Trexus

I wake up this morning and this is the first article I see on Yahoo!

http://news.yahoo.com/general-motors...--finance.html

There was an article where Mary Barra (current CEO of GM) stated that "Let's recall every single vehicle GM ever made", now that is very seriously admitting how bad of a job GM is manufacturing sub-par vehicles. I will find that article and post it, currently I have to attend to some business I need to take care of...

swajames

The net cost of the bailout (reportedly around $9B to $10B) must be viewed in context - we're a country with a GDP of close to $18 trillion US and the net cost wasn't a huge amount in the grand scheme of things. To my mind we've spent more and got less on plenty of other less deserving causes. We're able to look at things with the benefit of hindsight, now, but I still believe the bailout was the right thing to do and in the best interests of the country at that time. GM and/or Chrysler going under would have had ramifications that went well beyond just those particular manufacturers and their particular industry. The government at the time did the right thing.

mmarshall

She was probably being facetious. There is generally a marked difference in build-quality between those GM products before and after the buyout. Most of the ignition-recalls have been on models up to 2009, though there a couple up to 2012.

swajames

If you're thinking of this one, it was a spoof...

http://www.tgdaily.com/social/128886...icle-ever-made

4TehNguyen

iTrader: (1)

and it changed nothing, GM is going to be in huge trouble when the 96% of their loans which are under 660 credit rating default. Then what, another bailout? If GM was such a healthly company why sell shares at a $9.7B loss?

LeX2K

Bailing out corporations should not be a "cause" good grief. Otherwise why not just bail out all companies that are near bankruptcy I'm sure an argument could be made about most of them being worth saving. Heck why stop there just give every person money to save them from bankruptcy, bail out money for all!

swajames

1) the article you posted referencing that was from 2013
2) it was talking about GM Canada
3) it's probably bogus. I don't believe for a second that 96% of their borrowers are subprime. The article that had that statistic is no longer on their website.

swajames

It's not that simple. According to the BLS, close to 4m jobs in the US are dependent upon the auto industry. Had one or both of GM or Chrysler failed, the impact on the industry and likely cost to the taxpayer would quite probably have been considerably more significant than the bailout. The bailout was, in all likelihood, by far the lesser of the evils on the table.

4TehNguyen

iTrader: (1)

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articl...me-Loan-Crisis

swajames

This article actually proves my point...

GM Financial is a subprime lender. GMF accounted at that time for around 10% of GM's financing. The majority of GM's lending is through Ally and will be largely prime.

Most GM customers aren't with GMF, and the article isn't talking about most GM customers.

mmarshall

+1

gengar

My feeling as well. The mere fact that people actually refer to a private, for-profit enterprise as a "cause" just boggles the mind. The bailout of GM is now being talked about like it was charity. These posts vividly demonstrate why the US is 17+ trillion in debt - and racking it up with no end in sight.

spwolf

why not read full article:

Plus another $4 billion in bad loans to dealers, and thats over $20 billion of bad debt already... I bet that will grown in next few years as well.

But hey, whats $20 billion to USA when it is already in trillions of debt... or $40 billion or... whatever else this would start (domino effect).

mmarshall

Interesting. With all of of the griping in this thread about how much the bailout cost and how much more it put us in debt, no two sources (or articles) can even seem to agree on how much it originally cost, how much it will ultimately cost, or even how much money it SAVED the government by NOT having many more thousands of auto-industry employees thrown out of work.

One thing it seems like a least the majority of us here DO believe (with some exceptions) is that it has given us somewhat better GM and Chrysler-badged vehicles, even if some work still remains to be done.

LexBob2

It does make for good fodder for discussion that goes on and on and on...