Game over, GM in Chapter 11...
 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31030038/

We have been predicting it for years, sad sign of the times.

It seems to have been built into the market so no negative reaction.

This is such socialist BS though, why is the government a 60% stakeholder? I don't want to own it, they should liquidate what they have to, to get our tax money back than like the market take care of it. What is GM going to be like VW and Airbus now? Wards of the state and burdens on the taxpayer?

OTOH since we own 60% I want a better deal on my trucks tranny fluid change!:D

1000.00 worth of stock at 37 cents gets you a bunch of shares!

If it ever goes up in the teens, you made yourself a nice chunk of change on 1000.00
:P

I agree. The govenrnment should never have been involved. So now we have a giant inefficient state controlled albatross around the neck of the American tax payer. Sounds rather like the Brit car industry years ago when it was all British Leyland, untill it all imploded and the carcasses were picked over by foreign companies.

Probably going to suck for my wife. Her Saturn Vue is paid for and coming up on 51K miles. I wonder if they'll honor the warrantee to 60K.

- Peter.

this blows.. we bought two new Chevrolet 4 years ago... Hope they are still around so we can buy that Camaro

Pray tell, just who else would have bought the 60% stake? The government is a 60% stakeholder because there were no other buyers PERIOD. Would you have preferred an immediate, total collapse? It would have left everyone with nothing, at least with this solution the company has a chance to remake itself. This "socialist" BS is tireing and stupid. None of the Democrats, and certainly Obama did not, run on a platform of "taking over the automobile industry", instead this was just some big fat mess that got dumped in Obama's lap, and considering how bad this could have been, this outcome seems like a pretty good deal to me. The auto companies and the Republicans fought CAFE standards and gas guzzler taxes for years, and now you guys want to cry "socialism" when this big, fat corpulent corporation that produced big, fat corpulent cars for big, fat corpulent surbanites finally crapped out, choking to death on over-priced SUVs and other vehicles that only appealed to a small segment of the world car market when they could have been making cars that sell overseas. We don't see Ford in this jam, do we? You think it might be because Ford didn't just roll over and die in the face of Japanese competition, it instead went head to head with them on the world market? The Ford Focus is a huge success story. So are it's fuel-efficient Escape SUVs, heck, they ain't no Hummers, and they don't have a seat designed for a size 64 ass, but for some reason, they sure have out-sold them. And where was GM's comparable car to the affordable Mustang? Oh yeah, its that ridiculous Camaro-clone over there, with an extra 10 grand added to the sticker for nostalgia. Tell you what, when Obama says he wants to nationalize Ford, get back to me with your whine.

In a word, yes. Business that do not succeed should be closed that they make way for newer enterprises that CAN compete. 60% stake owned by the Govt. Which one? The one that uses accounting tricks and can't even balance it's own checkbook or "fix" one thing but create another problem? Oh, yeah! I feel good now.

Who cares?

So I guess only the government was stupid enough to buy - with our money - what nobody else was stupid enough to touch?

Yes. That's what happens to companies that fail. It's the nature of capitalism.

It did not get dumped in his lap. It's none of his damm business. Get it? BUSINESS. Not government. Government should stay the hell out of BUSINESS. They will never make a profit while they are a state controlled organization beholden to eco freaks and the UAW. Who by the way, are the worst socilists of the bunch. So Billions more will continue to be wasted on them down the road. Switching from capitalism (where the company failed) to socialism to keep the corpse on life support is a fundamentally un american thing to do. It is a reward for failure and only those who think failure should be rewarded will support it.

Not yet.

- Peter.

I hear you JR. I wish republicans and people who lean toward them were a little more practical and less ideological. I don't think anyone really wanted to see GM or any other car maker nationalized, including Obama who's stated clearly he will NOT run GM, but obviously (maybe not obvious to some) this is being done for the greater economic good and most likely it will be temporary. Personally I don't care for GM and their products, and I don't like to see the govt spending even more money, but I can certainly see the economic benefits of this move vs. GM's total collapse and liquidation which would have far-reaching consequences well beyond GM's immediate business. Hopefully the govt will eventually make some money out of this too.

BTW, the Canadian govt is getting about 12.5%, so total govt ownership of GM will be close to 3/4.

Didn't he fire the last head of GM? Can we assume the new boss is there irrespective of whether he has govt blessing or not?

No, you can see the economic POTENTIAL benefits. If it screws up, well......

IF they can even break even, I think it will be a miracle. BTW, wasn't part of the money advanced to them so far already written off?

No doubt the govt will now have even more influence on the company and will probably participate in major strategic/long term decisions but Obama will certainly not run the company's day to day operations. Trust me, I don't like this either and I'd probably get some selfish joy out of seeing GM disappear from this Earth, but that's not what it should be about. I'm glad our present govt is mostly data-driven and not so much emotion/ideology driven like the previous one.

That's kinda splitting hairs, isn't it? Besides, I don't think Obama will run the day to day stuff but of course, if he doesn't like a direction GM is taking, well..... Wonder what the new boss looks like UNEMPLOYED?

Many in congress are incumbents so don't be too sure.

I think it's a good thing for the govt to have some power/influence over the company since it has invested so much taxpayer money into it, don't you think? Or would you prefer GM takes all this govt money and the govt has no input or control whatsoever? I wouldn't.

I meant the executive branch is more data-driven than the previous one. No comment on Congress.

Yes, having sunk much of OUR money, it has bought itself a stake hence a voice. HOWEVER, I wish Bush and now Obama wouldn't have gotten themselves into that mess in the first place.

But much of the country is run out of congress so that is kinda important.

Nobody likes a mess. But sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

No argument there.

I wish that they would just leave it alone. Right now, we have the blind leading the blind. Like I said, we'd be lucky to simply break even. However, I was reading that a large part of the advanced money is slated NOT to be recovered. If that is true, does that give you confidence we will not be sinking more money into a pit?