I agree with you there, this will definitely motivate more people to buy foreign cars. It's too bad it's come to this.:(

I just wanted to point something out here: Citibank lead the charge to loan money to illegal Mexicans. They went as far as hiring over 400 Spanish speaking mortgage finance pros.
These guys would go around and help illegals get loans without documentation and even jobs! All they needed to say was that they did landscape work under the table and they were golden.
Add twenty friends from the home land and suddenly you have a bunch of illegals with 13 cars and a house they turned into one BIG MATTRESS.

As soon as they defaulted on the loan, many took sledge hammers and destroyed the homes turning them virtually into junk.

One of my employees just bought his house and he told me that 5 out of 10 homes he looked at were damaged in this manner and 8 out of 10 had extensive remodeling done so the home could sleep 20+ people.

Now we find out Citibank has $1.4 Trillion in bad home loans.
I'm sure everyone can remember when Bank of America followed suit.
All these banks were jumping on the band wagon attempting to loan to illegals. A market untouched (for a damn good reason).

I would rather see the big three get $100 billion each than see these back stabbing banks get a dime!!


Sorry, I had to rant.

Rich

dude - you could not be further from accuracy

Having first hand experience with dealing with the hispanic community, these are usually the most hard working and proud group of individuals you will ever find. Keep your racist rants on another website - you sound like an idiot. Stereotyping an entire group in order to excuse the general irresponsibility of the american consumer and the corporations that caused this mess is about the dumbest thing I have seen in a while.

One of the issues that will exist with altering the current union agreements outside of bankrupcy (and probably the biggest reason that no union managers are making any public comments) is the potential snowball effect into other industries. Legacy agreements are hurting other manufacturing industries and I am sure that those other businesses would welcome the opportunity to eliminate those problems. If the big 3 were given a mechanism to eliminate or significantly alter their relationship with the UAW due to hardship I imagine that it would be difficult to deny that same option to other industries who are similarly burdoned. That is probably why many in the government are leaning to some form of bankrupcy over a straight bailout.

I know that it is difficult to see how 25 billion dollars will make a rats butt of difference given the companies respective burn rate (I know that I don't see how it will help) but... there are so many different cause's and effect's in play here that if a real plan can be made (aside from eliminating voice mail, stopping the clocks and changing from mechanical to old fashioned yellow B pencils) then maybe they can succeed.

However, in my humble opinion looking from the outside in, I think that the only way to succeed (especially if GMAC etc want to be viable) two things will need to happen - first, total unit sales will have to decrease and second, a major change will have to be made to manufacturing costs (and that will have to involve the unions). As it has been pointed out, GM has been the volume sales leader and yet they are not profitable as is....

just my two bits

so you dont support the banks who lent money to people in america regardless of that wrongfull statement about mexicans and their contribuition to this problem, but you support gm who sends our jobs to mexico?

I think Jack Welch had it right on CNBC a few days ago. Prepackaged bankruptcy with the federal government guaranteeing the debtor-in-possession financing if necessary, including warranty obligations. I think they have made great strides with their products and just need to deal with their costs. Given their long history, I don't think management and the UAW are capable of dealing with the cost issue outside of bankruptcy. That's why they are in the position they are in, they've had their chance and they took too long.

"The only thing the government should be doing is relaxing manufacturing regulations to bring back those business and jobs to the US while increasing tariffs on imports especially from countries that ban importing US goods."


See my previous comment about the number of cars exported to Korea --- NONE! and to Japan? Thank the government for allowing those agreements to go thru...

Darren

Flash I love you like to tell everyone they don't understand how the sky will fall and how folks don't 'get it' when it comes to the bailouts, but you've yet to articulate your point of exactly why this looting is necessary outside of 'we need a financial system'.

Think what you want Tony, but I decided after my last post to leave this thread alone. We obviously have a disagreement about this. I have neither the time nor the patience for this topic. I usually don't allow myself to get into these types of threads and I broke my own rule here. I want to talk about and read about car stuff on this forum. I follow financial blogs and sites for my financial/econ information. Calculated Risk is a great one if you are interested. So is Paul Krugman's blog at the NYT.

My intention was not to talk down to anyone. Have fun with this. Unsubscribed.

I have had enough of all of this and see only one solution.
1st we all have to agree on one thing. 2nd we all have to stand together. 3rd we have to act upon it and make sure it happens.

There is only one thing that it seems we all do and that is point the finger at the top of everyone involved. Whether it be the auto industry,the banking industry,the polititions or the unions the one thing we all seem to agree on is that there are people representing all of us in one place or another that need to be taken out. How we take them out is a subjective attitude that we(the american people) have to change to do it. The people on top are not going to walk away and they sure aren't going to take each other out either. It's a stalemate on a chessboard that has the American people in check.

It will take all of us to finally agree on the fact that it is this one perception,one way to act that brings us together. When we start to have enough support to arrest and prosecute along with remove and replace the cause of the main roots of the problem only then will this country get the cooperation and results it is looking for. When you start to hear the words BAILOUT associated with the names of people who just got arrested and put in jail for the crimes they have commited against this country will you see the attitude on top change. Until then we will continue to be raped and lied to with the deception that gets passed around through all of the blame and finger pointing that makes us divided.

I don't know what else to say anymore and I sure am tired of listening to everyone argue about who is to blame.

IT'S ALL OF US , THE AMERCAN PEOPLE WHO ARE TO BLAME !!!!!!!

WE have to stand together on one issue and act on it. That issue has to be who has to go and who gets to stay on the top no matter which part of the top you look at.

I PRAY that someday this will happen until then I see no hope for any of what we are fighting about to change a damn thing!