Results tagged “GM” from Green Mesh

General Motors Corp. has struck a deal to sell its Hummer truck unit to a Chinese industrial business, Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Company Ltd. cnn.com/money

Trading a bicycle for a Hummer.

U.S. taxpayers, owning a major share of Government Motors, have given the Chinese people a new tool to consume themselves into the same standard of unsustainable living that has brought the U.S. population to it's current state .

More is always better.

The current success of the global free market has depended on massive consumption. What better tool to speed up this process for China than a vehicle, that when properly equipped, can consume gallons per mile!

Depleting China's resources, and increasing their standard of living and thus leveling wages with us will surely keep the quality of life in the U.S. from eroding further from outsourcing.

A free freezer filled with grain feed beef as an incentive with each Chinese Hummer sold in China would help complicate their diet further, burn up resources faster and make Chinese people less healthy.

As an added bonus, U.S. consumers will be able to continue to enjoy their ride in a new outsourced, Chinese made Hummer in the near future.

Nothing concentrates the mind more than a death sentence, except when the sentencing is clouded with taxpayer money.

The automakers are back in Washington making their last ditch plea today.The more I listen to these exchanges, the more I realize that life is destined to change for all of us.

Both G.M. and Chrysler are racing to complete restructuring plans by Tuesday's deadline with the Treasury Department. After listening to this plea my mind is concentrating on how this can possibly work long-term.

Over capacity, too expensive, too much debt. Regardless of how you look at it; your opinion of the Detroit 3s products, your opinion of unions, and the obvious desire by all of us not to slip into a depression, it doesn't work.

The plan to bail out car companies is stalling what we have been avoiding all along by using debt to bolster an out of balance global economy that is employing cheaper labor costs (the jobs that gave people money to consume in the United States) and wealth to developing countries.

Some alarming highlights I heard during this discussion.

• Ford is valued at $3.4 billion, General Motors $1.8, and Chrysler $0.5. BMW, a small niche company, is valued at $14 billion. Detroit automakers are seeking about $60 billion total in bridge loans from taxpayers that in all likelihood will not be paid back because these companies are worth a fraction of the loan amount.

  Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Economy.com, testified before Congress in December that it would cost between $75 billion and $125 billion to bailout the Big Three.



• Pennsylvania is home to 83,000 jobs associated with automotive part supply.

I was listening to U.S. Rep Ed Markey of Massachusetts, chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, address the automakers the other day on C-SPAN as the hearings kept grinding away.

He brought up the idea that Detroit has worked on the premise that you can litigate and advertise your way to profit. If you don't want to meet mileage standards then sue the government agency trying to force you to meet them and then once you have something profitable keep selling it even if it goes against a global trend of sustainability.

Meanwhile, other companies innovate and fill the void that is reality ultimately taking the market.

U.S. Rep. Todd Platts, from York County, commented on the auto bailout earlier this week in this video.

After a public relations massacre last month when pan handling CEO's seeking a bailout from consumers cruised in on jets that cost $20,000 for the day, Tuesday was a day of reckoning.

This time, the big three drove cars to Washington.

"There is not a Plan B," said GM Chief Operating Officer Fritz Henderson. " Absent support, the company can't fund its operations.

The chief executives of GM and Ford, stung by the public relations mess caused by recent comments at congressional hearings, said they will be willing to accept salaries of $1 a year. Ford plans to sell its five corporate jets, while GM will stop using corporate jets. cnn.money

In 1978, Lee Iacocca took on the challenge of transforming Chrysler for just $1 in compensation which was saved after he sought and landed a loan guarantee from Congress in 1979.

Chrysler went on to use those resources to build the K car platform on the success of the Omni, Horizon twins. These fuel efficient front-wheel-drive cars would be considered junk by today's standard, but for a country fresh out of a 1970's Arab Oil Crisis, they were great frugal tools from a manufacturer with a history of building big Detroit iron.