t a lot of the auto and steelworkers support the god reagan?? electing lots of repugs back in the day? now some of these same repugs are handing them their asses in a sling?? a lot of those unions bought into repug notions – now they finally see the error of their ways…. but maybe i’m wrong…. tho i don’t think so.

Haven’t a clue if Quayle is dumber than Bush but ole Danny boy isn’t nearly as vicious or mean-spirited.

But even the market watchers on CNBC are asking the obvious question — if the President is demanding concessions from the UAW, why is nothing be asked of Cerberus Capital?

Erin Burnette: Mickey Levyare you confident that we have heard what we need to hear as the American taxpayer to the answer about the private equity firm that controls Chrysler, Cerberus? Obviously they have money — they may not want to use it on this, but they didn’t use it to help Chrysler. I’m still trying to get my arms around this — if they wouldn’t bail out their own investment, if they have the money, why are we?

They don’t have the money!

I got it, I know what I want with my Nissan 370Z.

Make mine black (of course, it’s gotta be menacing to make the Porsche Cayman premadonnas sweat their cologne out on the track) with the touring package (leather seats, Bluetooth, auto dimming rear view mirror with Homelink, aluminum pedals, rear cargo cover, upgraded sound system), manual transmission (anybody who orders the automatic in this car has no business getting a sports car, period), sport package (limited-slip differential, upgraded wheels, tires, and brakes, and SynchroRev Match), a navigation system so I don’t get lost getting to the track, and the NISMO oil, transmission and differential coolers to keep temps in check on the track.

And Nissan won’t go under, right? They’re not begging anyone for bailout bucks, right? I wanted a Camaro, but with GM now at the knees of the feds, who can kill anything resembling fun for teh environment, I’d be shocked if the Camaro ever gets to production.

God! those beautiful cars GM made in from the mid 50’s on up to the end of the 60’s. ::::SIGH::: best engines ever made; 283’s and 327’s. Makes me long for my ‘65 Impala Supersports. It was like a living room going down the highway. adn simply to work on; the engine compartment was like a living room too! I miss my 65’s ( ‘cept the 12 mpg -20 on the highway)

yeah, VEBA is a target. That the UAW already agreed to do. Same with the jobs bank. Old news. UAW already agreed to give that up during their last contract negotiations. Last year. They also agreed to let GM postpone the VEBA funding – all of it – until the financial problems are less dire.

As for the actual salaries – if they want parity with Toyota than the UAW gets a $2 per hour raise. Toyota management even said their workers are making more than the UAW now.

So…what’s next?

And Nissan won’t go under, right? They’re not begging anyone for bailout bucks, right?

Actually, Toyota, Honda, Nissan, and all the others are in just as bad of shape as our 2.5. They are already getting bailouts from home (Japan) and from the EU.

The myth that the transplants are doing just find is just that, a myth.

Fuck… Now what?

I guess we better hope like hell that this conniving package Bush has proposed lets them hang on until after January 20. Ford is not in quite as bad a shape as GM and Chrysler. But if GM goes down, the entire industry may well go with it. The suppliers work for ALL the automakers, domestic and transplant. If GM goes – they all go. Even Mr. Ford, CEO of Ford said on Larry King the other day that he did NOT want GM to fail – because it would be bad for everyone in the industry. And it’s not just the suppliers – throw in dealers, truckers, repair shops, the list goes on and on. Three million jobs total.

Ford and GM both are bringing their European (small, fuel-efficient) cars to the US in the next year or so after they get the engines certified and go through all the US testing they have to pass before they can sell here. They have been making these kinds of cars all along – in Europe and Southeast Asia – and making money doing it. But consumers here wouldn’t buy them – everyone wanted a big SUV.

In any case, the real issue is credit. If consumers can’t get credit they can’t buy cars. ANY cars. If the dealers can’t get credit – they cannot re-stock their inventory. If the suppliers can’t get credit they cannot let GM/Ford/anyone buy without paying first. And if Ford/GM/anyone doesn’t have a line of credit to access that allows them to do that they cannot buy parts to make cars out of. The problem is not the cars they produce or their bad business decisions (which they all have made) in the past. It’s the credit crisis in the banking industry. Until that is really fixed, the automakers will continue to be in trouble. And as we have seen, the feds do not understand that they are pouring money down a black hole on that front and nothing is happening.

I’m thinking about getting a Mustang, but I can’t wait another year to get the 5.0-liter V8 that was rumored from the Stangbangers…

Jane,

Thanks for picking up on Bill Kristol’s quote from Sunday. I mentioned it in the Sunday Morning line-up thread and no one was very interested. And then Juan Williams followed Kristol’s surprising and excellent observation with pure plantation caucus spew.

It was an interesting Fox morning news on Sunday…I usually do not watch…I honestly thought I must have missed something in Kristol’s comment because he spoke with a clarity about the Repugs no one has said as well, outside of Progressives.

And yes, a company that judges “who” they make profit from by deciding who goes to financial hell and who gets out of financial hell, sure as hell has to make concessions too. And in the sunlight (i.e. regulation CDS’s)…

Dan Quayle fails on the “good stewardship” front from a faith-based perspective.

one aspect of all this that surprises me is the reluctance to follow the money.

it is just not from you idiots, it is from the muppets, and the financial press.

the story that goes undiscussed is the spin off of gm assets to delphi, ford assets to visteon.

now, the visteon story has been more obscured than the delphi story. but i think it has the same theme.

gm spun off manufacturing assets to make its financials look better. and it called the baseball glove that caught those assets delphi. just as ford spun off assets into an entity known as visteon.

the purpose of these magical spin-offs was to make the parent spinner appear financially sound.

when richard shelby and the other reptillian gangsters[and demtillian gangsters by the way] avoid the story of delphi/visteon, then you should recognize that the gangsters are running the show. and larry kudlow and all the jack welch myrmidons are parties to the confusing of the electorate.

here is how it worked….

and this even appeared in the wsj. since rupert acquired it, important truths have been erased.

but, shortly after delphi filed for bankruptcy/reorganisation, the wsj asked the delphi principal what the post-bankruptcy delphi would look like.

his answer, [to paraphrase]”i don’t know how the final structure will appear, but i can tell you this, we are not keeping the AC spark plug operations.”

how come, he was asked.

his reply, when GM owned and operated this spark plug manufacturing, the average variable cost for a spark plugs for original equipment installation was $2.57. this is the cost that GM had to eat when it built a car.

but, after this AC spark plug operation was spun-off into Delphi, we were coerced to sell spark plugs to GM for $1.57.

so, Delphi was forced to take a dollar loss for each spark plug sold to GM.

spark plugs were not the only components spun-off into delphi that GM[rick wagoner and his board of directors] were mandated to be sold to GM at a loss.

as you may recognize, this strategy allowed GM to claim manufacturing cost reductions, based on a falsehood.

and this scheme did force delphi into bankruptcy.

because it wasn’t just spark plugs that were folded into delphi by
GM that delphi had to sell back into GM below avc. it was every component GM forced into the delphi spin-off.

ford did the same thing with visteon.

all a financial charade. that goes undiscussed.

what makes this very nasty is that the uaw knew of this scam. and kept its mouth shut. i suppose it was hoping that the scam would succeed.

over the last several years, many of the gm assets that were spun-off into delphi have been returned to delphi secretly.

no periodical will discuss this story. the wsj shuns it. as do the nyt, the wapo.

but it the real story of how gm/ford worked to hide their mismanagement.

mismangement at the highest levels.

no uaw had anything to do with this bit of chicanery.

on the other hand, the uaw knows of this bit of financial skullduggery. yet refrains from telling this story.
.

some would ask why. don’t you know. to tell this truth might bring down their sinecures…the entirety of the very corrupt us auto industry

gee, albert – i like the substance of this comment.
we don’t see more of you around here, but there’s this communication problem early on that probably describes the reason pretty well. for some of us, reveling in our idiocy is a full-time job.
well done, otherwise