Let's Hear It for Government Motors GM!

[Howey]

http://www.leftlanenews.com/chevrolet-posts-best-q1-results-in-company-history.html

Chevrolet is off to its hottest start in the company’s 100 year history. Thanks to a 15 percent jump in global demand, Chevrolet has set a new mark for first quarter sales.

Chevrolet saw strong growth in several key markets during the first quarter, resulting in a worldwide sales total of 1.1 million vehicles.

“This is a great way to kick off Chevrolet’s Centennial year,” said Joel Ewanick, GM global chief marketing officer. “Our first-quarter results are a clear indication that consumers are responding to our new product line, which only happens when you truly listen to the customer.”

The United States led Chevrolet’s sales push with a 23 percent increase to 416,505 units. China was next in line in terms of growth, expanding 17 percent to 159,303 vehicles. Chevrolet also posted strong growth in Brazil, Mexico and Europe.

The Chevrolet Cruze was the brand’s global leader during the period, with its sales increasing 117 percent to 150,652 units. Since launching in 2009, Chevrolet has sold 600,000 Cruze models worldwide.

Great news. Even though I now have a Subaru, I loved my Malibu!

[lil mike]

GM is certianly meeting my expectations of a nationalized company.

The stock is below the IPO price and well below the break even price for the taxpayers to get their money back.

http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/charts/chartdl.aspx?Symbol=GM&&ShowChtBt=Refresh+Chart&DateRangeForm=1&CP=0&PT=4&C9=0&ComparisonsForm=1&CE=0&DisplayForm=1&D4=1&D5=0&D3=0&ViewType=0&PeriodType=3

Their market share, continuing to fall...





Both the cars and managment are meeting government expectations!

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/government_motors_is_still_lemon_BdOQV86lpsfZx5LkTZd7aK


Taxpayers still own about 26 percent of GM, and it looks increasingly unlikely that they'll ever get their money back: The share price would have to rise to more than $54, and it's stuck in the low thirties. Here's why:

GM's management team lacks stability, with Dan Akerson being the fourth chief executive in less than two years (oh, and CFO Chris Liddell recently resigned).

One of Akerson's main focuses has been to ballyhoo the Chevy Volt, but Consumer Reports says GM's hybrid "just doesn't make a lot of sense." More important, it isn't selling -- only 1,210 Volts have sold this year through the end of March.



Yep.  Celebrate good times, come on.

[Howey]

GM is certianly meeting my expectations of a nationalized company.

The stock is below the IPO price and well below the break even price for the taxpayers to get their money back.

http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/charts/chartdl.aspx?Symbol=GM&&ShowChtBt=Refresh+Chart&DateRangeForm=1&CP=0&PT=4&C9=0&ComparisonsForm=1&CE=0&DisplayForm=1&D4=1&D5=0&D3=0&ViewType=0&PeriodType=3

Their market share, continuing to fall...





Both the cars and managment are meeting government expectations!

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/government_motors_is_still_lemon_BdOQV86lpsfZx5LkTZd7aK


Taxpayers still own about 26 percent of GM, and it looks increasingly unlikely that they'll ever get their money back: The share price would have to rise to more than $54, and it's stuck in the low thirties. Here's why:

GM's management team lacks stability, with Dan Akerson being the fourth chief executive in less than two years (oh, and CFO Chris Liddell recently resigned).

One of Akerson's main focuses has been to ballyhoo the Chevy Volt, but Consumer Reports says GM's hybrid "just doesn't make a lot of sense." More important, it isn't selling -- only 1,210 Volts have sold this year through the end of March.



Yep.  Celebrate good times, come on.

Don't feel bad...there's even teabaggers on the GM forum praying for the companies demise and downplaying any good news with stuff like that. Just like the folks in my sig pic telling the President to "keep your damn hands off my Medicare!", they don't have the sense to realize what horrible shape our country would be in today if GM and, to a lesser extent, Chrysler had been allowed to go under.

Gloom and doom! Boy...you guys are party animals!

On a side note, it's interesting the influence Drudge has on GM's stocks, huh?

Take, for instance, General Motors. After a seemingly successful IPO last fall, things have tanked. In recent weeks, GM’s stock price has been–in the words of CBS MoneyWatch columnist Conrad de Aenlle “in a tailspin.” As de Aenlle pointed out on March 7:
 

After being offered for sale at $33 a share last November after GM emerged from bankruptcy reorganization, the stock climbed as high as $39.48 in January and has headed downhill ever since. It reached a new low of $32.01 on Friday, below the issue price.
 
And since then, the stock’s dropped even further, hitting $30.65 before the market’s close Thursday.
 
The execs at GM have a lot to think about, but they might want to cross their fingers, light a candle and hope Matt Drudge forgets their company exists. Why? GM’s ended up on the Drudge Report at least seven times since the IPO. And no, they weren’t good news. Take this Drudge headline from March 4: SHOCK REPORT: GM sells just 281 Chevy Volts in February, or this one on April 1: Government losses in GM far higher than claimed.

And another side note, after reading that, It's become apparent you've gone all Sam on us with your use of Drudge as a source. 

[Howey]

Hah! I just noticed this reading your Post article:

Mark Modica was a business manager at a now-closed Saturn dealership in Chalfont, Pa

Yeah...no sour grapes there!

As far as the Volt...

I know you don't want our cars running on anything but good ol' Saudi crude...keeps the Bush family happy...but your basic misunderstanding of the Volt boggles the mind.

The Volt was not designed to be a mainstream vehicle. It was designed to be a "halo" vehicle. If you want a mainstream vehicle, there's lots of them out there.

 


http://cnettv.cnet.com/?type=node&value=11443,10863&name=Car%20Tech&tag=rightColumnArea1.0

[Howey]

Their market share, continuing to fall...

You talking about Ford?

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-15/ford-missing-market-share-goal-adds-pressure-to-boost-discounts.html

Ford hasn’t met its retail market-share target in any month since October, when it sold 14.5 percent of the cars and trucks purchased by individual consumers, according to automotive researcher R.L. Polk & Co. of Southfield, Michigan. Ford’s retail share fell to 13.2 percent in February, the most recent month Polk has analyzed.

Oh. What's this???

In March, Ford raised incentives and surpassed GM in monthly U.S. sales for the second time in the last 13 years, said Michelle Krebs, a West Bloomfield, Michigan-based analyst for Edmunds.

“GM’s retail share was higher than Ford’s in March, despite Ford beating GM in total,” Krebs said. “Not good if Ford resorts to incentives as well as high fleet percentages again -- old habits.”

Now that we've cleared up market share....let's talk about stock prices:

Ford shares, which climbed 68 percent in 2010, fell 10 cents to $14.71 at 4 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares have dropped 12 percent this year.

[/b]


So what we've learned is that GM and Ford have lost market share and stock value. Pretty much equally. GM is booming in China, Ford is doing good in Europe, both are selling cars, have new products, and customer interest. Think that's due to the situation in Japan, gas prices, and other factors and not your hatred of the president?

Yet you hate GM and not Ford.

[lil mike]

So what we've learned is that GM and Ford have lost market share and stock value. Pretty much equally. GM is booming in China, Ford is doing good in Europe, both are selling cars, have new products, and customer interest. Think that's due to the situation in Japan, gas prices, and other factors and not your hatred of the president?

Yet you hate GM and not Ford.

I don't hate either, but I didn't have to shell out anything to Ford.  I did for GM.  I'm kind of an involuntary part owner of GM.

[Howey]

I don't hate either, but I didn't have to shell out anything to Ford.  I did for GM.  I'm kind of an involuntary part owner of GM.

I think shelling out a few cents of our tax dollars for GM would have been a hell of a lot better than the catastrophe that would have occurred if they had failed.

[lil mike]

I think shelling out a few cents of our tax dollars for GM would have been a hell of a lot better than the catastrophe that would have occurred if they had failed.

They are failing, just very expensively and in a bit slower motion.

[Howey]

They are failing, just very expensively and in a bit slower motion.

Keep up the optimism!

[FooFa]

Didn't GM already pay back all or the majority of the bailout money? Not that the tax payers will benefit either way. I can't help but to think that the deluge of problems with Toyota helped GM. Part of me felt like it was wrong and that the free market should dictate who does and doesn't stay in business. However what is called a free market is anything but and therefor, considering the ripple effect that any of those car companies going belly up would have had on the economy and the devastation to people's lives, I guess I'm ok with that aspect of the bail out.

[lil mike]

Didn't GM already pay back all or the majority of the bailout money? Not that the tax payers will benefit either way. I can't help but to think that the deluge of problems with Toyota helped GM. Part of me felt like it was wrong and that the free market should dictate who does and doesn't stay in business. However what is called a free market is anything but and therefor, considering the ripple effect that any of those car companies going belly up would have had on the economy and the devastation to people's lives, I guess I'm ok with that aspect of the bail out.

No the payback story was a baloney story GM floated before their IPO after the reorganization.  Most of the taxpayer bailout money is in equity in the company.

[ekg]

Didn't GM already pay back all or the majority of the bailout money? Not that the tax payers will benefit either way. I can't help but to think that the deluge of problems with Toyota helped GM. Part of me felt like it was wrong and that the free market should dictate who does and doesn't stay in business. However what is called a free market is anything but and therefor, considering the ripple effect that any of those car companies going belly up would have had on the economy and the devastation to people's lives, I guess I'm ok with that aspect of the bail out.

Yes and no..

It's true that GM has squared up on its government loans, but Whitacre isn't telling the full story.

With GM in deep trouble and hundreds of thousands of jobs in the balance, the Obama administration -- through the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) -- stepped forward with tens of billions of dollars worth of assistance. As of March 31, 2010, the U.S. Treasury had committed approximately $52.4 billion to GM.

Only a fraction of that, $6.7 billion, was in the form of loans. Most of the government's GM investment was converted to an ownership stake in the New GM, the company that emerged from bankruptcy: $2.1 billion in preferred stock; and 60.8 percent of the company's common equity.

GM had already made several installments in paying back the $6.7 billion loan. But on April 21, 2010, GM announced that it had paid back the entirety of the remaining $4.7 billion in loans from the U.S. government (and another $1.1 million to the Canadian government). GM had until 2015 to pay back those loans.

So the loan portion of the GM bailout was, in fact, settled, with interest, five years ahead of schedule.

We think the TV ad would leave most reasonable viewers with the impression that GM has fully settled up with the government. Whitacre can accurately claim that GM has retired its $6.7 billion in loans from the U.S. government. But with the government still owning 60 percent of the company and the prospects slim for getting all its money back, we think that's highly misleading. And so we rate Whitacre's statement Half True.

politfact.com

[FooFa]

There's something new. I ate up the mainstream's reassurance that GM was all good now, having not dug deeper. Mr Righty and Ms Lefty knew the truth of the matter.

4 in the kumbayafuukin

[Howey]

Didn't GM already pay back all or the majority of the bailout money? Not that the tax payers will benefit either way. I can't help but to think that the deluge of problems with Toyota helped GM. Part of me felt like it was wrong and that the free market should dictate who does and doesn't stay in business. However what is called a free market is anything but and therefor, considering the ripple effect that any of those car companies going belly up would have had on the economy and the devastation to people's lives, I guess I'm ok with that aspect of the bail out.

GM paid back the loans with TARP money left in escrow that it didn't need to use. Money that wasn't use as GM ownership stock. Whether it's a "baloney story GM floated before their IPO after the reorganization" is, according to FactCheck, untrue in that the President was correct although the TARP funds were, as I said, repaid with existing TARP funds.

http://factcheck.org/2010/04/sunday-replay-2/

As far as the remaining stock in the government's hands expect a sell later this year since the president doesn't want folks like lilMike to use it as an election issue next year.

[ekg]

There's something new. I ate up the mainstream's reassurance that GM was all good now, having not dug deeper. Mr Righty and Ms Lefty knew the truth of the matter.

4 in the kumbayafuukin

it was true, they paid back the 'loan' portion.. the misconception is that they got more than just a 'loan'.. and that other part is still owed..