So what will be General Motors' big announcement tomorrow (7/15)?

[dd74]

Financial reports on NPR state that GM is in very dire straits. Enough, in fact, to go bankrupt. Rumors have stated that the company might close all its plants in North America. Others state that CEO Wagoner will announce tomorrow the selling of Hummer.

It's strange. Budweiser gets bought by a Belgium beer company, and now GM is rumored to call it quits tomorrow. Jeez...WTH is happening here?

[kstar]

Originally Posted by dd74

Financial reports on NPR state that GM is in very dire straits. Enough, in fact, to go bankrupt. Rumors have stated that the company might close all its plants in North America. Others state that CEO Wagoner will announce tomorrow the selling of Hummer.

It's strange. Budweiser gets bought by a Belgium beer company, and now GM is rumored to call it quits tomorrow. Jeez...WTH is happening here?

Bud and Chevy's?

Is Oscar Mayer next?

Seriously, could it have something to do with the Volt?

edit: A ramped up schedule for the Volt could create a very positive, hopeful (dang, there's that word again!) tone . . . as everything else goes to poop . . .

[john70t]

GM moved its plants to Mexico, killed the EV1 with a vengance, turned Saturn into Mccrap, installed spy devices(Onstar) in all it cars, and did itself in.
I'll bring some kindling and marshmellows.

[dd74]

Originally Posted by john70t

GM moved its plants to Mexico, killed the EV1 with a vengance, turned Saturn into Mccrap, installed spy devices(Onstar) in all it cars, and did itself in.
I'll bring some kindling and marshmellows.

Harsh...but accurate.

[speedracing944]

Originally Posted by john70t

GM moved its plants to Mexico, killed the EV1 with a vengance, turned Saturn into Mccrap, installed spy devices(Onstar) in all it cars, and did itself in.
I'll bring some kindling and marshmellows.

As much as I hate my 2000 Saturn it was the only division separated from GM platform sharing and other business practices. Now it is just another Chevy.

Speedy

[deathpunk dan]

Bye bye Buick?

Hopefully NOT goodbye Saturn or Pontiac. Both have some decent products with more in the pipeline.

[Joeaksa]

Originally Posted by dd74

It's strange. Budweiser gets bought by a Belgium beer company, and now GM is rumored to call it quits tomorrow. Jeez...WTH is happening here?

What the F is happening here is that the terrorists are bankrupting us. By causing unrest around the world, especially in the oil producting areas, they are squeezing the noose tighter and tighter day by day. The cost to do anything that requires oil, especially driving, is killing our economy and way of life, and that of other countries around the world.

Notice that none of the oil producing countries (almost all muslim save Venesula, the UK and USA, who is not producing to make the ******* tree huggers happy) are having any problems at all as they are not paying $150 a barrell for oil? This is not an accident folks!

Eventually we will realize this and take action. I hope... unless Obama is in office and then we will beg them to let us live and become paupers paying homage to Mecca.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Originally Posted by john70t

GM moved its plants to Mexico, killed the EV1 with a vengance, turned Saturn into Mccrap, installed spy devices(Onstar) in all it cars, and did itself in.
I'll bring some kindling and marshmellows.

I agree. They also sold themselves out to unions, made promises they could never afford to keep in the form of pension obligations and were strategically about as stupid as a company could be by throwing all their eggs into the (unsustainable) truck and SUV market basket.

Basically GM has been a company without long-term vision for a long time. They have not been a trend-setter at all, they've watched where the winds were blowing at Toyota and then made panicked rushes to try and match them, throwing insane amounts of resources at problems. They have a few (very few) good ideas and innovative approaches, but largely it's just been "more of the same", only with an "American" name badge on it, hoping that will be enough to make next quarter's numbers by appealing to the few remaining brand loyalists around.

They've let the unions utterly paralyze them and they've borrowed an approach right out of the U.S. Government playbook - do whatever you have to do to survive today, regardless of what kinds of promises you need to make or what kinds of obligations you need to commit to in the future - pass the problem on to the future leaders. Their problem. They'll deal with it. Well, the Day of Reckoning is here, either that or it's soon to be here. This has ominous implications for our government (both State of CA and federal).

Originally Posted by joeaska

What the F is happening here is that the terrorists are bankrupting us. By causing unrest around the world, especially in the oil producting areas, they are squeezing the noose tighter and tighter day by day. The cost to do anything that requires oil, especially driving, is killing our economy and way of life, and that of other countries around the world.

Notice that none of the oil producing countries (almost all muslim save Venesula, the UK and USA, who is not producing to make the ******* tree huggers happy) are having any problems at all as they are not paying $150 a barrell for oil? This is not an accident folks!

Eventually we will realize this and take action. I hope... unless Obama is in office and then we will beg them to let us live and become paupers paying homage to Mecca.

I agree to you to a point, but the part you're missing (a very important part) is this once again comes down to a LACK OF VISION. This time on the part of our government leadership and ourselves as decision-makers and ultimately as deciding our own destinies back in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s - right through to today. We saw this coming. We went through an oil crunch in the 1970s and were shocked to see how completely dependent we'd become on foreign oil. Yet we did nothing. Carter's suggestions of exploring alternatives and curtailing demand were laughed at and pooh-poohed by rednecks and schit-kickers who found it more "visionary" to pound their chests and act tough about how "we're the USA and we'll do whatever we want". The tough-guy faux-bravado blamed many of these problems (which we collectively ALL created through our choices) on liberals and environmentalists, rather than being constructive and actually doing something to solve the problem. When Reagan got in office in 1980, he epitomized their bravado and tore the solar panels off the white house, giving the schit-kickers a "feel good" to beat their chests about once more, while in reality doing little other than handing OPEC even more control of the U.S.'s destiny. . .

It is worth pointing out that GEORGE BUSH SENIOR was the one who originally signed the Executive Order (repealed yesterday by GWB) banning offshore drilling. My point is that partisan, party-loyalist bickering is doing NOTHING to accomplish anything insofar as solving the problem. Being a mean-spirited d1ckhead is of little value here. We ALL created this problem. Yes, the liberals hurt us by tying our hands, but the so-called conservatives hurt us by being traditionally wasteful, ignorant and short-sighted. We ALL have egg on our faces and if we're going to solve this one, we need to ALL collectively work side-by-side, not attempt to use the issue for political gain.

This is (as you correctly say) an issue of America versus the Muslim world. This is not an issue of political philosophy (liberal versus conservative). If we sit around and attack each other and point fingers, it accomplishes NOTHING and all it does is perpetuate the status quo, which OPEC is making billions a day off of. If you want to support terrorism and foreign oil dependence, go right on doing nothing other than blaming all our problems on the "tree huggers" the "environmentalists" and the "liberals". Such attitude is of little value here and accomplishes very little.

Here's a more pointed question - what have you DONE (other than complain about how much liberals suck) to reduce our dependence? Have you lobbied Congressional representatives to reinstate offshore drilling? To increase flow through through the Alaska pipeline? Have you spoken to any U.S. automakers and gotten on the record as demanding alternative fuel vehicles? Reduced your own demand by driving less or going to a smaller vehicle?

These are things that are ultimately more useful than sitting around taking cheap shots at our own countrymen. We're being dismantled from the inside-out by the Arabs, who are using Sun Tsu's own tactics against us, letting us corrode from the inside out and making us easier to defeat. Very simple - "a house divided against itself cannot stand". . . All one accomplishes by pointing fingers here is hand a win to the terrorists. We need to fix this problem by (1) moving to a 100% sustainable/domestic powered infrastructure and (2) reducing demand. After that, we can worry about assigning blame.

[gt350mike]

Originally Posted by deathpunk dan

Bye bye Buick?

Hopefully NOT goodbye Saturn or Pontiac. Both have some decent products with more in the pipeline.

Believe it or not, Buick is selling like hot cakes in China so I doubt that they're on the chopping block.

GM is starting to look like a prime target for Toyota.

[Pazuzu]

Originally Posted by Joeaksa

What the F is happening here is that the terrorists are bankrupting us.

A couple hundred people that are thousands of miles away, living in desert camps with poor communication are bankrupting the greatest nation ever to exist?

I think that the only nation right now powerful enough to destroy America IS America, and we're doing a damned good job of it. Don't go shoving the blame across the table, it belongs completely to us.

[KFC911]

Originally Posted by pazuzu

...i Think That The Only Nation Right Now Powerful Enough To Destroy America Is America, And We're Doing A Damned Good Job Of It. Don't Go Shoving The Blame Across The Table, It Belongs Completely To Us.

+1

edited ps: Why is it when you quote someone, the capital letters are inverted on each word

[Pazuzu]

Originally Posted by KC911

+1

edited ps: Why is it when you quote someone, the capital letters are inverted on each word

It's the terrorist...they've bugged the American computers to accelerate our downfall.

[Red Baron]

No more Hummer.


Party at ManBearPig's house to be announced.

[KFC911]

I knew it!!! You must be one of them...they're not inverted in your quote

[Jamie79SC]

+2

[Pazuzu]

The Hummer sounds like the least of their issues...the other stuff will be far more destructive for it's quality as a company.

[JeremyD]

Greatest migration of wealth is happening RIGHT now from the US to the middle east. Right under our noses.

Wonder if they are getting a capital infusion from the nice saudi's - Anybody know where I can learn Farsi?

[Red Baron]

Originally Posted by Pazuzu

The Hummer sounds like the least of their issues...the other stuff will be far more destructive for it's quality as a company.

Hummer sales are down 64% and while not The Fix, it's a start.

[jyl]

Joe, I observe your propensity to view everything through a polarizing lens. But in reality Islamic terrorism has very little to do with the last couple years' run-up in oil prices.

About a third or half of the run-up (my estimate) is due to fundamental demand and supply. The US abandoned fuel efficiency efforts about 10 years ago, CAFE hadn't been updated since the 1980s, American consumers shifted to big SUVs helped by tax breaks. China and other emerging markets are developing strongly and their oil consumption is growing to match. Many years of low oil prices (remember $25/bbl?) starved the oil industry of investment and development. Some large existing fields went into decline. Some major oil-producing countries mis-managed their national oil companies. Various other factors too. So now the global spare oil production capacity is near record lows (<2MM bbl/day) and the peak oil theorists are having a field day.

About a third of the run-up (my estimate) is due to financial speculation. Global stock markets, real estate markets, bond markets all acting badly for over a year, at least. Inflation rising and US dollar declining. Investors looking for a counter-cyclical asset, and found it in oil and other commodities (metals, grains). $300BN of hot money poured into commodities futures markets that had never handled such sums before. This is hedge funds, pension funds, retail investors via commodity ETFs. Oil contracts are largely priced off oil futures, so financial flows drove up spot prices. You can see how oil px correlates to inverse of USD/EUR, for example.

The rest of the run-up (my estimate) is due to political risk - hard to separate from general financial speculation, but you see this at work every time there is saber-rattling over Iran.

Notice that Islamic terrorism doesn't figure much in the above. A little bit of impact, e.g. you might call the Nigerian MEND group terrorists but they aren't really what I would call Islamic terrorists. AFAIK they are more upset about the fact that Nigeria has collected $400BN of oil revenues but its people remain among the poorest on earth.

Now, I think Islamic terrorists have the ability to impact the oil market, if they aggressively started attacking oil facilities in the Middle East. But that hasn't been their focus, AFAIK. For example, The Taliban is spending its bodies attacking US bases in Afghanistan, not Saudi pipelines.

Originally Posted by Joeaksa

What the F is happening here is that the terrorists are bankrupting us. By causing unrest around the world, especially in the oil producting areas, they are squeezing the noose tighter and tighter day by day. The cost to do anything that requires oil, especially driving, is killing our economy and way of life, and that of other countries around the world.

[Neilk]

GM Europe apparently makes some pretty good car apparently. DOT and the EU equivalent need to harmonize their regulations and allow GM to import their small cars here with a minimum of fuss. Right now it's too time consuming and expensive to do so.

That said, it doesn't help American workers at GM, but if they can produce those cars here, it might help.