President Bush Approves $17.4 Billion in Loans to the U.S. Automakers!

Whooo! Support them until March... three months? I do hope they don't expect ANOTHER bailout, do they?

Good for Ford, though. It doesn't look too good for the other two, though. I wouldn't count your jobs saved just yet...

Great, I haven't driven a crap car from these companies for years and I still get screwed having to pay them.

@zippy

The Ford F150 is the best selling auto in the U.S. That's prety good for a "crap car", don't you think?

I have high hopes for Ford. Now that they seem to be serious about bringing some of their Euro cars to NA, I think they should be in a much better place in the auto industry.

The F150 is not only Ford's best selling truck, but provably the most reliable truck out there. I don't think the Tundra can claim to have better reliability.

Too bad for GM though, they have some good forward thinkers there, but sadly, management is still in the stone age...

Well, I guess if it can allow them to make some changes and return to profitablity, its an OK move. Without some serious concessions from the UAW union, though, it's probably not going to happen.

It really actually suprises me that the UAW is so unwilling to give something back to the companies that employ them. If they don't everyone of them is going to lose their jobs in the bankruptcy restructuring. Pensions, benefits, all that, gone. Yet the best they do is "defer payment to the fund that pays employees full salary if they get laid off." Woot. Imagine if you had to pay every bill you've ever had, even after it's paid for; cancelling your cell phone and still having to pay the bill, selling your car and still having to make a payment... forever. Might make you go broke too.

If the unions give something back, they get rid of badge engineering, and continue their current trend of desireable vehicles, they'll probably be OK.

Here's hoping; American-made cars really aren't as bad as people want to think they are.

YAY Ford!! A Ford man feels justified to cheer for the company after years of disappointments and so so cars like the Thunderbird, mustang and the crooked window F-150. The new focus is excellent and I don't think people appreciate what a nice vehicle the new Taurus is because of its mediocre looks, but its an excellent design and has a higher initial quality rating than the Accord and Camry. Bring on the Euro Ka, Kuga, Fiesta, Focus, Mondeo, and C-max and Ford will rule. Let GM and Chrysler die. Free cars for the Bushes for life I guess for bailing out GM on his own. Chrysler is going to die no matter what anyone does. Someone should just buy the minivan division and let the rest of the company die.

So let me see if I have this straight...

GM said this week that they need about $4-5 BILLION in cash per month to operate.

The government want's them to provide a plan to 'dramatically alter their business' or they will have to pay back the loan immediately.

Does anyone here seriously think a company the size of GM can come up with a plan to dramatically change their entire business in only 2-3 months? Particularly with the UAW onboard?

All this bailout did was burn 17 billion of tax money, and buy GM an additional three months before they declare bankrupcy.

GM would be a very attractive company to buy asset wise without the UAW and all of their debt. My money is on GM going chapter 11 in 2-3 months to do just that.

Guess we'll wait and see what happens.

wow what a stupid move... 17 BILLIONS WASTED!

"It really actually suprises me that the UAW is so unwilling to give something back to the companies that employ them. If they don't everyone of them is going to lose their jobs in the bankruptcy restructuring. Pensions, benefits, all that, gone."

It shouldn't surprise you, they know that morons like Bush and Obama will force taxpayers to keep these crap companies afloat for decades. It's completely official now, Bush is the dumbest president in history.

The union gave a lot of concessions in the last collective agreement. That's why they are unwilling to give more. The big 3 really have three problems: the retirees, too many redundant lines, and they don't make cars that people want to buy at the list prices. Don't blame this crisis on the current workers. Management never took their profits and reinvested in the company or dealt with the retiree problems. Management just wanted to make their quarterly numbers look good. If they started making quality car and not take the penny-pinching or short term view, the big 3 might be able to weather this crisis.

Yea Wymer, the management sucks, the cars suck, and the UAW are greedy as hell. Those are three reasons for this. The biggest being the fact that, with benefits factored in, UAW workers get paid 50% more than American workers at Toyota / Honda / etc plants in the US. You can't try to claim that a 50% wage difference multiplied out over a few hundred thousand workers doesn't make a big difference. All CEO's need to be fired, everyone on the board of directors who approved bonuses to CEO's who were losing money needs to be fired, and the UAW needs to go the way of the of the Dodo....then the American companies can have a shot at being profitable again.

So, this is how Bush wants to sabotage the next administration...

"So, this is how Bush wants to sabotage the next administration..."

Read closer Jimbo -- your 'messiah' Obama approves of this crap too.

I am a UAW member at a GM factory. Why do you all hate the UAW so much? Many of my co-worker ask this very question everyday. I earn $29.00 per hour, which is actually lower than an hourly worker at Toyota's Georgetown, KY factory, which is said to be $30.00 per hour. You cannot include other benefits when talking pure dollars per hour. Our health care benefits are alot lower now with our current contract. We pay more out of pocket expenses for health care than any previous contract. This allows GM to save money. GM has many more retired employees than Toyota has currently working in the U.S. This difference makes a huge impact on GM and its "legacy costs." I guess GM could just have all of its retired people killed, and that would lower legacy costs. There are alot of reasons for the problems GM is facing. I believe GM is making good products that compare well with our competition. The UAW should not be the scapgoat for GM's problems. The UAW is willing to help GM return to profitability, and with the government loan, maybe GM can turn it around. My job and my life as I know it depend on it.

" wymer100:

The union gave a lot of concessions in the last collective agreement. That's why they are unwilling to give more."

How many of you can say that if you get layoff, you get to keep about 95% of your wage and benefit...for years?? Yup, UAW gave up quite a bit of on the last contract since they had a LOT to begin with. These are the same people that gave my mom that piece of crap Buick Century, Chevy Astro, Oldsmobile 98, and other countless domestic.
For a while, GM was paying millions of dollars for Viagra for the retirees.....sheesh. The UAW should not be the lone scapegoat, but not making anymore concession at this point and time is a suicide for all of their members.

To Totenglocke,

I never said Obama was my 'messiah', and Obama has maintained a low profile concerning loans to keep Detroit on life support. He has only said that his priority was to create jobs in the auto industry and that he would not allow the Big 3 to "simply vanish". Bankruptcy and/or consolidation would have also extended the lives of these companies, and prevented them from going into financial collapse - at least in the short term. By giving Detroit the loan only complicates things for the next administration.

BTW, my friends call me Jimbo. You can call me Jim.

"The UAW is willing to help GM return to profitability, and with the government loan, maybe GM can turn it around."

If they were willing to help it turn around, they wouldn't insist on horribly inflated wages. $29 an hour to do what a trained monkey can do is ridiculous. Do you realize how many people work hard and go through college and don't get paid that? Allowing for two weeks of vacation, that means you make $58,000. That's completely ridiculous for factory work that requires no skill other than being able to turn a screw driver. What you want is the other 299.7 or so million people in this country to have to pay extra so that YOU can keep your bloated pay.

As for "I believe GM is making good products that compare well with our competition."

You have the Pontiac G8, the Cadillac CTS, and the Chevy Malibu that qualify as really good cars. That's three cars that are really worth the money.....how many different cars does GM make? 50? If so then that's only 6% of the vehicles available that are actually worth buying. No other car manufacturer is facing these issues, even the ones with union workers, because they actually build a product that people WANT.

Guess what? Unless you know what it is like to work in a factory you should not comment. I guess it is OK for a Toyota worker to earn that much and more but GM should pay us less so you can feel better about yourself. I also pay taxes. I have a college degree so its ok for me to make $58,000. I case you have not noticed, but all auto makers are struggling to sell vehicles in todays market. Even your friends at Toyota offered cut rate fianancing to move 2008 models this past fall. How much less should the UAW be willing to give?

Saturn Aura, Saturn Sky, Saturn Astra, Saturn Outlook, Buick Enclave, GMC Arcadia, Pontiac Vibe, Pontiac G5, Pontiac G6, Chevrolet Cobalt, Chevrolet Corvette, Chevrolet Impalla, Chevrolet Traverse and maybe the Chevrolet Volt, if....

I have a college degree and make a whole metric ass tonne less than $29/hr.

So in my opinion the UAW can stuff it.

Cheaper, better, faster, strong is not working here.

UAW = FAIL

I mean really? How long is your work week? Do you have to work overtime? Any 70 hour work weeks? I just finished 136 hours in two weeks. That was a bit much, but frankly it comes with the job.

How many of the ~27,000 bankrupt small businesses got bailed out by the Government in 2007? This happens every year! Add up the jobs lost and compare it to one GM going bankrupt every 100 years.

Now, what is the difference? Why is GM getting a bailout?

They should be forced to stand on their own like everyone else and if they can't they will make room for thousands of new businesses that will be much more inovative and profitable. After all, isn't that "free enterprise"?

The UAW can rot in Hell.
Greedy SOB's have put themselves in this position.
The big three need to bust the UAW and send them packing.

Oh, and if the F150 is such a great "car", why is ford bleeding cash from its festering UAW hole?
#1 selling auto maybe, but are they making a profit?

@helpifucan
why should the taxpayers take money out of our pockets and line your pockets? You, management, and the stockholders should be responsible for the company, not the taxpayers. If you fail, Toyota, Honda, and Nissan will eventually pick up the slack and hire more and require more products from the suppliers therefore cancelling out the job loses. Just cause you close down doesn't mean people will stop buying cars. But don't worry, the UAW and Obama are in bed together and will rape the productive taxpayer.

"I case you have not noticed, but all auto makers are struggling to sell vehicles in todays market."

Yes, but only the American companies, which have been losing money for years, are going bankrupt. The only surprise here was just how fast they were losing money. GM, Ford, and Chrysler haven't turned a profit in a long time.

"How much less should the UAW be willing to give? "

Oh, I know you don't want to give anything to keep your cushy jobs. I think what you meant was "how much MORE". What should they give? How about that when it's not necessary to have say 100,000 factory workers and they can only put 90,000 to work that they can actually say "Sorry, but we don't need that many people and we need to let some go". None of this crap of UAW workers getting 95% of their pay indefinitely for NOT WORKING as long as they don't turn down a job within 50 miles of their original factory in 2 years. Also, UAW workers should be allowed to get fired when they do a bad job on building a car. I forget the name of the plant, but there was a GM plant several years ago where the UAW workers were doing things like stuffing their leftovers from their lunches inside the doors of the cars -- people like that should be fired, hands down. UAW workers should also realize that there's a reason why virtually nothing is made in America these days -- because Americans think that for doing the most basic things that they should be payed a fortune for it. Factory work requires no skill and these days it's normally not very dangerous (it was 50 years ago when my parents worked in a factory and saw people getting hands cut off -- by the way, they didn't make the equivalent of $58,000 a year and they knew that they wouldn't have deserved to make that much for unskilled work).

Now for your list of "good" cars helpifucan...

"Saturn Aura, Saturn Sky, Saturn Astra, Saturn Outlook, Buick Enclave, GMC Arcadia, Pontiac Vibe, Pontiac G5, Pontiac G6, Chevrolet Cobalt, Chevrolet Corvette, Chevrolet Impalla, Chevrolet Traverse and maybe the Chevrolet Volt, if...."

The Aura is average, the Sky is a decent car but known for reliability issues, the Astra is a decent car but overpriced, the Outlook is average as it is whether you put a Buick or GMC badge on it (Enclave and Arcadia), the Vibe is actually a Toyota Matrix with different body panels, the G5 and Cobalt have crap interiors and are average (though the Cobalt SS does have good performance for the money, it still suffers from a crappy $8,000 Kia Rio interior), the Corvette performs well but has a crap interior unless you pay $5,000 extra (which is ridiculous on a car where the base price is $40,000-something), I've heard nothing but bad things about the Impala, the Traverse is average and the Volt is non-existent.

Maybe you should try driving a car from a non-US car company. I've owned bottom of the line economy cars from Japanese companies that had much better interiors than you find on any American car, regardless of how expensive the American car was. No matter how great the outside of the car looks, if the inside looks cheap as hell, a lot of people won't want to buy it. Not all the other car makers are perfect -- Nissan messed up with the 350Z and on the base model the interior was about the same quality as American cars....as a result I know several people who considered buying one but couldn't stand the horrible plastics inside. They've fixed that with the new 370Z -- GM, Chrysler, and Ford have had this problem with bad interiors for a few decades yet they haven't learned anything. That is one thing that isn't the UAW's fault, but it still shows that the American companies are unwilling to make the necessary changes to be profitable. They still think that they're in the 50's with import tariffs in place to prevent competition.

$17 billion is a drop in the bucket compared to the $700 billion that we as taxpayers have already had to pay out.

We should definitely continue this policy of throwing money at everyone who pleads "we need money".

Makes me sick! Let the failed companies do under! _Especially_ the automakers - the best thing that could happen is for them to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy so that they can re-structure and get our from under the UAW's heel.

Lousy long term quality (except maybe for their pickups), mediocre styling, interiors with WAY too much cheap materials/plastics, lumbering soft handling that is terrifying in corners, confusing lines, superior competition from abroad, and benefits (not wages which are comparable) that are FAR in excess of their rivals (mostly the pension liabilities), etc, etc, etc....

I can't see any way that the big 3 can survive without a massive re-engineering of their operations which seems unlikely. As much as I am saddened for their workers - I'm thinking orderly bankruptcy and maybe something will rise from the ashes. The only alternative is to keep them on LONG TERM life support but I can't say I'm too fond of that idea as a tax payer (we in Canada are also tossing in billions and billions of bail out dollars - just like our good neighbours to the south).

Maybe they should let Chrysler do an orderly bankrupcy, chop GM in 1/2 (drop most of their lines and focus on building cars people want), and offer some support to Ford if they request it. Otherwise just pumping money into them is like tossing money on a big old bonfire!

Just my 2 cents....

The one thing I kept feeling about the domestic makers is that they're arrogant. What I mean is that when the import made a mistake, they fix it. Take GM, the X-cars (citation, phoenix,...) were horrible. Cheap interior, lousy engine, drivetrain, design,......years later, we have the Aztec. Somebody please tell me how in the freaking world that thing ever get pass a rough sketch? The moment that particular designer started presenting the drawing of the Aztec, somebody should have slapped him/her in the face and tell them to never ever pick up a drawing pen/pencil again.....Yes, I feel the same way about Chris Bangel and his design.

Thanks everyone my mistake. Good luck and GOOD BYE.

And they call Obama socialist...
The current government is stepping in to save businesses that have collapsed under their own weight and couldn't compete in capitalism, so what does current administration do? They step in to bail them out, Wall street and the Detroit car makers.... isn't this how socialism begins?

On the other side I can't wait for ford's European market to hit the dealerships, I've been drooling over the new Focus RS for a while now... Even an ST model would be fine...

SVT, I've said for a long time that Bush is socialist. Obama is even MORE socialist though...scary thought, eh?

GM and Chrysler can burn for all i care. Why in the hell should I have symapthy to companies that do themself in and now they want to take my tax money to bail them out? BS. As for the UAW the hell with them to, those greedy bastards with all of their greedy demands over the years have caused this mess to. How about instead of bailing these two worthless companies out put that money towards NEW job creations instead. Yeah it sucks people will lose their jobs if these two companies go under, but oh well. No one bailed out the thousands of other people or 100's of other companies when they lost their jobs and and those companies went under. At least Ford is doing the right thing while GM and Chrysler want to suck off the tax payers money.

SVT and Totenglocke, I hope you and your children DON'T:

1. Go to PUBLIC schools
2. Borrow FREE books from the local library
3. Use AFFORDABLE US postal service
4. Call the police when you've been robbed
...and last, but not least,
5. Get the local fire department to your house when it's burning

Oh yeah, cause non of those services could exist without corrupt blood sucking unions. Gimme a break.
Truth is, they would all function better without unions.
Commie bastards.

"Use AFFORDABLE US postal service"

Yea, raising prices every year because NO ONE USES IT is real affordable. Also, I haven't gone to the library in years since they people working there are a pain in the ass to deal with, so I buy books instead. Public schools are crap (I know many teachers in public schools and they'll openly admit that due to bullshit government regulation that they're not allowed to really teach kids and are essentially forced to just pass everyone no matter what).

You also don't understand the difference between providing necessary things, like protection from crime, and unnecessary things like forcefully taking money from citizens to give to greedy union thugs.

So many good comments on here. I agree that throwing our money at the companies is not going to solve this problem. Chapter 11 is the best route to take.

Just some things that I think why the government won't let them fail:

The big three are all highly celebrated icons of America(generally older gens)
They helped the country during the war.
They've built this "buy america brand" and linked it with patriotism.
Unions have invested heavily in political candidates and they have been elected.

Although most of the viewers of this site are auto fans and know the differences between cars, most people don't. Lots of people buy cars because its american or their parents drove it. They don't know that most american cars are made in Mexico or Canada. They can't tell the handling differences of a domestic to a foreign. etc.

I don't want them to fail, but I don't think what we're doing is going to save them.

"If we were to allow the free market to take its course now, it would almost certainly lead to disorderly bankruptcy and liquidation for the automakers," Bush said.

ALMOST certainly.

Wow, how stupid, The White House just gave billions of dollars away and we didn't even get to wipe our a$$es with it. Come March, the ol UAW will be lobbying for more

To stereotype here, do any of you recall the Chevy Vega (that had that aluminum block engine that selfdestructed around 50000 miles), the Ford Pinto with the exploding gas tanks (that Ford denied the problem for years), and Chrysler's Neon and PT Cruiser (with timing belts and electrical problems out the wazoo). Least we forget GM's conversion of gas engines to diesel in the 80s. No wonder the public has gone to imports: their cars last.

I don't know all there is to know about the decision. I thought Congress was the decision maker, not one man. Its 3 oclock baloneya watch time....

@helpifucan:

I agree more or less with your bashers but you've shown a lot of composure and I commend you for it. I would love to know what you do for $29 an hour. I realize that would lead to more flame bating though. Also I would only add the Corvette Cobalt SS and Volt to the list of competitive cars. The Sky and Solicits on appearance alone perhaps.

@Totenglocke:

The Cobalt SS has pretty good performance, fully optioned out it's $25k. On the track this car bests the Evo, BMW135i, S2000 and WRX STi, that's impressive for any car with rental pedigree. Would I drive no, and hell no but you can't buy a new car with better performance without spending at least $15-20k more.

It seems to me the only way for them to survive is to shed the UAW, who are responsible for those perks and retirement benefits. Chapter 13 would allow for that, the bailout (bridge loan) just defers it. So it seems rather pointless to me. A complete loss of the big three would be very bad but that isn't very likely unless you believe all the scare propaganda, wonder who paid for all that...

@RX-7

Yes, the Cobalt SS does perform well, but (not even talking about exterior styling) the interior is so cheap looking....I understand that interior on the base Cobalt, but the top of the line model costing almost $10k more? I'd love to see the 2 liter turbo from the Cobalt SS in the Chevy Cruze when it comes out (and with a decent interior)....now that could be a great car.

Congress should ask GM and Chrysler, "Who's yo' Daddy?" LOL