"The Volt" May BE SCRAPPED!- NEVER BUILT!!

[Jammer]

Well, I guess everyone can guess that I would like to see the Volt come out... but I much rather see it be a viable car in year #1. I hate the thought that of all that $$ they are expected (by some) to pay back and then they turn around and sell cars at a lost for a couple years. It's fine if your in a better position with your cash/credit flow, but GM has got themselves in a box I feel. Then a gain, I'm no car person, as far as how those big-cats think. I may never understand how they think.

I feel like it's a ballgame, and I'm trying to root for my team, but they keeping getting fouls called on them. The sad part is that it's not a ballgame, and it is really hard core $$ they are playing around with that a good chunk of the public is outraged having to pay for be it a loan or a bailout because they greatly fear GM will never have the chance to pay it back.

I like to think I understand the other point of view, and frankly I do not blame many others for being upset over the large low interest loan that GM got in fear it will end up being an empty bailout that never gets paid back. I can relate to that because I have had some dead-beat friends that called it a "Loan" when they never paid ME back! lol

[captainslug]

Originally Posted by MadisonMPG

I think you meant that the truck struck the deer, not the other way around.

Nope. While I was living in Arizona the highway authority was widening a long divided stretch of highway from 2 lanes to 6. And they did so during both spider migratory season, and deer mating season.
Bucks were charging cars and hitting them whether you try to avoid them or not.

[Frank Lee]

I've never hit a deer, but had one run into the side of my car. Good thing it was the '59, the glass is about 1/4" thick. Dumb deer went away with a bloody nose and maybe a better appreciation of the road.

[Big Dave]

Maybe the cogent question is: "Will there be a GM to make the Volt?" Sales volume is way down from last summer's awful level, but the legacy costs have not abated. They will burn through the "bailout" money this winter. Do they get bailed out again?

[Christ]

On the redneck news wire, I heard that there is a GM/Chrysler deal in the works? Some kind of supposed merger... I haven't heard anything about it other than at the local coffee house, though.

I, at this point, don't care if they go under or not. I just hope that if they're going to go under, there is a stipulation that they must sell their technologies and patents to the highest bidders for each, as a means to pay off their debts. That way, technologies don't get lost/buried, if any of those GM guys know something that the rest of the car-world hasn't figured out/been able to produce yet.

[Frank Lee]

Hell, give the patents/tech to the govt for free dissemination; we paid for half of it.

[Christ]

I thought that as well... they seize patents, (which I think will happen anyway, since they're staking in GM right now), and they can sell/lease the patents.

Lease, preferably, for long-term royalty income. We could be on top again, by leasing the patents to other countries' companies. Sure, we'd be buying our own technology, but the gubmint would at least get subsidies from the sales/production of those technologies, so maybe we could get a little "caught up" monetarily?

Hell, with enough patents for lease, we could be "on top" again, right?

[Frank Lee]

Maybe some good can come from this after all; they're sitting on tons of great stuff but are really bad about acting on it. Really, GM R&D kicks ***.

[Christ]

Again, my sentiments exactly.

I know they come up with some good ish, but they supress alot of it for some reason. Seriously, look at some of their concepts throughout their history, you see alot of great/unique ideas. Perfect examples escape me, but they're out there.

Maybe if GM fails completely, Lifan will buy the EV1 rights and produce it! LMAO.

[user removed]

When the mega inflation hits, they won't have to worry about paying back the loan. They can pay it back with monopoly money because that's about what is going to become of the US dollar.

Thriving economies are like efficient cars. They both require everything to be working properly, and care and maintenance.

This economy has been fiddled with to death, playing with interest rates, playing with accounting principles, anything but actually doing the work and understanding the rules are based on centuries of practical experience.

The DOT COM "boom". Buy stocks at 200 to 1 PE ratios because they are going to be worth a fortune in just a few years. Throw away technology. The information age.

In all this finagling, the basic principle of producing a product and putting money in the bank by creating worthwhile tangible assets was lost.

We have become a nation of consumers relying on our accumulated wealth to finance our future.

I grew up with the computer age. The computer was supposed to make our lives easier, by eliminating redundant, boring, back breaking work. It was much the same as the automation of the assembly line.

Now the growing field of employment is what? IT?

Laughable.

From the peak of 600k employees, GM now has 40k, a mere shadow of itself in its prime.

$50,000,000,000 to keep
40,000 jobs

Hmmmm, that math seems weak to me. The scales do not balance.

Isn't that the same as
$50,000,000 to keep
40 jobs?

Boys and girls maybe I am too old and too dumb to do the math, but if my ancient brain is still working that's;

$1.25 million per job.

My cheap solar powered calculator that is at least 15 years old will not do enough digits for 50,000,000,000.

Ford closed it's truck plant in Norfolk Virginia a few years back. They offered their long time employees something like $30-70,000 buyouts for them to get no retirement.

Bet those 23 year vets of the Ford assembly line would have really loved

1.25 million each.

Today your govt is engaged in the greatest crime in history, and you call it change you can believe in.

It's change I doubt few even understand, but at the rate they paid off GM it won't take much longer for our national net worth, which took over 2 centuries to accumulate, to disappear.

You won't get it from the rich, they have mobility and will just go where mass stupidity doesn't buy votes, to propagate more mass stupidity. Like the intellectuals left Germany during the thirties.

God help the poor when the wealth is no longer there to be transferred to them because they "deserve" it.

For a single share of the GM bailout I could build a frigging car that GM COULD make money on, and COULD pay back their "loan".


"And Cassandra stood on the highest wall near the gate, as the Trojan soldiers dragged the obscene monument into the city.
She screamed a warning, but no one listened and the celebration went on, as the ignorant revelled on the last night of their lives."

regards
Mech