Here's a study showing more bad news for the auto industry and taxpayers. 

Every GM Vehicle Sold Costs Taxpayers $12,200

Oh swell,  $24,000 per car!   White House Fires Back at Critical Cash for Clunkers Report.   Only a government program could waste so much for so little.   The pure stupidity of this program should give pause for those who think government should do more in our lives.   

Good article on Government Motors by George Will.  Have We Got a Deal for You.  He writes on the reasons why Government Motors will fail.

Car Dealers hope to get paid for the money they had to put up to be part of Cash for Clunkers.   Read about it here.   Of course they may not pay this month either,  if the government was a person or a business,  people would call them deadbeats.    Hopefully this "program" won't cost someone their business.   Its been a rough year to be in the car business, maybe even worse then real estate. 

The government sure is a deadbeat.  Very little of the Cash for Clunkers has made it to dealers yet.   Some dealers are owed millions!

Dealers Hope for Payment as Clunkers Program Ends.  

Good piece over at National Review on why the Clunkers was a bad thing to do.  Uncreative Destruction

Good article on the idiocy of government mandated ethanol in gasoline.   Use More Ethanol, Burn More Gas.   Why anyone would think letting the government control even more of our lives is a good idea is mentally unstable.    Another fact overlooked by the "mainstream" media.    Yet another not so green,  "green technology".    Do we have to be stuck on stupid?

Cash for Clunkers is out of money again.  Thats another 3 billion socked to the taxpayer by the feds this year.    Hopefully it won't kill any more car dealers (like most programs,  the government is a deadbeat and pays late,  good luck paying your taxes that late.)   Some will get hosed anyway.    What a dumb way to kill the economy.  

Americans have been going car shopping like crazy the last week or so.   Who knows when the second two billion runs out on the Cash for Clunkers.   (How 1970's does this thing sound to you?, it sure does to me)

The Clunker Bill (CARS)   gives the buyers of new cars up to 4500 bucks for "recycling" an old car.   (NOTE: "old" cars can include up to the 2004 model year, hardly an old vehicle).    Of course the turned in cars have to get lower gas mileage and the new ones have to have higher mileage,  so liberals get their those hated SUV's off the road (never mind that most prefer a larger vehicle).  

While many, if not most American's probably think this is a good program.    I actually am surprised by how popular it is.    But like a typical government program it ran out of money far sooner then they thought.  Big surprise,  ha ha. 

However this program isn't even doing what the creators of this program want it to do.    It was designed to help the environment.   It isn't. 

How green is it to not recycle the cars the way that most cars already are recycled.   Very little of most scraped cars go to a landfill the way things already are.    But CARS does not allow regular car scraping happen.   Most old cars have parts that have value removed for resale as used parts.   But CARS demands that these valuable parts be destroyed with the rest of the car.    So energy is used destroying usable used parts.   Can't be green.  

Not good for low income motorists either.   Used cars and parts are removed from the market increasing the price of those things.   The 500 dollar used car is now 1500 bucks.  Not good for those on a small budget.  The used part for that car is more expensive,  or not available as a used part, so you have to buy  a new part or do without.   

If anything this program is part of the greater liberal program of GETTING AMERICANS OUT OF THEIR PRIVATE CARS!

Lefties hate private cars (well,,,,,, your private car, not theirs).  People driving are people not taking public transit.    98.99999% something of traveled mile is by car in the U.S.  (and pretty much most of more "transit friendly" Europe as well).   Less then one percent of Americans regularly use public transit,  less then five percent have ever set foot on public transit even.   Cars just aren't going to disappear. 

Just that this program is popular shows that cars are going to be the popular mode of travel for the foreseeable future.   Even little crappy "green" cars. 

I think that many liberals think that if they make owning cars an expensive,  inconvenient and annoying preposition, they will get folks into buses.  Never mind that riding buses are an annoying and inconvenient and most cannot  handle more then what they got now.  Americans aren't going to get out of their cars without a fight.   Inconvenient cars trump inconvenient buses every day.  

It also show how little government thinks of the private market and how it works.   They work hard at making it seem like it is broken,  and that they are the solution.   Never mind they are the ones making the problems.   Every time that the government gets into cars, weird things happen to the auto marketplace.  

Take the much criticized but loved SUV.   When I was a kid (I'm 35),  families drove big station wagons.  SUV's were rare,  most were for outdoor types and tradesman.  But due to CAFE (the federal law that determined mileage standards for automakers),  the days of the big wagon were doomed.   Nobody makes a large station wagon today.    Most families drive SUV's today.  Its that or drive two cars everywhere (also not green).  Why, because  SUVs were trucks and big wagons were cars,  CAFE didn't cover trucks so thats what got built and Americans fell in love with them.    

Would have SUV's been as popular as they were in the 1990's without CAFE?   My guess would be no,  not so much.  

Who knows what Obama new rules on cars will bring.    My guess is liberals will hate it even more then they hate the SUV market they unwitting created. 

Stay tuned more on this nonsense. 

Now that Government Motors has now been born,   the stupidity of it all continues to baffle the mind. 

The remaining portions of the old GM were given over to  the new entity which is the GM that exited bankruptcy a few weeks ago.   Its a new "company".     Whether or not it ever manages to become a privately owned company seems very unlikely to this blogger.     When you are owned mostly by the folks that got you to this point of insolvency,  the idea that private investors would be interested in owning stock is ridiculous.  

The government will, basically,  have to give it away to rid itself of it (another reason  it will never be free of federal ownership).   The unions will never give up its 20 percent stake willingly in the new GM making the company even more worthless to anybody.  (Not that the 20% is worth anything now,  but its a badly kept secret that union leaders have wanted ownership of GM for decades, and B.O. gives it to them in six months). 

Is GM's days in Bankruptcy Court over?   NOT BY A LONG SHOT!   It will be there again.    Any private owner that would manage to get control of it, would have to send it there again, no question,  its only a matter of time.    It will go there again many, many times if the government keeps it too.

Will GM survive?   Not as we know it,  thats for sure.  

The only way for GM to survive and live again is private owners.   Pure and simple!

The government cannot save it,  it will only burn up billions of taxpayer money the longer it is owned.  

The best outcome of this mess, may be the breakup of the parts that have some value.    We may see what is possible if Saturn survives as a brand under ownership of Penske (its too bad even that was done so bad politically).    Of course, the only thing is,  that  Penske is going to make no attempt at actually building cars.  (they are going to pay others to build cars, I can't see GM getting too many contracts).   I don't see this company working out,  but what about other more business oriented investors.

What about creating new smaller privately owned auto companies out of the remaining assets of GM?

Most if not all could be union free, to make them competitive again.   The factories,  some of the brand names could live on under new management and as new companies.  

A broken up GM, if allowed to break up the way it should be done (the way it should have been done already).   could spark a revival of the American auto industry.    GM was so big,  several good sized companies could emerge.  Image several new companies making great cars making money  instead of a deadweight GM making cars nobody wants at taxpayer expense.   They could do joint ventures like the car companies already do,  if they aren't big enough etc.    Far more jobs could be saved or created by allowing the market do the job instead of the government wasting huge amounts of our money.   When was the last time a new American auto company been created?  A long time (due to government regulation barring the way, go figure).   But few have vision. 

Why does GM need to be saved?

I sure can't think of a reason. 

Fox News Poll: Americans Disapprove of GM Takeover

We, the people of the United States of America overwhelmingly oppose the formation of a government run General Motors.  

The federal government has NO business trying to run a private business using our tax dollars to support a failing enterprise.  

While General Motors was not well run as a private business in recent years,  government  control will manage to run it even worse! 

Building "Politically Correct" Vehicles will not return GM to a profitable status,  it will only lead to more losses,  and the taxpayer will pay. 

GM will never return to private hands no matter how much President Obama says it will.   Government never gives back what it has taken, it will not give up power without a fight.  

The loss of freedom that will occur due to more government control of  private businesses.  This isn't just the loss of cars that we want to buy,  that Government Motors won't make.   Its not just the cars they will make, that we won't want to buy, but will have to pay for anyway.   But the loss of free will because of more government intrusion in our lives.



Part 2

The bailout of GM and Chrysler has already failed.   Taxpayers have been forced to subsidize both GM and Chrysler to the tune of well over fifty billion dollars (so far).  Taxpayers have lost that money forever.   They both should have declared bankruptcy much earlier.    That's the remedy of a bankrupt business.    That is the path that should have been taken.    It wasn't taken, due to politics and politics alone. 

Now they have been forced into bankruptcy anyway.   The "Bailout" was sold to the American people as a remedy against the automakers going into bankruptcy.    The "bailout" was opposed by the American people as proposed by former President Bush as much as today's takeover by President Obama.    The government officials running this program have NO experience  in the automobile business.   Not one minute. 

Now bankruptcy will fail as well.    It has been twisted  into something that bankruptcy isn't supposed to be.   It really isn't a bankruptcy per say.   Some of the players that brought down these companies are now getting a large part of GM.    Labor Unions are that group.    They will receive about twenty percent of GM.   They managed to jump ahead of GM real owners,  the stockholders, who will now have about ten percent of the remains of this company. 

Allowing the labor unions to control part of GM will make it hard for a future private owner (if there ever will be a private owner again) to reform this company.    They will oppose any attempts to fix the financial problems of this company.    The financial future,  is really the only problem that has to be solved.   If that cannot be fixed there will be no General Motors.    One can only rob Paul to pay Peter so many times before the house of card falls again. 

 One of the biggest problem of not reforming the labor unions at GM is this.   It will limit the amount of experienced people that will be willing to try to save this company,  the voice of the union must be changed from the nonsense that it babbles about today to a more sensible one.   If the unions have the final say,   we will end up with more of the same,  incompetents "running"  the head office.   The best and brightest will stay away knowing that they will fail no matter what they do.




Part 3

We call for the sale of General Motors back to the private sector.   Immediately!  

The taxpayers will unfortunately take a huge loss on this deal.   GM is worth no where near the money that has been pumped into it.    The taxpayers will be lucky to receive two billion for GM in the state it's in.   But it will cost us far more to wait.  

As it stands today GM is owned 60% by the U.S. federal government,   about 12% by the Canadian government,  over 20% by labor unions,  with private owners with about 10%.   How is GM ever going to post a profit (or at least not lose money) with ownership stakes like these? 



Part 4

This blog will highlight the many problems that a American government owned automobile company will bring to this nation.    This will not be a short thing in spite of what our politicians say it will be.   I hope we will not be "celebrating"  the tenth,  twentieth or God forbid, the 30th anniversary of Government Motors.    But if history teaches us anything,  its very likely we will.  

Government Motors Must Be Stopped.