Thread: India and the Two Faces of General Motors

India and the Two Faces of General Motors

We always seem to hear this:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7477766c-097f ... ftcamp=rss

GM warns it may run out of cash

By Bernard Simon in Toronto and John Reed in London

Published: March 5 2009 12:44 | Last updated: March 5 2009 19:01

"General Motors has warned that billions of dollars in government aid may not prevent it from running out of cash if vehicle sales do not improve soon.
In a regulatory filing, GM, which was overtaken by Toyota as the world’s biggest carmaker last year, underlined the magnitude of its liquidity crisis by warning that it cannot afford to repay a $1bn bond maturing on June 1. The bond is part of $27bn in unsecured debt that GM is seeking to restructure through a debt-for-equity exchange.

Bondholders’ advisers were due to meet on Thursday afternoon with the US government task force overseeing GM’s restructuring. They were ex-pected to ask for a guarantee on new securities that GM would issue as part of its debt restructuring.

GM’s filing repeatedly raises the spectre of a possible bankruptcy filing, in spite of warnings that such a move would be costly and could do irreparable harm to its image in the marketplace.

Deloitte & Touche, [b]GM’s auditors, have expressed “substantial doubtâ€

This has been the not so secret plan of many companies - ditch the American market for sales in the third world. What they hadn't counted on: you can't maintain first world profit margins when your customers earn third world salaries. Also, protectionism is seen as ok when it's India protecting India. Watch them howl about foreign cars once the mood hits them. They won't be polite about it like we were.

The entire idea of endlessly producing by foreigners and buying by us has definitely hit the skids. Out on I-70 east of me, out into the endless high plains farmland of eastern Colorado, is a sign advertising a future transportation hub. This was to be a multi modal port for the large scale transport of foreign goods up from a Mexican port into America (and Canada's) heartland. It was to hook up with an expanded highway and train system, and Denver's new airport, DIA. But the economy faded and they never broke ground for it. Only the sign stands, as a reminder, like Ozymandias.

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

(http://www.online-literature.com/shelley_percy/672/)[/quote]

Well said, BR. I drive a 14-year old Chevy Lumina, which has been a gem, and one of these days I may have to buy another car, which will most likely not be from an American company, none of which may exist at that point. There was an old joke about not buying a car produced on a Monday, as most of the workers were so hung over from the weekend they did not function well.
Another saying "what is good for General Motors is good for America" has taken on a stench I find despicable, because apparently, what is good for GM is earning their dollars elsewhere, cutting the American work force who are supposed to be earning the money to buy their products. And what is more horrific than despicable is that the American taxpayer is going into further debt to make sure this company succeeds. It ain't General Motors, an American company; it is GM: Global Motors.

In the case where after billions in bailout and then GM drops off the cliff..where does that leave the taxpayer?? What a waste..I say let the GM die. I mean, after all, the bailout money that went to them was to keep Americans working according to Obama's mouth. Now GM will be..OUTSOURCING???

Here's the web site for the "port" http://www.transportcolorado.com/transp ... erview.htm

I can't see anything but empty fields until you reach the old settlements that were there before this pipe dream.

Here's a web article from 2006:

http://denver.bizjournals.com/denver/st ... st=s_cn_hl