9 Bailout Surprises From GM and Chrysler

Reader Comments
Back to blog

Let them die. This bail-out was completely misguided. Where is this money coming from? Why are we not thinking of real "change" and investing in public transit instead of throwing good money after bad, into a clearly failed and environmentally irresponsible industry?

NoCarsGo of NY 12:54PM October 07, 2009

GM can try if they may..but they dont have the moxi to make it. they are to busy paying off all their big dogs their denaro. and they have their prorities in the wrong place. They are now government motors. What does that tell you.. They kicked all their employees in the teeth.. what a steallar company, Its just a matter of time.. everyone that was loyal to them theyate up.. So where else do they have to do... Customers are important.. yeah right... look at their track record...cant teach an old dog new tricks.... there going down.....

Trulia04 of WI 4:30PM August 30, 2009

GM can try if they may..but they dont have the moxi to make it. they are to busy paying off all their big dogs their denaro. and they have their prorities in the wrong place. They are now government motors. What does that tell you.. They kicked all their employees in the teeth.. what a steallar company, Its just a matter of time.. everyone that was loyal to them theyate up.. So where else do they have to do... Customers are important.. yeah right... look at their track record...cant teach an old dog new tricks.... there going down.....

Trulia04 of WI 4:26PM August 30, 2009

If the government wants to see the economy boom again and get out of the recession then maybe instead of dishing out billions of dollars to troubled companies dish the billions out to the consumers who have to spend it to boost the economy because not every consumer is going to qualify for a personal loan, home or car loan since lenders are being more causous in lending. And why doesn't the government listen to the people's opinions who elect them. The people "consumers" are the ones that count.

Nancy Neumann of IL 4:43PM June 15, 2009

what does general motors do with their bailout becuse their usinng taxpayer money to save them from bankruptcy

sasha mac of MD 9:12PM April 19, 2009

what does general motors do with their bailout becuse their usinng taxpayer money to save them from bankruptcy

sasha mac of MD 9:08PM April 19, 2009

Mr Newman should get his facts straight before he publishes an article of this nature. First I would like to tell him Chrysler asked for an addition 5 Billion dollars in loans not an additional 11 billion. This economic situation is not the doing of either GM nor Chrysler. It is the fat cats on Wall Street who got rich and have now gotten billions of dollars in aid with no questions asked. AIG has a far reach but if GM went under think of th domino effect of suppliers going under, workers losing their jobs, 401 pensions plans that have GM stock washed away, unemployment benefits the government would have to pay, foreclosures for people losing their homes would sink the financial industry into a deeper sinkhole.
The EU is granting billions of dollars to 6 European countries to help their auto industry why is the US any different. Mazda was down 69% in Janpan in February, Nissan 62%, Honda and Toyota about 50%. And we cannot help out our two auto companies?

MS of MI 7:56PM March 12, 2009

Read JC of NC's comments and decided to do some Googling. I found as many Toyota Electrical problems as I did Oldsmobile Electrical problems. There just isn't that much difference between them. I have never met anybody who actually had something fall off a domestic car but I always hear about it on the news. Just another myth that keeps being perpetuated. They say the domestic automakers don't make cars people want but GM outsold Toyota until last year so somebody must have wanted the cars and trucks they produced. Just more crap from the people who hate anything built in the US.

Bill Dearborn of NY 2:34PM March 12, 2009

Most of what this guy writes about is bull crap .He is a non-american product lover . He only stated that the american companys are doing bad . Well I hate to burst your bubble but Toyota is in real bad shape right now .They have cut production on there top brand the Camry as well as many others.Most plants are only running every other week.As for the Tundra they have already cut down to one plant making them now and most of them going over seas.All this is not the car companys fault.Yes there well always be cars out there that some people don't like but you can't please every one.And just cause the car might be junk that its not just the companys fault its also the suppliers fault.As far as the car companys being in a bind its the government fault.First they let gas go out of sight in such a little time.Second they gave bailouts to the banks when they should not have .They thought that would fix things and it did not it made things worst.People who had good credit don't have now.They should have given it to the tax payers so that they pay there loans off(fixed the banks and probly the houseing market) and restore everyones credit and then they could buy more stuff and apply for more loans.HOW IS ANYONE TO BUY A CAR,TRUCK,OR AN SUV IF YOU DO NOT HAVE GOOD CREDIT.If we don't be carefull the government will own everything.

AH of KY 2:05PM March 12, 2009

The truth is where no one seems to look for it. What no one seems to want to admit is the entire world is going through a social and economic dislocation. The systems that have been in place since WWII are now collapsing as they are based on old models of economics, technolgy, global power and reach of the United States, Europe and parts of Asia.
The former Soviet Union found out they were the walking dead almost 20 years ago now. And when one considers what it is taking to keep the corpse of the USA warm, it is not hard to imagine the US suffering a similar fate to the old Soviet Union.
The world is spinning out of the control of the US and its allies, and it seems no amount of money or military weapons systems can stop this unraveling. Never mind the messes in Afghanistan and Iraq, just look over the border to Mexico if you want a real scare. But we really don't want to talk about that, keeping Mexico a slave-wage state used to be good for western business interests like Ford, Volkswagen, big pharma and many others. But now we risk a country on our border ruled by sociopathic drug lords and an entire culture of crime and depravity. Just like every right-wing dictator we ever backed has turned around and bit us in the ass, now Mexico will become a bigger problem than Iran or North Korea ever had ambitions to be. Our sky-high military budget cannot solve the problem, how can you win a war against people who have nothing to lose and it cost you $5 million for a cruise missile that destroys a wooden shack? Or a $1500 shoulder-mounted SAM takes out a billion-dollar fighter plane. The economics of this kind of warfare are obviously very flawed. But there is a lot of money to be made producing cruise missiles and billion-dollar planes for the military world-wide.
Communism is dead, and capitalism is digging its own grave. We need a new system; a new economic model where the neither the party elite of the state nor the rich control most of the wealth. The country that evolves this new system will be the one to reap the rewards of the future.
Get ready for a new world, because today's "recession" is no ordinary economic event. It is the prelude to global change, as big a change as we have ever seen. The technology of today and the near future have rendered the old systems unsustainable. And this will continue and become more and more obvious to everyone.
What do we need to do as people to get through this? We need to rethink the way we live, the way we consume and the way we waste. Truth is that there is no way everyone on the planet could ever live a western middle class lifestyle with today's economic system. The system simply wastes too much of the resources needed to accomplish this goal for everyone.
This system, like old communism in Russia, is collapsing from its own dead weight, and no amount of money, magic or screaming and crying can ever make this dead horse win the race.

Ken Richards of MA 11:13AM March 12, 2009