Hey, who wants to buy a vehicle from GM with a manufacture date anytime in the last 3 months?
For myself and a whole lot of Americans, buying a GM or Chrysler vehicle isn't even a consideration. Honda, Toyota, maybe Hyundai. But it will take a decade before GM and Chrysler could convince us that their product is the real deal and desirable.
never, ever, in the course of bond holdings purchase the senior-securitized debt of unionized companies. Unless you like selling the myth of rusted infrastructure..recovery
Just how many veterans has this Koch guy turned around?
Anyhow, Alberto's spam on previous thread got unfairly pigged. He may not be an economist, but his gift for comedy should not be without some recognition:
More from Bloomberg The 67-year-old Koch was interim chief financial officer of Kmart Corp. when it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2002, the Journal said. Koch also spearheaded a turnaround of Champion Enterprises Inc. that allowed the manufactured-home builder to avoid bankruptcy, the Journal reported.
If GM emerges from bankruptcy, Koch is expected to lead a new management team to wind down the “Old GM” which would include efforts to sell or spin off the automaker’s assets including the Saturn, Pontiac and Saab brands and as many as 20 factories, the newspaper said.
And Reuters U.S. President Barack Obama is expected to outline GM's next steps on Monday as the federal government prepares to take a more than 70 percent stake in the company in exchange for $60 billion in financing. Nearly half of that money has already been extended this year in emergency aid.
The government's of Canada and Ontario will take an equity or debt position in a restructured GM, but details are still being worked out.
What ever happened to a time when enterprise was free?
The free enterprise was running too wild, so those times are over.
Unless you are a bank, of course, in which case you remain in the land of the free (enterprise)
bANK fAILURE writes:
"never, ever, in the course of bond holdings purchase the senior-securitized debt of unionized companies."
That's going in the rule book right after "buy low, sell high".
I just decided to unload an oil-company stock, and I must admit that I was influenced by a note in their annual report that they are 49% unionized. That's not the only reason I'm selling, but...
Now ! Two to chose from! Obama's FU Motors and his new one Obama's Government Motors. Pick from two boring tin cans with central tail pipe technology! Be the first to show up to the global warming protest in your own coal burner but you can tell your friends it is pollution free! Out of sight and out of mind! Buy now and get the new Palosi bobble head dash board doll! Hit a bump and she complements illegals for being good patriots!
"never, ever, in the course of bond holdings purchase the senior-securitized debt of unionized companies. Unless you like selling the myth of rusted infrastructure..recovery"
Dont you mean never purchase senior-securitized debt unless you insured with CDS via AIG? Don't worry it's only mom and pop investors that will get screwed, not Bill Gross, GS et al.
2007 GM Annual Report, p. 75, Accounting Standards Not Yet Adopted
"....FASB 159, requires expanded disclosures about fair value measurements and establishes a three-level hierarchy for fair value measurments based on the transparency of inputs to the valuation of an asset or liability as of the measurement date."
again, Toilette and Dousce is a quality firm. (this part is speeled incorectly on porpoise)
I was beginning to wonder if people decided to retire officially the pony jokes when I wasn't looking. I am actually happy to acquire GM. It goes great with the insurance company I already own.
ahh yes, p 61 Key Facors Addressing Future and Current Results/
Address Health Care/Legacy Cost Burden
...critical challenge...UAW Health Care Settlement when implemented on the later of January 1, 2010 or the date when all appeals and challenges to the court approve of the settlememt agreement have been exhausted (implementation date)
-didja see that? thats a socialize the cost statement.
whats good for GM is good for Congress and the White house.
Maidenform. I still grind my teeth when I recall their cutsey ad campaign: I dreamed I did X (airline pilot, lawyer, race car driver) in my maidenform bra, with the beautiful model in the appropriate uniform, except topless except for the
bra. (in times when women in those positions were very rare and would have had to have been very dignified in order to survive) haven't bought a Maidenform bra since.
product excellence
Revitalizing sales and marketing strategy
Accelerating cost reductions and quality improvements, and
Addressing health care/legacy cost burden
--anybody trying to write the teleprompter script tomorrow?
Isn't it funny how most TV shows have women "doing" X in their bras these days? Sure they can't do it nude, but strategic cover placement is at least more realistic.
I read 40-50k newly unemployed GM workers from this. Add in all the mom and pop businesses in the factory towns, and I think it's a lot higher. They'll probably be re-trained as mortgage brokers.
Union bashing is easy--except you forget that it was a unionized GM that became the pre-eminent auto maker. As someone mentioned earlier, Ayn Rand followers frequent this site and don't see the fruit of such philosophy. Methinks the last 30 years should have shown some that we need countervailing powers--
If it (happens and) goes anything like their last note deal, it will carry a pretty high yield, which may be a good thing for short-term debt, depending on your attitude toward risk. California's deals have surprised many market participants in the past. They turn out to be way oversubscribed when people expect everyone to be worried about the state.
Me too. In the early part of my career, "challenge" and "opportunity" meant you were getting a shitty project that required a lot of overtime and no thanks at the end.
I am old. Not as old as Pavel, thank goblins!. Yet GM going BK is a lot like reading the US Navy 7th Fleet was defeated in a surface engagement by the Chinese fleet off of Taiwan. It just can't happen. Yet, for GM, it did.
GM was huge. GM was unbeatable. GM was solid. GM was America.
GM is as gone as $20 ounces, smoking anywhere you felt like it, and a homogenous culture.
Yes, I've seen the magic happen with Cali bond sales. For high-income people who live in the state, the high tax-free rates are a blessing. If you work for a living here, you are looking at over 50% tax on income in some brackets, all in (Fed-35%, Payroll-7.5%, State-10%).
...on February 2008, we announced an agreement was reached with the UAW regarding Special Attrition Program which was intended to reduce the number of US hourly employees
-special termination benefits may or may not be available depending on the circumstance of your Sovereign.
Yes, I am. Once you get to a certain age you don't see challenges; you see a part of your past dying.
This is also another rung of the ladder sawed off for anyone who can't or won't get a college degree. In a plant you could make a living. You are not going to do that at Safeway
Nova, you're looking through a rosy-colored rearview there.
Remember when GM cars rusted out in a few years?
Remember when GM engines needed rebuilding after 100,000 miles?
Remember when GM put a "converted" V8 diesel in cars, and they blew up after 30,000 miles?
Remember when GM workers sabotaged equipment and vehicles at the assembly plants?
It's amazing that they lasted as long as they did.
Coinz: Me too. In the early part of my career, "challenge" and "opportunity" meant you were getting a shitty project that required a lot of overtime and no thanks at the end.
NorkaWest;
"Before you buy Cali RAWs, research where they stand in the "capital structure"."
Oh yeah, that would be part of the analysis. From the name, it's tempting to hope that warrants on the revenue stream would have a high standing. But it's certainly not safe to assume that.
Buying California bonds is not for widows and orphans any more, now that there are serious questions about the sanity and solvency of the government.
My wife had an '84 Fiero with the Iron Duke when we met. Lost count of the recalls, and the engine totally cratered at 33K. She had to call virtually every GM exec west of the Mississippi before they'd honor the warranty. They kept claiming "improper maintenance".
p.s.: Actually loved the design, it's just the execution that totally sucked.
"The warrants are secured by and payable from unapplied money in the general fund, including transfers and internal borrowings as permitted by law, subject to the prior application to education, principal and interest on general obligation bonds and reimbursements and payments required by law. They are not general obligations of the state."
Get in line behind the GO bondholders, teachers, and everyone else who had the clout to get their payments written into law.
And that video is already out of date. I ran into the guy who was leading the $100 laptop project at a conference last month, and he's looking for a job - the project is toast.
I thought those were pretty cool cars, if they had been able to put the right engine in it. I actually toyed with the idea of putting a small block V8 in one, but decided it wouldn't hold together.
GM at one time had a design for a Wankel engine that they were considering for the Corvette. Apparently they could not solve the seal problem, which Mazda eventually did solve. Imagine a Wankel in one of those little Fieros!
I live near a stretch of road where there are 10 to 12 used/new car dealerships. Wonder how long it will be before more GM dealerships are closed. The Chrysler dealer's lot is already 80% empty. Thinking they sold off their inventory to CarMax next door. Lots of empty car lots now I actually don't even know who they were.
Really hit me earlier when I went to our favorite ice cream/custard stand which is at the beginning of car dealership row and it had gone out of business. Anyone have recommendations on where you can get real soft ice cream (custard) in Montgomery County, MD?
I had a friend who took a Jaguar XKE body and put a Plymouth Hemi into it - I dont remember if he used the Jaguar frame or not... I do remember he had problems shoehorning a big enough radiator into it... But when it was done it could get air off the smallest hill....
traderwalt - loved the selective use of exponentials and extrapolations. Reminds me of the old gag that ends "at this rate, 1 in 3 Japanese men will be an Elvis impersonator by 2015".
If you thought the state was actually insolvent, however, and it was not really an issue of receiving timely payments on your debt, that is another matter. There really isn't a way of dealing with that.
Oh I was just commenting on that video about all the babies... Even if we manage to increase food production we probably have only 30 years or less before we get to a point there there are a lot of people starving... I know there are already some starving now...
I thought those were pretty cool cars, if they had been able to put the right engine in it.
GM had a hot newer six they were going to plug in but Chevy nixed it because... it would've made the Fiero GT faster than the Vette! As usual, just about the time they were getting it right they dumped it.
RR - no flame, but it's been a long weekend of skewering those headlines. However, all was not lost in the brief drudgeness surf since this came up on this fine country's descent into marxism ... note seemingly non-ironic mises.org ad at far right:
"who in a first government job finds himself dismantling General Motors and rewriting the rules of American capitalism.
But that, in short, is the job description for Brian Deese, a not-quite graduate of Yale Law School who had never set foot in an automotive assembly plant until he took on his nearly unseen role in remaking the American automotive industry."
When something goes wrong in a business, it's management's fault. Management decided what cars would sell. Management decided what cars to build. Management decided how to compensate employees. Management decided to go financial with GMAC. I say this only because I don't understand the union bashing when the problems are due to management's decisions.
Some time ago someone here commented that we could build some nuclear power plants and grow food in highrise buildings... We already have some of the buildings... It's hard to forecast what the max population of the planet would be because we dont know what ideas will come up or actually be built out to increase food production, or what the standard of living would be... For a while I was thinking that some kind of virus would wipe out a lot of people, such as Sars or Ebola, or even a flu... but we seem to be pretty well ahead of those things at the moment... Nobody knows, and the standard of living will probably not be uniform across the globe either...
It's just the fact that Reuters would run a headline like "Federal Reserve puzzled by yield curve steepening" is flipping hilarious to me. I guess I missed mention of it in previous threads. It's been a busy weekend in RL.
Rocky, yes they are very funny. Here's the opening graph and link to the Reuters' story:
Federal Reserve puzzled by yield curve steepening
Sun, May 31 15:48 PM EDT By Alister Bull - Analysis
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve is studying significant moves in the U.S. government bond market last week that could have big implications for the central bank's strategy to combat the country's recession...
I remember a story of the last great increase in rice yields. Rice heads were getting so large that the stalks couldn't support them. Many people spoke of grain output limits. Then geneticists bred a stalk that was shorter but much stronger and allowed the yield per stalk to double again.
My point is that we don't know many of the answers because things are changing so fast that we don't know the questions to ask or what problems we will face.
Chinese are reallocating their portfolio of t-notes into bills, have already dumped their agency paper, hence a steeper curve. Steep curve is deserved now given short term deflation, high potential inflation later
Geithner calls for closer economic ties with China
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer Martin Crutsinger, Ap Economics Writer – Sun May 31, 10:35 am ET
BEIJING – After years of acrimonious economic relations with China, the U.S. insists it wants to turn the page and develop closer ties with the world's third largest economy.
GM which as the epitome of America for decades is toast.
Now 'water boy' Geithner is tasked with reassuring China that its massive US bond holdings are safe despite concerns.
HA !!!....US economy carries about $20 trillion of excess debt.
Until that debt is eliminated, the idea of a healthy boom is a mirage.
A Treasury official acknowledged last Thursday that the budget deficit was "going to increase sharply" as a result of aggressive measures to jolt the economy from recession but added that once recovery was firmly established, "we are going to walk back these measures and the deficit will decrease.
"In general, Treasury believes that by maintaining the most liquid debt markets in the world, by maintaining strong economic fundamentals, we will continue to attracts both domestic and international investment."
Geithner on his knees begging China please please please keep buying our debt because Obama and his Wall St bought and paid for economic team have put all their chips on the Banking Oligarchs !
One Bilderberger attendee said that, “the banks themselves don't know the answer to when the bottom will be hit.” Everyone appeared to agree, “that the level of capital needed for the American banks may be considerably higher than the US government suggested through their recent stress tests.”
Further, “someone from the IMF pointed out that its own study on historical recessions suggests that the US is only a third of the way through this current one; therefore economies expecting to recover with resurgence in demand from the US will have a long wait.” One attendee stated that, “Equity losses in 2008 were worse than those of 1929,” and that, “The next phase of the economic decline will also be worse than the '30s, mostly because the US economy carries about $20 trillion of excess debt.
Until that debt is eliminated, the idea of a healthy boom is a mirage.
was in the PowerSports(Yamaha, Kawasaki, Honda motorbikes) shop yesterday and got chatting and the conversation turned to GM - a crowd of about 10 other fellow bikers gathered - mannnn they were pissed - "never gonna buy a car from Government Motors"...
I was surprised - I mean this is a apolitical, innocent macro-economics-wise, "stay out of my hair" ( those who have any ) crowd...
Needless to day, I was pretty pleased by the talk - I lived in England though that miserable experience of the rationalization of the British motorcar industry - British Leyland, BL, etc etc - 1968-1979 and that whole disastrous waste of money...
Will people see how stupid this all this quickly or will it take 11 years ?
The attendee thought the banks knew something about anything----hahahahahahahahaha.
These people need to get down in the trenches and check out how the world really works.
Huh? Why did you say that? Did you mean to respond to me or someone else? All I was trying to say was I found your posts on this thread re the GM 2007 report interesting.
Brian Deese, a not-quite graduate of Yale Law School who had never set foot in an automotive assembly plant
There are a ridiculous number of Yale 3L's running around Washington as part of the Administration. With all due respect to James Kwak (@ Baseline Scenario), I think most of them are just as steeped in the American Exceptionalism Birthright, albeit from a different perspective, as members of the previous Administration.
Sure, they may be the best and the brightest, but I don't think that many of them get the magnitude of what's going on.
On NPR last week, some Cali honcho was saying, but, but, but, if we were a sovereign nation we
would be doing just fine, low debt levels, everything peachy. Well, they didn't say peachy.
All those tract homes clustered around plants. The rowhouses.. A Catholic church every 4 blocks. A bar on every corner. Corner grocery stores. Neighborhoods with kids. Father O'Rourke getting drunk and fondling little Jimmy.
they may be the best and the brightest, but II don't think that many of them get the magnitude of what's going on.
Basel, in that same vein, the scary (not funny to me) part of the Reuter's headline on the Fed being puzzled by a steepening yield curve is that those making the decisions in D.C. really don't know any more about what is going to happen than the folks posting comments here.
"Damn it, Dagny! I need the government to get out of the way and let me do my job!"
She sat across the desk from him. She appeared casual but confident, a slim body with rounded shoulders like an exquisitely engineered truss. How he hated his debased need for her, he who loathed self-sacrifice but would give up everything he valued to get in her pants ... Did she know?
"I heard the thugs in Washington were trying to take your Rearden metal at the point of a gun," she said. "Don't let them, Hank. With your advanced alloy and my high-tech railroad, we'll revitalize our country's failing infrastructure and make big, virtuous profits."
"Oh, no, I got out of that suckers' game. I now run my own hedge-fund firm, Rearden Capital Management."
"What?"
He stood and adjusted his suit jacket so that his body didn't betray his shameful weakness. He walked toward her and sat informally on the edge of her desk. "Why make a product when you can make dollars? Right this second, I'm earning millions in interest off money I don't even have."
He gestured to his floor-to-ceiling windows, a symbol of his productive ability and goodness.
"There's a whole world out there of byzantine financial products just waiting to be invented, Dagny. Let the leeches run my factories into the ground! I hope they do! I've taken out more insurance on a single Rearden Steel bond than the entire company is even worth! When my old company finally tanks, I'll make a cool $877 million."
Their eyes locked with an intensity she was only beginning to understand. Yes, Hank ... claim me ... If we're to win the battle against the leeches, we must get it on ... right now ... Don't let them torture us for our happiness ... or our billions.
He tore his eyes away.
"I can't. Sex is base and vile!"
"No, it's an expression of our highest values and our admiration for each other's minds."
"Your mind gives me the biggest boner, Dagny Taggart."
He fell upon her like a savage, wielding his mouth like a machete, and in the pleasure she took from him her body became an extension of her quarterly earnings report—proof of her worthiness as a lover. His hard-on was sanction enough.
"Over the years, G.M. executives became practiced at the art of explaining their problems, attributing blame to everyone but themselves.
That list included the United Automobile Workers, for demanding health care coverage and pensions (even though G.M. agreed to provide them);"
" I am old. Not as old as Pavel, thank goblins!. Yet GM going BK is a lot like reading the US Navy 7th Fleet was defeated in a surface engagement by the Chinese fleet off of Taiwan. It just can't happen. Yet, for GM, it did.
GM was huge. GM was unbeatable. GM was solid. GM was America.
GM is as gone as $20 ounces, smoking anywhere you felt like it, and a homogenous culture."
"You don't have to be a sociopath to blindly follow Ayn Rand, but it helps"
I used to like Ayn Rand-- when I was 16. Is it cool or what to be a hero for being a complete AZZhole when you are 16?
After dealing in the real economy, Ayn becomes the simpleton ideologue that one is embarrassed to admit they took seriously.
Oh yes, the Birdsall link gives it away - wrote a ton of twaddle about debt relief for Africa about 5 years ago. Debt relief was going to be the final link to break, the final binding constraint leading to permanent good policy, fiscal prudence, enlightened governance, terms of trade smoothing and ever-rising general welfare for the poorest. Sunshine, rainbows, ponies, the lot.
Erm, except that HIPC hadn't worked and still hasn't. So there was another round, grandly called the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative. After year one of (again) fully and finally breaking the lend and forgive cycle, African countries had paid out exactly 10 times in increased oil prices what they'd gained in debt relief...
I was initially going to respond to RockyR saying that by 31 it's a little unfair to have to have demonstrated the kind of incompetence required for prime time, but it seems he has been training with the best.
those making the decisions in D.C. really don't know any more about what is going to happen than the folks posting comments here.
That's a certainty. I'd argue that their worldview is so slanted that they are simply incapable of knowing, as demonstrated by their total ignorance during the bubble and denial of its consequences afterwards.
I do not invest in California debt. Last I saw, the Cali BAB deal (taxable) was +330ish to Tsys. The Bond Buyer article we were discussing was about how California's long-term debt could potentially be affected by how high the yields go on revenue anticipation warrants if they are issued.
The administration needs to lend the Fed some of its image-management people. The Fed is not "puzzled" on the yield curve, so much as working out the details on its "surgical" response.
the other day, i finally realized why i had never quite drank the Administration koolaid as have many of my peers. From my extremely limited experienced with low-level Administration policy wonks, it seems that they all have pre-Iraq War Rumsfeldian blinders on. Just replace the head of the power structure, and the body will fall in place. I don't think that anyone in the Administration seriously believes that the body itself is what needs to be fixed.
The administration needs to lend the Fed some of its image-management people. The Fed is not "puzzled" on the yield curve, so much as working out the details on its "surgical" response.
BG: One possibility is that "puzzled" was unintentional. I'm worried that there's another.
has 2/3rds of the bazooka left....stretch yer legs....bottom of the 6th. Helicopters aint coming till the second half of the double header recovery story....thats near liz's third half recovery.
I've known two people connected -long ago - to Somalia. One was the American director of the Peace Corps high school program in Somalia in the 50s. His predecessor had been speared to death because the local people thought he was a secret agent of the Salvation Army, trying to convert their kids to Christianity.
The other was a soldier in the Soviet Army who'd been posted to Somalia when it was a Soviet client, and he had some stories to tell. One was about an army buddy named Sasha, who disappeared into the toilet one day, and was next heard screaming his head off from behind the closed door, which bulged in and out as Shasha, while screaming, attempted to crash through it. They tried to reason with him. They kept saying, in calm voices: "Sasha, turn the knob. Just turn the knob." Finally, they got the door open, and beheld Sasha cowering on one side of the room while a huge snake reared up out of the toilet, swaying.
So how else can debt service payments be brought down as a share of GDP? Inflation will do it. But how much? To bring the debt-to-GDP ratio down to the same level as at the end of 2008 would take a doubling of prices. That 100 per cent increase would make nominal GDP twice as high and thus cut the debt-to-GDP ratio in half, back to 41 from 82 per cent. A 100 per cent increase in the price level means about 10 per cent inflation for 10 years.
If the Fed increased its purchases, the best it could achieve is more of the same - perhaps get a big response initially as everyone scrambled to front-run the Fed, then watch it erode as market participants begin to worry about the near / intermediate-term consequences and supply. I would not put it past Bernanke to try, but everyone knows where this goes.
Well, after we bought the house in Deerwood, new, I went to the potty in the middle of the
nite and--I swear this is true--I felt something bouncing against my bottom. It was a frog.
golden shoots and scores. lever up and let it run.
*circumstance to forgive 10% penalty on 401k withdraw WRT Federal tax penalty is on the table.
most wont get this one so I'll add an extra... you may as a circumstance of your currency withdraw your 401k early and purchase Sovereign gold coinage from the US mint.
those making the decisions in D.C. really don't know any more about what is going to happen than the folks posting comments here.
Sportsfan:
I would argue that the folks posting here have a better "Big Picture" understanding of what is going down than anyone in Washington. They are so busy rushing from meeting to meeting, hearing to hearing, fund-raiser to fund-raiser that they do not have time to think about, much less reflect on, the full implications and details of what they are and have been doing.
They are also terribly parochial: if it didn't originate within the Beltway and wasn't touted in the Washington Post, it does not exist. If it cannot be twisted into the Democrat vs Republican or Left vs Right paradigm, it doubly doesn't exist.
Watching the Sunday morning talking heads reminds me of the "Greens vs Blues" factional fighting at the Byzantine Court as the forces of islam were overrunning the frontiers and pounding at the gates.
"Watching the Sunday morning talking heads reminds me of the "Greens vs Blues" factional fighting at the Byzantine Court as the forces of islam were overrunning the frontiers and pounding at the gates."
Dear lord! I can agree to be puzzled by the makets actions, but these guys displacement from reality is astounding. And the charts... Someone needs to learn Excel at the minimum.
Makes me appreciate the competence and forum that CR provides. Still, it would be nice to see some kind of poll for CR.
Actually, the Muslims attacked in the 7th century and were driven off, and in subsequent attacks on the city they were driven off. They didn't succeed in taking the Constantinople until 1453.
The blues and the greens were sports factions, concentrated on chariot racing in the Hippodrome. During the 6th century Nika riots the Empress Theodora cleaned their clocks by ordering the army to lock the gates of the Hippodrome and then slaughter the rioters inside. The Emperor Justinian was ready to flee, and Theodora told him to go ahead if he wanted to, but she wasn't going to run away from those scum.- or words to that effect.
is it possible that the bad assets (everything but Chevy and Caddy) continue through the bankruptcy process while the "Good GM" exits early ie within 30-60 days?
GM to file bankruptcy on Monday, 60-90 day reorganization envisioned: Obama administration official. Treasury to provide $30 billion in debtor-in-possession aid: official
"Rand got some things right. But she vastly mis-estimated the nature of the "businessmen" at the top of the corporate food chain."
The inability or unwillingness to account for the irrational and the stupid, seems to be a defect in many philosophies. Far too many ignore the math and look at the numbers, and see what they want to see.
is it possible that the bad assets (everything but Chevy and Caddy) continue through the bankruptcy process while the "Good GM" exits early ie within 30-60 days?
That's actually the blueprint for the "surgical" BK.
"PC: during your ill spent youth in the Varangian Guard, which team did you root for: Green? or, Blue?"
Who says it was ill-spent? A good time was had by all.
The Blues were the Imperial faction and represented wealth and the establishment. The Greens were more to the prole side, sort of like the old Democrats versus Republicans in the ancient US.
bANK fAILURE (profile) wrote on Sun, 5/31/2009 - 7:00 pm
never, ever, in the course of bond holdings purchase the senior-securitized debt of unionized companies. Unless you like selling the myth of rusted infrastructure..recovery
Actually IIRC the GM secureds are being made whole. So I guess only buy secured after calling the psychic hotline.
I'm shutting down and off to bed but would appreciate if you could please respond to my question re your comment. I'll check this thread in the AM. Just want to make sure we're all square on this. Thanks. Night all.
So, if you print to pump the T-Bill and equities, COMEX and FOREX will get you in the end. All this to rebubble housing to save RE and the TBTF 19? That is some impressive knife catching.
"pavel, the Siege of Malta. When the horde was turned back.the Knights of Templar rejoiced."
You bet, and Malta is so Catholic I was almost tempted to move there once. I wonder how they're doing during this crisis time. Malta is heavily dependent on tourists from northern Europe.
Last month, a little-known company where Summers served on the board of directors received a $42 million investment from a group of investors, including three banks that Summers, Obama’s effective “economy czar,” has been doling out billions in bailout money to: Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and Morgan Stanley. The banks invested into the small startup company, Revolution Money, right at the time when Summers was administering the “stress test” to these same banks.
A month after they invested in Summers’ former company, all three banks came out of the stress test much better than anyone expected — thanks to the fact that the banks themselves were allowed to help decide how bad their problems were (Citigroup “negotiated” down its financial hole from $35 billion to $5.5 billion.)
.
Boston Magazine just published a story on financial difficulties Harvard is facing While the failed presidency of Lawrence Summers generated more headlines, this quiet crisis is actually a greater threat to Harvard. The university has been so rich for so long that most of its denizens can't remember a time when money was a concern. While Harvard officials are doing their public-face best to downplay the problem, the numbers don't lie, and this economic crunch will leave the school a profoundly changed place. Harvard will have to become smaller and academically more modest, and as it does it will chafe at having grand plans without the resources to fund them. For the first time in decades, it will worry about merely paying its bills. The university will have to decide: If it is no longer so rich that it doesn't have to make choices, what does it really value? What are its priorities? It won't be a comfortable debate.
... Further squeezing Harvard was a transaction Summers had pushed it into in 2004, when he successfully argued that the university should engage in a multibillion-dollar interest rate swap with Goldman Sachs and other large banks. Under the terms of the deal, Harvard would pay Goldman a long-term fixed rate while Goldman paid Harvard the Federal Reserve rate. The main goal was to lock in a low rate for future debt, and if the Fed had raised rates, Harvard would have made hundreds of millions. But when the Fed slashed rates to historic lows to try to goose stalled credit markets, the deal turned equally sour for Harvard: By last November, the value of the swaps had fallen to negative $570 million. The university found itself needing to post more collateral to guarantee those swaps, and would ultimately buy its way out of them at an undisclosed cost.
...
This spring Harvard offered early retirement to some 500 FAS staffers. Only about 150 accepted, which means the university will likely have to fire people—probably in the summer, to minimize bad press and potential commencement protests. A campus group calling itself the Student Labor Action Movement (S.L.A.M.) has taken to parodying a pro-environment slogan Faust has been pushing: The president's "Green is the new Crimson" has become "Greed is the new Crimson." In April members of S.L.A.M. loudly interrupted Faust's lunch in a house dining hall and presented her with a T-shirt bearing their mantra. She's not unsympathetic to such passions; as an undergraduate herself at Bryn Mawr, Faust traveled to Alabama on a civil rights protest. But it was the latest sign that her honeymoon is over.
Increasingly, money dominates the Harvard conversation. On April 14, FAS dean Mike Smith, a Faust appointee, held an open meeting in a packed Sanders auditorium. Sitting on a stool and occasionally tapping on a laptop, he delivered alarming news: Despite efforts to close the budget gap, FAS was facing an ongoing annual $220 million deficit. And by the 2011 fiscal year, the university would be cutting FAS's annual infusion of endowment cash by $125 million.
There were no more inefficiencies, Smith said, no loose dollars here and there. "It is extremely important for us to think deeply about how we not only resize our activities...[but] to really start thinking about reshaping these activities."
The "reshaping" is already more dramatic than the word suggests. The career services office is talking about closing for a month in the summer; other offices are expected to take similar furloughs. The library system, its budget pared by 31 percent, is cutting back on hours and book purchases, and the Quad Library is closing altogether. The college's "January term," part of a much-ballyhooed new curriculum, is now dead. Harvard has already halted the hiring of junior faculty and announced an early retirement program for tenured professors, and for the first time ever is considering laying off tenured professors. Funds for housemasters are being slashed by one-fourth, and even the hot breakfasts the houses served on weekdays are out. Meanwhile, idled cranes bow over the pit in Allston, as if in mourning.
I realize that Summers is extremely intelligent, but intelligence is not required to fix the current economic mess - integrity and honesty are.
In the bad assets I can see years where the government pays out pensions and health care costs while they hold the assets for years waiting for a buyer ala toxic assets.
blackhalo,
Rand is a fiction writer. That's all there is to know
"though why anyone thinks a law school grad is a good choice still confuses me. Wouldn't someone with relevant experience....
Never Mind."
Deese hasn't graduated Yale yet, and " has never set foot in an automotive plant". What's his qualification?...Summers likes him.
With all the government mooks who lurk here, you'd think somebody would have contacted dryfly...a guy who actually has experience and knows something about industry.
"Rand is a fiction writer. That's all there is to know"
Yes, but is it not curious how the Social Darwinist take it as gospel? It fascinates me to no end, how folks such as Greenspan, Rush, Hannity, and others can quote passage and verse, as if it provided some kind of justification.
NYC built subway lines to compete with independent lines back in the 30's. Guess what: eventually the independents went out of business, unable to compete with government subsidies. NYC stepped in and bought the whole schebang. Now the whole subway system is owned by Mayor Bloomberg & Co. Warning to all car companies.......
"Intelligence, along with the other two qualities,wouldn't hurt.
It will not replace them, though"
Now you're talking!
I've always wondered how far integrity will take you in the stratospheric circles I've never moved in. There's the famous Truman saying: If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog. Was he trying to tell us something?
Harvard will have to become smaller and academically more modest, and as it does it will chafe at having grand plans without the resources to fund them. For the first time in decades, it will worry about merely paying its bills. The university will have to decide: If it is no longer so rich that it doesn't have to make choices, what does it really value? What are its priorities? It won't be a comfortable debate.
This is going to ripple throughout higher-ed. Harvard was the equivalent of the NY Yankees, using its vaunted endowment to drive all aspects of higher education costs (save athletic facilities and coaches) through the stratosphere.
I don't think trickle down economics was supposed to work like this...
NYC built subway lines to compete with independent lines back in the 30's. Guess what: eventually the independents went out of business, unable to compete with government subsidies.
The problem with university endowments has been one of the worst-kept secrets for a while now. Yale started branching out on its investment strategy, and everyone else followed. Premium content | Economist.com
It will be interesting to see if trade schools make a comeback.
I'm a laid-off attorney thinking of going to one. Eventually I came to realize that although I was performing a useful service, I didn't produce or create anything... and I never would. So maybe the lay off might be for the best.
I'm not sure whether the better bet would be to go to a trade school or try to get an engineering degree. Hell, I don't even know if I could hack the latter. I used to be good at math, but that was a long time ago...
"I'm not sure whether the better bet would be to go to a trade school or try to get an engineering degree."
There aren't many good career paths for engineers in the US right now. Most of my colleagues left their engineering jobs for something else within their first several years out of school. This is a personal pet peeve of mine... something I think needs to change, but the facts are the facts.
No offense to anyone here, but I think the Japanese and the Koreans will continue to eat gubmint motors lunch. It will take some massive trade barriers to keep it from happening, subsidies or not.
And if that's happening to Harvard, think of the hundreds of small liberal arts colleges that already only hanging on.
We recently joined a program called SAGE via spouse's 401k program. Online as College Tuition Benefits or some such. Developed about 10 years ago as a measure to help smaller private colleges compete in the money game; when you look at the list of about 250 participating colleges/universities, many are religiously affiliated (Pacific Lutheran, for example). Gist is that based upon the dollar amount in the 401k program, they'll give you an account that annually accrues 5% of the balance as reward points. This continues each year until the kid's entering senior year of HS at which time the amounts can be used as "reward dollars" to offset the tuition/room and board costs by the college. Offset is dollar for dollar.
The colleges get the student names for their mailing lists and ostensibly better shots at getting students. Eldest has already gotten the first letter.
But this also tells me that 401k managers are getting worried about people keeping money in 401k plans and also continuing to fund them.
While a bit jaded about the whole thing, we're in in order to maximize any tuition assistance whatsoever.
I have read that in some states the endowment cannot be spent down below the initial contributions... That might explain why some of those schools have to cut spending - the endowment has shrunk due to investment losses below the initial contribution amount and they have to either raise more cash or wait for it to grow above the initial level...
I went to a small southern all-male liberal arts college and lived in an effin' rathole of a freshman dorm. The only way to keep out the cockroaches was to duct tape along the open spaces between the floor and the bottom of the baseboard, and even then found that the beggars would stroll under the door itself from the hallway.
And I do get disturbed to see how the colleges - my alma mater included - have put up these ghastly student centers in order to compete. Hell, ten years ago I told the spouse that these were a huge waste of resources.
There aren't many good career paths for engineers in the US right now. Most of my colleagues left their engineering jobs for something else within their first several years out of school. This is a personal pet peeve of mine... something I think needs to change, but the facts are the facts.
I think (hope?) it depends on the field. A good friend of mine studied chemical engineering and tells me that, at least until the oil market fell through the floor last year, the market was still strong for chem E's. I can only imagine that automotive is getting slaughtered by overcapacity and electrical by offshoring.
I think things will get better, but it will probably take a currency crisis to get us there.
Agronox: you any relation to hoopdajoop ltd?
No, but we're in similar circumstances. Actually, having read his recent posts made me feel a lot better, because it's very hard to wrap my mind around the idea of just junking the law degree I paid a lot of money and time for.
Bond Girl,
This guy hasn't even gotten into the business world where he can learn everything he studied and learned in school is BS. Has anyone ever "run a project" straight out of school that didn't end up over-budget and delayed?
I'm not sure about making Kash-n-Karry look good... but I think Neil has found his match... just hope they don't end up as folks sticking around in government 20 years from now... 'cept now they are in those positions they can make a living from being "on the Blah Blah economic team of Obama!" and "on the blah blah running TARP"...
agronox -- I'm not sure whether the better bet would be to go to a trade school or try to get an engineering degree.
i do building maintenance for a very large company. i do hvac work, electrical, plumbing, you name it. in my opinion the trade schools are mostly a waste of money. if you understand basic electrical and mechanical concepts then all you need is experience to make good money. if you don't have basic electrical or mechanical skills most trade schools won't help. i know a guy in the hvac field that got into a fist fight with an instructor. he told his instructor to stop wasting time rambling about non-trade related crap in class and it escalated into physical violence. i had an instructor that did nothing but talk about his pain-in-the-ass wife during class. go to a class to get epa certified(if you want to do hvac), but the rest is a waste. you might be marginally more employable than a person with a similar skill set without a trade school certificate but that is all.
you should also be ready to climb ladders with 1 or 1/2 a hand, work on roofs in the summer, get extremely heavy things onto roofs by yourself during the summer, work with live wires, (the worst for last) get shit on yourself.
if summer is not the extreme season in your neck of the woods than substitute winter
the upside is that you'll earn your pay, keep the place running, find creative solutions to problems, be the hero, be self directed, be able to help friends and family.
" Has anyone ever "run a project" straight out of school that didn't end up over-budget and delayed?"
Perhaps you should ask the guys at Google about that.
If any of the senior execs from Google or Apple took over GM, I would definitely pay attention. They might fail gloriously, but they would certainly fail in a different manner for different reasons that auto execs of the past few decades.
welp. futures are headed north. looks as though my puts will go further underwater tomorrow. I guess this just proves once again that it's foolish to bet against the fed.
time to close up and get some sleep.
just remember, as long as the Chinese keep buying, we'll be relatively alright:
As the U.S. economy has shifted away from making stuff, so, too, have skill sets.
It's much more about politicking and "having the back" of "your guy".
It's a failing strategy long-term but apparently that's not important now.
OT - I met Andy Mackie today outside of Port Angeles today. I'd never heard of him, but he had a Guinness Book of World Records sticker on his station wagon so we ended up talking. He seemed almost embarrassed to hand me a business card. The Ying to Kashkari's Yang, I suppose.
Go study to be a machinist where you can use your math skills on a practical level . There is a demand for them and I believe should increase in the future and besides it is a great hobby if you decide to go back to lawyering.
They must be filing electronically. No one would open the courthouse for them that early.
no cigar!
Hey, who wants to buy a vehicle from GM with a manufacture date anytime in the last 3 months?
It seems Lew Rockwell is on board with the boycott of Government Motors products.
The Obama administration will name a veteran turnaround expert as chief restructuring officer for General Motors Corp.
Feh!, what do we need courts for?
Hey, who wants to buy a vehicle from GM with a manufacture date anytime in the last 3 months?
For myself and a whole lot of Americans, buying a GM or Chrysler vehicle isn't even a consideration. Honda, Toyota, maybe Hyundai. But it will take a decade before GM and Chrysler could convince us that their product is the real deal and desirable.
never, ever, in the course of bond holdings purchase the senior-securitized debt of unionized companies. Unless you like selling the myth of rusted infrastructure..recovery
Just how many veterans has this Koch guy turned around?
Anyhow, Alberto's spam on previous thread got unfairly pigged. He may not be an economist, but his gift for comedy should not be without some recognition:
What the New Bull Market Will Look Like » iamned.com
C
"Hey, who wants to buy a vehicle from GM with a manufacture date anytime in the last 3 months?"
Will they be better or worse than the last batch of Cameros produced at the Van Nuys plant?
More from Bloomberg
The 67-year-old Koch was interim chief financial officer of Kmart Corp. when it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2002, the Journal said. Koch also spearheaded a turnaround of Champion Enterprises Inc. that allowed the manufactured-home builder to avoid bankruptcy, the Journal reported.
If GM emerges from bankruptcy, Koch is expected to lead a new management team to wind down the “Old GM” which would include efforts to sell or spin off the automaker’s assets including the Saturn, Pontiac and Saab brands and as many as 20 factories, the newspaper said.
And Reuters
U.S. President Barack Obama is expected to outline GM's next steps on Monday as the federal government prepares to take a more than 70 percent stake in the company in exchange for $60 billion in financing. Nearly half of that money has already been extended this year in emergency aid.
The government's of Canada and Ontario will take an equity or debt position in a restructured GM, but details are still being worked out.
The common stock should rally 20% on this news.
So it realy is Government Motors. Theez iz calling the shots.
What ever happened to a time when enterprize was free?
"The common stock should rally 20% on this news"
lol
Why doesn't Liddy do it for free?
"Why doesn't Liddy do it for free? "
'cause he makes 20k a pop for speaking gigs.
OMFG - check out the managementspeak on Alix' website, just perfect for another round of Bailout Lingo Bingo! First one to 50 gets a hummer.
Personal fav: partners are battle-tested and field-savvy...
The page cannot be found
Perhaps a new GM executive uniform is in order? Y'now, inspirational, rally the troops?
Merchandise
C
What ever happened to a time when enterprise was free?
The free enterprise was running too wild, so those times are over.
Unless you are a bank, of course, in which case you remain in the land of the free (enterprise)
Im an orphan. I bought the assets of GM, lets list the assets:
Chevorlet
Cadillac
Saab
Hummer
Opel
Vauxhall
GMC
Buik
Pontiac
Saturn
Holden
GM Daewoo
now lets list the owners:
Bondholders not Sovereigns?
As goes GM, so goes the Country.....hope you know what yer doin.
bANK fAILURE writes:
"never, ever, in the course of bond holdings purchase the senior-securitized debt of unionized companies."
That's going in the rule book right after "buy low, sell high".
I just decided to unload an oil-company stock, and I must admit that I was influenced by a note in their annual report that they are 49% unionized. That's not the only reason I'm selling, but...
This just the gift that keeps on giving: Alix partner Peter Fitzsimmons was Restructuring Officer at Maidenform Worldwide...
C
Im pulling out the 2007 GM annual report....avert your gaze.
not sure if fish wrap is the terminology....
What is the proper terminology for the actuall physical 2007 annual report for GM?
GM can now start manufacturing ponyless carriages.
Now ! Two to chose from! Obama's FU Motors and his new one Obama's Government Motors. Pick from two boring tin cans with central tail pipe technology! Be the first to show up to the global warming protest in your own coal burner but you can tell your friends it is pollution free! Out of sight and out of mind! Buy now and get the new Palosi bobble head dash board doll! Hit a bump and she complements illegals for being good patriots!
"never, ever, in the course of bond holdings purchase the senior-securitized debt of unionized companies. Unless you like selling the myth of rusted infrastructure..recovery"
Dont you mean never purchase senior-securitized debt unless you insured with CDS via AIG? Don't worry it's only mom and pop investors that will get screwed, not Bill Gross, GS et al.
FYI...it's Camaro not Camero. The 94 model year was really a great car, with the vette LT1 engine.
Well with this nastiness behind us, we can continue the rally. Rally ho!
/snark off
Futures are up right now...
CC, pardon the misspelling. The Van Nuys plant closed in 1992. I think the '94s were made in Quebec.
had one pinched....
who capxuring this?
Chief Restructuring Officer? Is that the designated White House intimidator for the GM BK???
I wonder if Al Koch will be the new "Chainsaw Al"?
once more.
2007 GM Annual Report, p. 75, Accounting Standards Not Yet Adopted
"....FASB 159, requires expanded disclosures about fair value measurements and establishes a three-level hierarchy for fair value measurments based on the transparency of inputs to the valuation of an asset or liability as of the measurement date."
again, Toilette and Dousce is a quality firm. (this part is speeled incorectly on porpoise)
"What is the proper terminology for the actuall physical 2007 annual report for GM? "
Death Certificate
Don't throw that 2007 GM report away!! It will be a collectible someday and is worth
far more than the whole company!
Over 1.6m Youtube views.
The 2012 Pelosi GTxi SS/RT Sport Edition
YouTube - The 2012 Pelosi GTxi SS/RT Sport Edition
"2007 GM Annual Report, p. 75, Accounting Standards Not Yet Adopted"
pp 76: "Making a Profit" (Not Yet Adopted)
pp 77: "Managing Costs" (Not Yet Adopted)
pp 78: "Financing Below Cost of Funds" (Adopted!)
Very funny bond girl.
As a kid, I would've loved to have an eensy car like that.
Nancy Pelosi is Tommy D'Alessadro's daugher.
I was beginning to wonder if people decided to retire officially the pony jokes when I wasn't looking. I am actually happy to acquire GM. It goes great with the insurance company I already own.
Synergy for bond girl's unexpected investments!
Cars, Insurance, Banks - Everything we cant afford any more!!!
Bond Girl writes;
"I am actually happy to acquire GM. It goes great with the insurance company I already own."
Do we need to send in a address form so that our new holdings know where to send the dividend checks?
BTW, thanks for the post on RAWs in California. Would you buy these if issued? Assuming you live in California?
ahh yes, p 61 Key Facors Addressing Future and Current Results/
Address Health Care/Legacy Cost Burden
...critical challenge...UAW Health Care Settlement when implemented on the later of January 1, 2010 or the date when all appeals and challenges to the court approve of the settlememt agreement have been exhausted (implementation date)
-didja see that? thats a socialize the cost statement.
whats good for GM is good for Congress and the White house.
yer beggin for more....
gimme a minute.
Seriously, this is very sad.
Maidenform. I still grind my teeth when I recall their cutsey ad campaign: I dreamed I did X (airline pilot, lawyer, race car driver) in my maidenform bra, with the beautiful model in the appropriate uniform, except topless except for the
bra. (in times when women in those positions were very rare and would have had to have been very dignified in order to survive) haven't bought a Maidenform bra since.
What are RAWS?
Don't wear out that thing bANK, it is a collectible I tell you.
"ahh yes, p 61 Key Facors Addressing Future and Current Results"
Did you see this one on page 63?
"...critical challenge... find a way to manufacture cars for less than the selling price..."
LL sorry, Revenue Anticipation Warrants.
Bond Girl's post is here:
Blogger: Blog not found
They haven't said whether they are going to issue them.
OH yeah baby, more Key Factors.
North American Turnaround Plan, p 60.
product excellence
Revitalizing sales and marketing strategy
Accelerating cost reductions and quality improvements, and
Addressing health care/legacy cost burden
--anybody trying to write the teleprompter script tomorrow?
lawyerliz,
Isn't it funny how most TV shows have women "doing" X in their bras these days? Sure they can't do it nude, but strategic cover placement is at least more realistic.
Cross your heart....
I grew up with GM products --
71 Caprice (gawd, what a boat that was)
72 Kingswood Estate (with the fake bark and clam-shell tailgate), we called it The Tank
broke in 3 teenage drivers with nary a problem.
GM is dead
Long live GM
If they could issue these things all along, well, what's the problem?
"They haven't said whether they are going to issue them."
Right - I'm just wondering, since I live in Cali, if I could get less of a RAW deal by putting myself on the sweet buy side.
. . .Other than the unfortunate acronym.
TJ, I thought you swore off the pron.
Unemployment in U.S. Probably Surpassed 9% in May
Getting the news out there so the people don't get too spooked on Friday, I'm guessing.
Some interest rate arbitrage available there, perhaps?
sm_landlord
thats on p 67, Liquidity and Capital Resources...
Cash flow is sooooooooo printing press. cmon man, get with the recovery story.
cash flow in millions GM 2007 consolidated operations: 5,643
net cash provided by (used in) operating activities.
I read 40-50k newly unemployed GM workers from this. Add in all the mom and pop businesses in the factory towns, and I think it's a lot higher. They'll probably be re-trained as mortgage brokers.
I hate the word challenge.
Union bashing is easy--except you forget that it was a unionized GM that became the pre-eminent auto maker. As someone mentioned earlier, Ayn Rand followers frequent this site and don't see the fruit of such philosophy. Methinks the last 30 years should have shown some that we need countervailing powers--
If it (happens and) goes anything like their last note deal, it will carry a pretty high yield, which may be a good thing for short-term debt, depending on your attitude toward risk. California's deals have surprised many market participants in the past. They turn out to be way oversubscribed when people expect everyone to be worried about the state.
Mel,
Don't think of us as union-bashers, but people who like the idea of companies having a capital structure.
I hate the word challenge.
Me too. In the early part of my career, "challenge" and "opportunity" meant you were getting a shitty project that required a lot of overtime and no thanks at the end.
I wonder when they'll bring out "Chainsaw" Al Dunlop to help turnaround eitther:
AIG
Freddie Mac
Fannie Mae
Chrysler
or General Motors
He did such a good job at Sunbeam...
I am old. Not as old as Pavel, thank goblins!. Yet GM going BK is a lot like reading the US Navy 7th Fleet was defeated in a surface engagement by the Chinese fleet off of Taiwan. It just can't happen. Yet, for GM, it did.
GM was huge. GM was unbeatable. GM was solid. GM was America.
GM is as gone as $20 ounces, smoking anywhere you felt like it, and a homogenous culture.
Can you pick out which one was the worst?
@Nova
$20/oz was gold, or something else?
Bond Girl,
Yes, I've seen the magic happen with Cali bond sales. For high-income people who live in the state, the high tax-free rates are a blessing. If you work for a living here, you are looking at over 50% tax on income in some brackets, all in (Fed-35%, Payroll-7.5%, State-10%).
Tool,
Possibly something else.
I think I get it
Nova is getting all nostalgic on us.
"never, ever, in the course of bond holdings purchase the senior-securitized debt of unionized companies."
That is certainly the take-away on Obama's handling of the auto deals. This will sure help the bond markets - not!
The Detroit big 3 have been synonymous with crap since the 70s.
The amazing thing is that Americans ever became sufficiently enamored of the SUV to have given them an additional decade of existence.
Had enough?
Note 31, p 127 2007 GM Corporation Annual Report
...on February 2008, we announced an agreement was reached with the UAW regarding Special Attrition Program which was intended to reduce the number of US hourly employees
-special termination benefits may or may not be available depending on the circumstance of your Sovereign.
Yes, I am. Once you get to a certain age you don't see challenges; you see a part of your past dying.
This is also another rung of the ladder sawed off for anyone who can't or won't get a college degree. In a plant you could make a living. You are not going to do that at Safeway
sm_landlord:
Before you buy Cali RAWs, research where they stand in the "capital structure".
I recall reading that Cali General Obligation bonds get paid first from revenue per state law or constitution.
TANs, RANs, and RAWs were much lower in the pecking order.
I cannot recall where they stood in relation to state workers, vendors, etc.
NW
So, going forward, what is the correct structure for auto mfg in the US?
Bond Girl (homepage, profile) wrote on Sun, 5/31/2009 - 5:13 pm
Nova is getting all nostalgic on us.
Either that, or he's having a flashback.
NW
Nova, you're looking through a rosy-colored rearview there.
Remember when GM cars rusted out in a few years?
Remember when GM engines needed rebuilding after 100,000 miles?
Remember when GM put a "converted" V8 diesel in cars, and they blew up after 30,000 miles?
Remember when GM workers sabotaged equipment and vehicles at the assembly plants?
It's amazing that they lasted as long as they did.
"Ayn Rand followers frequent this site"
You don't have to be a sociopath to blindly follow Ayn Rand, but it helps.
So, again - do we build TVs in this country? Why not? Microwave ovens? Is that a crisis?
General Motors Corporation
300 Renaissance Center
PO Box 300
Detriot MI 48265-3000
mail it in.
Coinz: Me too. In the early part of my career, "challenge" and "opportunity" meant you were getting a shitty project that required a lot of overtime and no thanks at the end.
You mean there is another kind of project?
It doesn't really work that way with a state.
Here's the future:
YouTube - Did You Know; Shift Happens - Globalization; Information Age
A thirty nine year old, self made billionaire made our business round table watch this(and it's not OT but is only 8 minutes long)
NorkaWest;
"Before you buy Cali RAWs, research where they stand in the "capital structure"."
Oh yeah, that would be part of the analysis. From the name, it's tempting to hope that warrants on the revenue stream would have a high standing. But it's certainly not safe to assume that.
Buying California bonds is not for widows and orphans any more, now that there are serious questions about the sanity and solvency of the government.
sm_landlord,
My wife had an '84 Fiero with the Iron Duke when we met. Lost count of the recalls, and the engine totally cratered at 33K. She had to call virtually every GM exec west of the Mississippi before they'd honor the warranty. They kept claiming "improper maintenance".
p.s.: Actually loved the design, it's just the execution that totally sucked.
p5 2010 GM Annual Report:
尊敬的股东：
-simplified chinese
Sehr geehrte Aktionärinnen und Aktionäre:
-gern geschehen
Hyvä varastonpitäjänä:
-for lars, Svenskt
Уважаемые акционеры:
-Народы участника
from the Cali controller's website:
"The warrants are secured by and payable from unapplied money in the general fund, including transfers and internal borrowings as permitted by law, subject to the prior application to education, principal and interest on general obligation bonds and reimbursements and payments required by law. They are not general obligations of the state."
Get in line behind the GO bondholders, teachers, and everyone else who had the clout to get their payments written into law.
"GM Boycott" search results yields 792K results and this from Free Republic;
Boycott GM
traderwalt;
And that video is already out of date. I ran into the guy who was leading the $100 laptop project at a conference last month, and he's looking for a job - the project is toast.
bANK-
Thanks, riveting. You should compile it all in one document.
NW, you are right about that in terms of the flow of funds.
sm_landlord,
Just wow...
TJ;
"'84 Fiero with the Iron Duke"
I thought those were pretty cool cars, if they had been able to put the right engine in it. I actually toyed with the idea of putting a small block V8 in one, but decided it wouldn't hold together.
GM at one time had a design for a Wankel engine that they were considering for the Corvette. Apparently they could not solve the seal problem, which Mazda eventually did solve. Imagine a Wankel in one of those little Fieros!
Not a GM Wankel, of course, a Mazda.
It seems that the planet is headed for maximum population soon - that's not going to be pretty either...
I live near a stretch of road where there are 10 to 12 used/new car dealerships. Wonder how long it will be before more GM dealerships are closed. The Chrysler dealer's lot is already 80% empty. Thinking they sold off their inventory to CarMax next door. Lots of empty car lots now I actually don't even know who they were.
Really hit me earlier when I went to our favorite ice cream/custard stand which is at the beginning of car dealership row and it had gone out of business. Anyone have recommendations on where you can get real soft ice cream (custard) in Montgomery County, MD?
OK, please don't flame me for this, but the top two headlines on Drudge right now are absolutely hilarious.
I had a friend who took a Jaguar XKE body and put a Plymouth Hemi into it - I dont remember if he used the Jaguar frame or not... I do remember he had problems shoehorning a big enough radiator into it... But when it was done it could get air off the smallest hill....
traderwalt - loved the selective use of exponentials and extrapolations. Reminds me of the old gag that ends "at this rate, 1 in 3 Japanese men will be an Elvis impersonator by 2015".
C
RATM (profile) wrote on Sun, 5/31/2009 - 6:58 pm reply Ignore user Unemployment in U.S. Probably Surpassed 9% in May
Getting the news out there so the people don't get too spooked on Friday, I'm guessing.
In related news, the sun will probably rise in the east tomorrow
My guess is 9.3%, about 630K lost, and downward revisions to last month,
want to start and on line under and over?
It seems that the planet is headed for maximum population soon - that's not going to be pretty either...,
shadowInventory,
Source please.
If you thought the state was actually insolvent, however, and it was not really an issue of receiving timely payments on your debt, that is another matter. There really isn't a way of dealing with that.
Oh I was just commenting on that video about all the babies... Even if we manage to increase food production we probably have only 30 years or less before we get to a point there there are a lot of people starving... I know there are already some starving now...
Last year?
I thought those were pretty cool cars, if they had been able to put the right engine in it.
GM had a hot newer six they were going to plug in but Chevy nixed it because... it would've made the Fiero GT faster than the Vette! As usual, just about the time they were getting it right they dumped it.
RR - no flame, but it's been a long weekend of skewering those headlines. However, all was not lost in the brief drudgeness surf since this came up on this fine country's descent into marxism ... note seemingly non-ironic mises.org ad at far right:
American capitalism gone with a whimper - Pravda.Ru
C
@traderwalt:
"Here's the future:"
I ask: to what end?
Perhaps we really will automate ourselves out of work...
Meet Brian Deese, a 31 year old...
"who in a first government job finds himself dismantling General Motors and rewriting the rules of American capitalism.
But that, in short, is the job description for Brian Deese, a not-quite graduate of Yale Law School who had never set foot in an automotive assembly plant until he took on his nearly unseen role in remaking the American automotive industry."
The 31-Year-Old Who Is Dismantling G.M. - NY Times
When something goes wrong in a business, it's management's fault. Management decided what cars would sell. Management decided what cars to build. Management decided how to compensate employees. Management decided to go financial with GMAC. I say this only because I don't understand the union bashing when the problems are due to management's decisions.
I went past a GM dealership today. The only cars left were trucks, and there were a lot of them.
Some time ago someone here commented that we could build some nuclear power plants and grow food in highrise buildings... We already have some of the buildings... It's hard to forecast what the max population of the planet would be because we dont know what ideas will come up or actually be built out to increase food production, or what the standard of living would be... For a while I was thinking that some kind of virus would wipe out a lot of people, such as Sars or Ebola, or even a flu... but we seem to be pretty well ahead of those things at the moment... Nobody knows, and the standard of living will probably not be uniform across the globe either...
Sometimes it sure does feel crowded though...
C,
It's just the fact that Reuters would run a headline like "Federal Reserve puzzled by yield curve steepening" is flipping hilarious to me. I guess I missed mention of it in previous threads. It's been a busy weekend in RL.
"Meet Brian Deese, a 31 year old..."
Culture - of - Incompetence
"Management decided how to compensate employees."
Bwhahahaha!
Rocky, yes they are very funny. Here's the opening graph and link to the Reuters' story:
Federal Reserve puzzled by yield curve steepening
Sun, May 31 15:48 PM EDT By Alister Bull - Analysis
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve is studying significant moves in the U.S. government bond market last week that could have big implications for the central bank's strategy to combat the country's recession...
Federal Reserve puzzled by yield curve steepening
| Reuters
Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: Mortgage Meltdown, More Pain To Come
the answer is no. it's devaluationary.
stick that in yer book slick dog
ShadowInventory,
I remember a story of the last great increase in rice yields. Rice heads were getting so large that the stalks couldn't support them. Many people spoke of grain output limits. Then geneticists bred a stalk that was shorter but much stronger and allowed the yield per stalk to double again.
My point is that we don't know many of the answers because things are changing so fast that we don't know the questions to ask or what problems we will face.
Exactly - that's why it's important for everyone to learn as much as they can, so they will be able to adapt to whatever comes along...
Chinese are reallocating their portfolio of t-notes into bills, have already dumped their agency paper, hence a steeper curve. Steep curve is deserved now given short term deflation, high potential inflation later
It's not that we will have all the answers, but that when something shows up as a problem we can come up with a solution that works...
Geithner calls for closer economic ties with China
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer Martin Crutsinger, Ap Economics Writer – Sun May 31, 10:35 am ET
BEIJING – After years of acrimonious economic relations with China, the U.S. insists it wants to turn the page and develop closer ties with the world's third largest economy.
GM which as the epitome of America for decades is toast.
Now 'water boy' Geithner is tasked with reassuring China that its massive US bond holdings are safe despite concerns.
HA !!!....US economy carries about $20 trillion of excess debt.
Until that debt is eliminated, the idea of a healthy boom is a mirage.
A Treasury official acknowledged last Thursday that the budget deficit was "going to increase sharply" as a result of aggressive measures to jolt the economy from recession but added that once recovery was firmly established, "we are going to walk back these measures and the deficit will decrease.
"In general, Treasury believes that by maintaining the most liquid debt markets in the world, by maintaining strong economic fundamentals, we will continue to attracts both domestic and international investment."
Liquid debt markets = More Tsing Tao please !
Geithner on his knees begging China please please please keep buying our debt because Obama and his Wall St bought and paid for economic team have put all their chips on the Banking Oligarchs !
But Mr. Deese is ok, because Summers likes him.
One Bilderberger attendee said that, “the banks themselves don't know the answer to when the bottom will be hit.” Everyone appeared to agree, “that the level of capital needed for the American banks may be considerably higher than the US government suggested through their recent stress tests.”
Further, “someone from the IMF pointed out that its own study on historical recessions suggests that the US is only a third of the way through this current one; therefore economies expecting to recover with resurgence in demand from the US will have a long wait.” One attendee stated that, “Equity losses in 2008 were worse than those of 1929,” and that, “The next phase of the economic decline will also be worse than the '30s, mostly because the US economy carries about $20 trillion of excess debt.
Until that debt is eliminated, the idea of a healthy boom is a mirage.
Geithner says more Tsing Tao please !
was in the PowerSports(Yamaha, Kawasaki, Honda motorbikes) shop yesterday and got chatting and the conversation turned to GM - a crowd of about 10 other fellow bikers gathered - mannnn they were pissed - "never gonna buy a car from Government Motors"...
I was surprised - I mean this is a apolitical, innocent macro-economics-wise, "stay out of my hair" ( those who have any ) crowd...
Needless to day, I was pretty pleased by the talk - I lived in England though that miserable experience of the rationalization of the British motorcar industry - British Leyland, BL, etc etc - 1968-1979 and that whole disastrous waste of money...
Will people see how stupid this all this quickly or will it take 11 years ?
-K
reposted into the right thread
"But Mr. Deese is ok, because Summers likes him. "
You forgot to add that he went to Yale.
The attendee thought the banks knew something about anything----hahahahahahahahaha.
These people need to get down in the trenches and check out how the world really works.
Oh, ok, he went to Yale, too.
Yep, as you get older, there are fewer sunsets.
"stick that in yer book slick dog"
Huh? Why did you say that? Did you mean to respond to me or someone else? All I was trying to say was I found your posts on this thread re the GM 2007 report interesting.
He thinks he knows something--that's the scary part.
Yep, as you get older, there are fewer sunsets.
I don't know about that. I'm still getting one a day.
NorkaWest writes;
"Get in line behind the GO bondholders, teachers, and everyone else who had the clout to get their payments written into law. "
Oh well, never mind then. Maybe worth a small speculation if they pay 8% or above.
Brian Deese, a not-quite graduate of Yale Law School who had never set foot in an automotive assembly plant
There are a ridiculous number of Yale 3L's running around Washington as part of the Administration. With all due respect to James Kwak (@ Baseline Scenario), I think most of them are just as steeped in the American Exceptionalism Birthright, albeit from a different perspective, as members of the previous Administration.
Sure, they may be the best and the brightest, but I don't think that many of them get the magnitude of what's going on.
On NPR last week, some Cali honcho was saying, but, but, but, if we were a sovereign nation we
would be doing just fine, low debt levels, everything peachy. Well, they didn't say peachy.
"You don't have to be a sociopath to blindly follow Ayn Rand, but it helps"
Well that was a waste of some 30yr Scotch...but worth every penny...More paper towels please
What they need isn't b & b (assuming that is so), but the sneakiest and snarkiest and most skeptical and cynical.
sportsfan,
Ya gotta get maudlin...
All those tract homes clustered around plants. The rowhouses.. A Catholic church every 4 blocks. A bar on every corner. Corner grocery stores. Neighborhoods with kids. Father O'Rourke getting drunk and fondling little Jimmy.
Here is the estimated shortfall. I'd be worried about how they size the initial deal.
http://www.sco.ca.gov/Files-EO/cashoutlook_fy0910.pdf
I don't think that someone who thinks Ayn Rand was right once in a while is "blindly" following her.
Straw woman.
Korea May exports down 28.2% y/y. Imports down 40%. This is not a green shoot.
they may be the best and the brightest, but II don't think that many of them get the magnitude of what's going on.
Basel, in that same vein, the scary (not funny to me) part of the Reuter's headline on the Fed being puzzled by a steepening yield curve is that those making the decisions in D.C. really don't know any more about what is going to happen than the folks posting comments here.
OK Barley you asked for it
ATLAS SHRUGGED UPDATED FOR THE CURRENT FINANCIAL CRISIS.
BY JEREMIAH TUCKER
McSweeney's Internet Tendency: Atlas Shrugged Updated for the Current Financial Crisis.
"Damn it, Dagny! I need the government to get out of the way and let me do my job!"
She sat across the desk from him. She appeared casual but confident, a slim body with rounded shoulders like an exquisitely engineered truss. How he hated his debased need for her, he who loathed self-sacrifice but would give up everything he valued to get in her pants ... Did she know?
"I heard the thugs in Washington were trying to take your Rearden metal at the point of a gun," she said. "Don't let them, Hank. With your advanced alloy and my high-tech railroad, we'll revitalize our country's failing infrastructure and make big, virtuous profits."
"Oh, no, I got out of that suckers' game. I now run my own hedge-fund firm, Rearden Capital Management."
"What?"
He stood and adjusted his suit jacket so that his body didn't betray his shameful weakness. He walked toward her and sat informally on the edge of her desk. "Why make a product when you can make dollars? Right this second, I'm earning millions in interest off money I don't even have."
He gestured to his floor-to-ceiling windows, a symbol of his productive ability and goodness.
"There's a whole world out there of byzantine financial products just waiting to be invented, Dagny. Let the leeches run my factories into the ground! I hope they do! I've taken out more insurance on a single Rearden Steel bond than the entire company is even worth! When my old company finally tanks, I'll make a cool $877 million."
Their eyes locked with an intensity she was only beginning to understand. Yes, Hank ... claim me ... If we're to win the battle against the leeches, we must get it on ... right now ... Don't let them torture us for our happiness ... or our billions.
He tore his eyes away.
"I can't. Sex is base and vile!"
"No, it's an expression of our highest values and our admiration for each other's minds."
"Your mind gives me the biggest boner, Dagny Taggart."
He fell upon her like a savage, wielding his mouth like a machete, and in the pleasure she took from him her body became an extension of her quarterly earnings report—proof of her worthiness as a lover. His hard-on was sanction enough.
"Scream your secret passions, Hank Rearden!"
"Derivatives!"
"Yes!"
"Credit-default swaps!"
"Oh, yes! Yes!"
"Collateralized debt obligation."
"YES! YES! YES!"
How can cash available go below zero. If I don't have any cash, I don't have any cash.
does this mean they are borrowing that many billions?
Basel Too;
"Sure, they may be the best and the brightest, but II don't think that many of them get the magnitude of what's going on."
Maybe that's better, they will have no fear if they don't really get it.
Although why anyone thinks a law school grad is a good choice still confuses me. Wouldn't someone with relevant experience....
Never Mind.
I could have done without seeing the Reuters piece on how the Fed is "puzzling" over the yield curve. Thanks for that one.
Bond Girl - How are CA's bonds holding up..?? aint followed this for some time
owau
upsidedown is nemo.
why did you change the charting metric on the CRVIX at self evident.org?
those making the decisions in D.C. really don't know any more about what is going to happen than the folks posting comments here
They know less, apparently.
km4
+1
"Over the years, G.M. executives became practiced at the art of explaining their problems, attributing blame to everyone but themselves.
That list included the United Automobile Workers, for demanding health care coverage and pensions (even though G.M. agreed to provide them);"
from a NY times article
If you have $1000 in your checking account and you write $1200 of checks, you're cash available is -$200.
" I am old. Not as old as Pavel, thank goblins!. Yet GM going BK is a lot like reading the US Navy 7th Fleet was defeated in a surface engagement by the Chinese fleet off of Taiwan. It just can't happen. Yet, for GM, it did.
GM was huge. GM was unbeatable. GM was solid. GM was America.
GM is as gone as $20 ounces, smoking anywhere you felt like it, and a homogenous culture."
This is a great post, and so true.
"You don't have to be a sociopath to blindly follow Ayn Rand, but it helps"
I used to like Ayn Rand-- when I was 16. Is it cool or what to be a hero for being a complete AZZhole when you are 16?
After dealing in the real economy, Ayn becomes the simpleton ideologue that one is embarrassed to admit they took seriously.
OK, km4, that may be the funniest thing I've ever read here.
nova, I'm already a sentimental kind of guy. Maudlin may just be taking it a bit too far.
I still like to drink, but, again, getting so drunk as to think the good ol' days really were that good would be taking it a bit too far.
I'll just enjoy a BV Reserve Tapestry tonight and let the world keep on turning at its own speed.
reptillion - Just remember the number one buyer of Viagra is the GM health and benefits plan!
Not really. At least one of those checks is gonna bounce.
Deese? Sounds familiar. Hmmm.
Oh yes, the Birdsall link gives it away - wrote a ton of twaddle about debt relief for Africa about 5 years ago. Debt relief was going to be the final link to break, the final binding constraint leading to permanent good policy, fiscal prudence, enlightened governance, terms of trade smoothing and ever-rising general welfare for the poorest. Sunshine, rainbows, ponies, the lot.
Erm, except that HIPC hadn't worked and still hasn't. So there was another round, grandly called the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative. After year one of (again) fully and finally breaking the lend and forgive cycle, African countries had paid out exactly 10 times in increased oil prices what they'd gained in debt relief...
I was initially going to respond to RockyR saying that by 31 it's a little unfair to have to have demonstrated the kind of incompetence required for prime time, but it seems he has been training with the best.
C
km4, that is low-down satiric parody of the highest order, worthy of S.J. Perelman - at least. Bravo!
"those making the decisions in D.C. really don't know any more about what is going to happen than the folks posting comments here ..."
That's subtle.
those making the decisions in D.C. really don't know any more about what is going to happen than the folks posting comments here.
That's a certainty. I'd argue that their worldview is so slanted that they are simply incapable of knowing, as demonstrated by their total ignorance during the bubble and denial of its consequences afterwards.
sportsfan,
You sound rational, reasonable, and well adjusted. None of those have ever been found in a sentence describing me.
Sportsfan;
"I'll just enjoy a BV Reserve Tapestry tonight and let the world keep on turning at its own speed."
Rather than a fifth of MacCallen so that you could watch the room spinning at your own speed?
To each his own, I guess
counterpointer- the slave trades with the Chinese in Africa.
-dont hate the resource allocation game WRT liquidity dominance.
drink the liquidity......edit plus one for bullshit hassle
I do not invest in California debt. Last I saw, the Cali BAB deal (taxable) was +330ish to Tsys. The Bond Buyer article we were discussing was about how California's long-term debt could potentially be affected by how high the yields go on revenue anticipation warrants if they are issued.
California: Raws, Rans, or Other? - Bond Buyer Article
What I wonder is if they are capable of learning. That puts all of us 'way ahead.
I didn't think that was complimentary to those commenting here.
That list included the Somali Pirates, for demanding ransoms and safe passage (even though the ship owners agreed to provide them)
Amazing what changing a few words will do. [Yes, I know, rather extreme analogy.]
nova, I'll sound less rational after I pop the cork.
sm_landlord, I can't do Scotch. Jack Daniels is my distilled drink.
One of the nice things about wine is that you actually can drink 750ml in an evening. Distilled, not so easy.
Later, gents and ladies. Got to run an errand.
thanks Bond Girl
The administration needs to lend the Fed some of its image-management people. The Fed is not "puzzled" on the yield curve, so much as working out the details on its "surgical" response.
A boob job for the Fed!! Plump out those curves.
the other day, i finally realized why i had never quite drank the Administration koolaid as have many of my peers. From my extremely limited experienced with low-level Administration policy wonks, it seems that they all have pre-Iraq War Rumsfeldian blinders on. Just replace the head of the power structure, and the body will fall in place. I don't think that anyone in the Administration seriously believes that the body itself is what needs to be fixed.
I think my mind is wandering rather too wild and free.
I didn't think that was complimentary to those commenting here.
Is the concept of "modesty" lost on you?
The point is that those in DC should know more than us, but obviously do not.
The administration needs to lend the Fed some of its image-management people. The Fed is not "puzzled" on the yield curve, so much as working out the details on its "surgical" response.
BG: One possibility is that "puzzled" was unintentional. I'm worried that there's another.
That's not a bad thing LL
A boob job for the Fed!!
Please. There are already enough big boobs here in DC.
Ben spent how much so far on the QE?
has 2/3rds of the bazooka left....stretch yer legs....bottom of the 6th. Helicopters aint coming till the second half of the double header recovery story....thats near liz's third half recovery.
As someone in DC not making decisions I heartily agree.
Next move in bailout chess: Maidenform Restructuring Czar to Fed, takes Queen.
C
"That list included the Somali Pirates"
I've known two people connected -long ago - to Somalia. One was the American director of the Peace Corps high school program in Somalia in the 50s. His predecessor had been speared to death because the local people thought he was a secret agent of the Salvation Army, trying to convert their kids to Christianity.
The other was a soldier in the Soviet Army who'd been posted to Somalia when it was a Soviet client, and he had some stories to tell. One was about an army buddy named Sasha, who disappeared into the toilet one day, and was next heard screaming his head off from behind the closed door, which bulged in and out as Shasha, while screaming, attempted to crash through it. They tried to reason with him. They kept saying, in calm voices: "Sasha, turn the knob. Just turn the knob." Finally, they got the door open, and beheld Sasha cowering on one side of the room while a huge snake reared up out of the toilet, swaying.
Is this a metaphor for the US economy?
Exploding debt threatens America
FT.com / Comment / Opinion - Exploding debt threatens America
So how else can debt service payments be brought down as a share of GDP? Inflation will do it. But how much? To bring the debt-to-GDP ratio down to the same level as at the end of 2008 would take a doubling of prices. That 100 per cent increase would make nominal GDP twice as high and thus cut the debt-to-GDP ratio in half, back to 41 from 82 per cent. A 100 per cent increase in the price level means about 10 per cent inflation for 10 years.
If the Fed increased its purchases, the best it could achieve is more of the same - perhaps get a big response initially as everyone scrambled to front-run the Fed, then watch it erode as market participants begin to worry about the near / intermediate-term consequences and supply. I would not put it past Bernanke to try, but everyone knows where this goes.
Well, after we bought the house in Deerwood, new, I went to the potty in the middle of the
nite and--I swear this is true--I felt something bouncing against my bottom. It was a frog.
I flushed him/her.
Maiden Lane Rooks pawn to Bishop three.
patriach is in check.
golden shoots and scores. lever up and let it run.
*circumstance to forgive 10% penalty on 401k withdraw WRT Federal tax penalty is on the table.
most wont get this one so I'll add an extra... you may as a circumstance of your currency withdraw your 401k early and purchase Sovereign gold coinage from the US mint.
That wasn't very nice.
those making the decisions in D.C. really don't know any more about what is going to happen than the folks posting comments here.
Sportsfan:
I would argue that the folks posting here have a better "Big Picture" understanding of what is going down than anyone in Washington. They are so busy rushing from meeting to meeting, hearing to hearing, fund-raiser to fund-raiser that they do not have time to think about, much less reflect on, the full implications and details of what they are and have been doing.
They are also terribly parochial: if it didn't originate within the Beltway and wasn't touted in the Washington Post, it does not exist. If it cannot be twisted into the Democrat vs Republican or Left vs Right paradigm, it doubly doesn't exist.
Watching the Sunday morning talking heads reminds me of the "Greens vs Blues" factional fighting at the Byzantine Court as the forces of islam were overrunning the frontiers and pounding at the gates.
Except nobody is gonna be able to buy anything 'cause there are no raises. In the 80s we got raises.
"Watching the Sunday morning talking heads reminds me of the "Greens vs Blues" factional fighting at the Byzantine Court as the forces of islam were overrunning the frontiers and pounding at the gates."
You were an eye-witness?
Nitey-nite everybody.
-thats not a real chess move...I just maiden lane it up.
"OK, please don't flame me for this, but the top two headlines on Drudge right now are absolutely hilarious. "
"Fed puzzled by yield curve steepening...
Geithner to Tell China No One More Concerned About Deficit Than Obama...?"
Or was it something else? That site layout is awful.
Question: Anybody got a link for a DRIP calc. for MONTHLY contributions?
"http://iamned.com/blog/?p=194"
"Cetin Hakimoglu"
Dear lord! I can agree to be puzzled by the makets actions, but these guys displacement from reality is astounding. And the charts... Someone needs to learn Excel at the minimum.
Makes me appreciate the competence and forum that CR provides. Still, it would be nice to see some kind of poll for CR.
So goodbye bankrupt GM
Where the dregs of the showroom floor prowl
You can't sell any more land yachts
Even with zero percent down
Apologies to Sir Elton
Actually, the Muslims attacked in the 7th century and were driven off, and in subsequent attacks on the city they were driven off. They didn't succeed in taking the Constantinople until 1453.
The blues and the greens were sports factions, concentrated on chariot racing in the Hippodrome. During the 6th century Nika riots the Empress Theodora cleaned their clocks by ordering the army to lock the gates of the Hippodrome and then slaughter the rioters inside. The Emperor Justinian was ready to flee, and Theodora told him to go ahead if he wanted to, but she wasn't going to run away from those scum.- or words to that effect.
I don't think that someone who thinks Ayn Rand was right once in a while is "blindly" following her.
I doubt anyone thinks that of you, since you once stated you no longer can read her books.
Rand got some things right. But she vastly mis-estimated the nature of the "businessmen" at the top of the corporate food chain.
You were an eye-witness?
Yes, I saw it on "You Are There" hosted by Walter Cronkite, when he had a full head of hair. Plus I read history books about it when I was in school.
PC: during your ill spent youth in the Varangian Guard, which team did you root for: Green? or, Blue?
Lets play Good asset, Bad asset...
is it possible that the bad assets (everything but Chevy and Caddy) continue through the bankruptcy process while the "Good GM" exits early ie within 30-60 days?
I see Nikki's had a good morning, except for the open where someone spilt their tea logging on. Regional currencies look off to the races.
C
pavel, the Siege of Malta. When the horde was turned back.the Knights of Templar rejoiced.
So, again - do we build TVs in this country? Why not? Microwave ovens? Is that a crisis?
Nope. But we are ass kick bankers and lawyers and day traders. Huzzah!
GM to file bankruptcy on Monday, 60-90 day reorganization envisioned: Obama administration official. Treasury to provide $30 billion in debtor-in-possession aid: official
"Rand got some things right. But she vastly mis-estimated the nature of the "businessmen" at the top of the corporate food chain."
The inability or unwillingness to account for the irrational and the stupid, seems to be a defect in many philosophies. Far too many ignore the math and look at the numbers, and see what they want to see.
is it possible that the bad assets (everything but Chevy and Caddy) continue through the bankruptcy process while the "Good GM" exits early ie within 30-60 days?
That's actually the blueprint for the "surgical" BK.
"PC: during your ill spent youth in the Varangian Guard, which team did you root for: Green? or, Blue?"
Who says it was ill-spent? A good time was had by all.
The Blues were the Imperial faction and represented wealth and the establishment. The Greens were more to the prole side, sort of like the old Democrats versus Republicans in the ancient US.
Obama's speeches would make a great drinking game. Take a drink each time he says "surgical."
"Everyone is still bullish"
MarketWatch.com
bANK fAILURE (profile) wrote on Sun, 5/31/2009 - 7:00 pm
never, ever, in the course of bond holdings purchase the senior-securitized debt of unionized companies. Unless you like selling the myth of rusted infrastructure..recovery
Actually IIRC the GM secureds are being made whole. So I guess only buy secured after calling the psychic hotline.
GMGM is the new UAUA
bankrupt me once shame on you, bankrupt me twice, shame.
bANK-
I'm shutting down and off to bed but would appreciate if you could please respond to my question re your comment. I'll check this thread in the AM. Just want to make sure we're all square on this. Thanks. Night all.
"Regional currencies look off to the races."
So, if you print to pump the T-Bill and equities, COMEX and FOREX will get you in the end. All this to rebubble housing to save RE and the TBTF 19? That is some impressive knife catching.
"pavel, the Siege of Malta. When the horde was turned back.the Knights of Templar rejoiced."
You bet, and Malta is so Catholic I was almost tempted to move there once. I wonder how they're doing during this crisis time. Malta is heavily dependent on tourists from northern Europe.
An interesting post by Yves Smith, who cites a story from Amos
Last month, a little-known company where Summers served on the board of directors received a $42 million investment from a group of investors, including three banks that Summers, Obama’s effective “economy czar,” has been doling out billions in bailout money to: Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and Morgan Stanley. The banks invested into the small startup company, Revolution Money, right at the time when Summers was administering the “stress test” to these same banks.
A month after they invested in Summers’ former company, all three banks came out of the stress test much better than anyone expected — thanks to the fact that the banks themselves were allowed to help decide how bad their problems were (Citigroup “negotiated” down its financial hole from $35 billion to $5.5 billion.)
.
Boston Magazine just published a story on financial difficulties Harvard is facing
While the failed presidency of Lawrence Summers generated more headlines, this quiet crisis is actually a greater threat to Harvard. The university has been so rich for so long that most of its denizens can't remember a time when money was a concern. While Harvard officials are doing their public-face best to downplay the problem, the numbers don't lie, and this economic crunch will leave the school a profoundly changed place. Harvard will have to become smaller and academically more modest, and as it does it will chafe at having grand plans without the resources to fund them. For the first time in decades, it will worry about merely paying its bills. The university will have to decide: If it is no longer so rich that it doesn't have to make choices, what does it really value? What are its priorities? It won't be a comfortable debate.
...
Further squeezing Harvard was a transaction Summers had pushed it into in 2004, when he successfully argued that the university should engage in a multibillion-dollar interest rate swap with Goldman Sachs and other large banks. Under the terms of the deal, Harvard would pay Goldman a long-term fixed rate while Goldman paid Harvard the Federal Reserve rate. The main goal was to lock in a low rate for future debt, and if the Fed had raised rates, Harvard would have made hundreds of millions. But when the Fed slashed rates to historic lows to try to goose stalled credit markets, the deal turned equally sour for Harvard: By last November, the value of the swaps had fallen to negative $570 million. The university found itself needing to post more collateral to guarantee those swaps, and would ultimately buy its way out of them at an undisclosed cost.
...
This spring Harvard offered early retirement to some 500 FAS staffers. Only about 150 accepted, which means the university will likely have to fire people—probably in the summer, to minimize bad press and potential commencement protests. A campus group calling itself the Student Labor Action Movement (S.L.A.M.) has taken to parodying a pro-environment slogan Faust has been pushing: The president's "Green is the new Crimson" has become "Greed is the new Crimson." In April members of S.L.A.M. loudly interrupted Faust's lunch in a house dining hall and presented her with a T-shirt bearing their mantra. She's not unsympathetic to such passions; as an undergraduate herself at Bryn Mawr, Faust traveled to Alabama on a civil rights protest. But it was the latest sign that her honeymoon is over.
Increasingly, money dominates the Harvard conversation. On April 14, FAS dean Mike Smith, a Faust appointee, held an open meeting in a packed Sanders auditorium. Sitting on a stool and occasionally tapping on a laptop, he delivered alarming news: Despite efforts to close the budget gap, FAS was facing an ongoing annual $220 million deficit. And by the 2011 fiscal year, the university would be cutting FAS's annual infusion of endowment cash by $125 million.
There were no more inefficiencies, Smith said, no loose dollars here and there. "It is extremely important for us to think deeply about how we not only resize our activities...[but] to really start thinking about reshaping these activities."
The "reshaping" is already more dramatic than the word suggests. The career services office is talking about closing for a month in the summer; other offices are expected to take similar furloughs. The library system, its budget pared by 31 percent, is cutting back on hours and book purchases, and the Quad Library is closing altogether. The college's "January term," part of a much-ballyhooed new curriculum, is now dead. Harvard has already halted the hiring of junior faculty and announced an early retirement program for tenured professors, and for the first time ever is considering laying off tenured professors. Funds for housemasters are being slashed by one-fourth, and even the hot breakfasts the houses served on weekdays are out. Meanwhile, idled cranes bow over the pit in Allston, as if in mourning.
I realize that Summers is extremely intelligent, but intelligence is not required to fix the current economic mess - integrity and honesty are.
Don,
Are the involuntarily terminated GM hourly werkers and dealerships being adequately compensated by being
made whole
Basel
In the bad assets I can see years where the government pays out pensions and health care costs while they hold the assets for years waiting for a buyer ala toxic assets.
blackhalo,
Rand is a fiction writer. That's all there is to know
Mish on his recent post has a link to this outstandign real estate report. You fellows may appreciate this.
Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: Mortgage Meltdown, More Pain To Come
http://moremortgagemeltdown.com/download/pdf/T2_Partners_presentation_on_the_mortgage_crisis.pdf
"though why anyone thinks a law school grad is a good choice still confuses me. Wouldn't someone with relevant experience....
Never Mind."
Deese hasn't graduated Yale yet, and " has never set foot in an automotive plant". What's his qualification?...Summers likes him.
With all the government mooks who lurk here, you'd think somebody would have contacted dryfly...a guy who actually has experience and knows something about industry.
"I realize that Summers is extremely intelligent, but intelligence is not required to fix the current economic mess - integrity and honesty are."
Intelligence, along with the other two qualities,wouldn't hurt.
"Rand is a fiction writer. That's all there is to know"
Yes, but is it not curious how the Social Darwinist take it as gospel? It fascinates me to no end, how folks such as Greenspan, Rush, Hannity, and others can quote passage and verse, as if it provided some kind of justification.
Wow, finally someone to make Kash n' Kari look good.
Intelligence, along with the other two qualities,wouldn't hurt.
It will not replace them, though
NYC built subway lines to compete with independent lines back in the 30's. Guess what: eventually the independents went out of business, unable to compete with government subsidies. NYC stepped in and bought the whole schebang. Now the whole subway system is owned by Mayor Bloomberg & Co. Warning to all car companies.......
Read pages 62-65 on the report. Rather eye opening observation by the author.
http://moremortgagemeltdown.com/download/pdf/T2_Partners_presentation_on_the_mortgage_crisis.pdf
blackhalo - they haven't caught that knife yet... and those rebubbles are looking a little flaccid.
C
"Intelligence, along with the other two qualities,wouldn't hurt.
It will not replace them, though"
Now you're talking!
I've always wondered how far integrity will take you in the stratospheric circles I've never moved in. There's the famous Truman saying: If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog. Was he trying to tell us something?
I've always wondered how far integrity will take you in the stratospheric circles I've never moved in.
I suspect integrity is a liability that keeps you down in those political circles, not an asset that helps you to get far
That NY Times article is just astounding to me. The guy doesn't even have any business experience. He was just a campaign aide.
On the plus side, I guess he does not have much tax history.
Those were the two, BH.
Harvard will have to become smaller and academically more modest, and as it does it will chafe at having grand plans without the resources to fund them. For the first time in decades, it will worry about merely paying its bills. The university will have to decide: If it is no longer so rich that it doesn't have to make choices, what does it really value? What are its priorities? It won't be a comfortable debate.
This is going to ripple throughout higher-ed. Harvard was the equivalent of the NY Yankees, using its vaunted endowment to drive all aspects of higher education costs (save athletic facilities and coaches) through the stratosphere.
I don't think trickle down economics was supposed to work like this...
It will be interesting to see if trade schools make a comeback.
gotta go my old friends...Im hungry and tired.
mongo need food and sleep.
And we're off...
Gold spot market
982.80 - 983.80
Change +3.20 +0.33%
NYC built subway lines to compete with independent lines back in the 30's. Guess what: eventually the independents went out of business, unable to compete with government subsidies.
You've got your history way, way wrong.
The problem with university endowments has been one of the worst-kept secrets for a while now. Yale started branching out on its investment strategy, and everyone else followed.
Premium content | Economist.com
Nice sunset. Guess that means one less.
It will be interesting to see if trade schools make a comeback.
I'm a laid-off attorney thinking of going to one. Eventually I came to realize that although I was performing a useful service, I didn't produce or create anything... and I never would. So maybe the lay off might be for the best.
I'm not sure whether the better bet would be to go to a trade school or try to get an engineering degree. Hell, I don't even know if I could hack the latter. I used to be good at math, but that was a long time ago...
"But she vastly mis-estimated the nature of the "businessmen" at the top of the corporate food chain. "
Uh... that was one of her fundamental tenants... that the "businessmen" at the top were of a very... bad... nature. But, I'm no sociopath.
Hey, who wants to buy a vehicle from GM with a manufacture date anytime in the last 3 months?
Those vehicles are likely still of higher quality than my 2002 Chrysler Sebring.
"Harvard will have to become smaller and academically more modest..."
I look forward to the day when Harvard becomes small enough it can be drowned in a bathtub.
"I'm not sure whether the better bet would be to go to a trade school or try to get an engineering degree."
There aren't many good career paths for engineers in the US right now. Most of my colleagues left their engineering jobs for something else within their first several years out of school. This is a personal pet peeve of mine... something I think needs to change, but the facts are the facts.
mp +1
No offense to anyone here, but I think the Japanese and the Koreans will continue to eat gubmint motors lunch. It will take some massive trade barriers to keep it from happening, subsidies or not.
Agronox: you any relation to hoopdajoop ltd?
And if that's happening to Harvard, think of the hundreds of small liberal arts colleges that already only hanging on.
We recently joined a program called SAGE via spouse's 401k program. Online as College Tuition Benefits or some such. Developed about 10 years ago as a measure to help smaller private colleges compete in the money game; when you look at the list of about 250 participating colleges/universities, many are religiously affiliated (Pacific Lutheran, for example). Gist is that based upon the dollar amount in the 401k program, they'll give you an account that annually accrues 5% of the balance as reward points. This continues each year until the kid's entering senior year of HS at which time the amounts can be used as "reward dollars" to offset the tuition/room and board costs by the college. Offset is dollar for dollar.
The colleges get the student names for their mailing lists and ostensibly better shots at getting students. Eldest has already gotten the first letter.
But this also tells me that 401k managers are getting worried about people keeping money in 401k plans and also continuing to fund them.
While a bit jaded about the whole thing, we're in in order to maximize any tuition assistance whatsoever.
I have read that in some states the endowment cannot be spent down below the initial contributions... That might explain why some of those schools have to cut spending - the endowment has shrunk due to investment losses below the initial contribution amount and they have to either raise more cash or wait for it to grow above the initial level...
mp - nicely put. Harvard underwater. Take the market... etc.
nytol
C
I went to a small southern all-male liberal arts college and lived in an effin' rathole of a freshman dorm. The only way to keep out the cockroaches was to duct tape along the open spaces between the floor and the bottom of the baseboard, and even then found that the beggars would stroll under the door itself from the hallway.
And I do get disturbed to see how the colleges - my alma mater included - have put up these ghastly student centers in order to compete. Hell, ten years ago I told the spouse that these were a huge waste of resources.
Just a waste.
There aren't many good career paths for engineers in the US right now. Most of my colleagues left their engineering jobs for something else within their first several years out of school. This is a personal pet peeve of mine... something I think needs to change, but the facts are the facts.
I think (hope?) it depends on the field. A good friend of mine studied chemical engineering and tells me that, at least until the oil market fell through the floor last year, the market was still strong for chem E's. I can only imagine that automotive is getting slaughtered by overcapacity and electrical by offshoring.
I think things will get better, but it will probably take a currency crisis to get us there.
Agronox: you any relation to hoopdajoop ltd?
No, but we're in similar circumstances. Actually, having read his recent posts made me feel a lot better, because it's very hard to wrap my mind around the idea of just junking the law degree I paid a lot of money and time for.
But sunk costs and all that.
Bond Girl,
This guy hasn't even gotten into the business world where he can learn everything he studied and learned in school is BS. Has anyone ever "run a project" straight out of school that didn't end up over-budget and delayed?
I'm not sure about making Kash-n-Karry look good... but I think Neil has found his match... just hope they don't end up as folks sticking around in government 20 years from now... 'cept now they are in those positions they can make a living from being "on the Blah Blah economic team of Obama!" and "on the blah blah running TARP"...
Agreed, homedad. Campus development is a bubble.
"But when the Fed slashed rates to historic lows to try to goose stalled credit markets, the deal turned equally sour for Harvard:"
lol, puts my RRPIX losses in that timeframe in context...
Sportsfan, Bingo!
Another reason college costs are so out of whack:
BIG DEAL; Recruiting With Real Estate - NY Times
He hasn't graduated from law school. It is just bizarre that Obama would hand a project like this to some campaign aide.
I'm not defending KK. I'm just dumbfounded. It is not like finding people with actual experience dismantling corporations is hard to find.
Not bizarre. Insane. Absolutely insane.
agronox -- I'm not sure whether the better bet would be to go to a trade school or try to get an engineering degree.
i do building maintenance for a very large company. i do hvac work, electrical, plumbing, you name it. in my opinion the trade schools are mostly a waste of money. if you understand basic electrical and mechanical concepts then all you need is experience to make good money. if you don't have basic electrical or mechanical skills most trade schools won't help. i know a guy in the hvac field that got into a fist fight with an instructor. he told his instructor to stop wasting time rambling about non-trade related crap in class and it escalated into physical violence. i had an instructor that did nothing but talk about his pain-in-the-ass wife during class. go to a class to get epa certified(if you want to do hvac), but the rest is a waste. you might be marginally more employable than a person with a similar skill set without a trade school certificate but that is all.
you should also be ready to climb ladders with 1 or 1/2 a hand, work on roofs in the summer, get extremely heavy things onto roofs by yourself during the summer, work with live wires, (the worst for last) get shit on yourself.
if summer is not the extreme season in your neck of the woods than substitute winter
the upside is that you'll earn your pay, keep the place running, find creative solutions to problems, be the hero, be self directed, be able to help friends and family.
There aren't many good career paths for engineers in the US right now.
Petroleum engineer.
In honor of the 44th President of the United States ,
Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream has introduced a new flavor: " Barocky Road .."
Barocky Road is a blend of half vanilla, half chocolate, and surrounded by nuts and flakes.
The vanilla portion of the mix is not openly advertised and usually denied as an ingredient.
The nuts and flakes are all very bitter and hard to swallow.
The cost is $100.00 per scoop.
When purchased it will be presented to you in a
large beautiful cone, but then the ice cream is
taken away and given to the person in line behind you.
You are left with an empty wallet and no change,
holding an empty cone with no hope of getting
any ice cream.
Are you stimulated?
@TJ
That's a good point. The PEs are still doing pretty well. But, remember, anything that can be sent offshore...
During college, I told a joke that I had made more at my summer job than GM did the whole year.
"Harvard will have to become smaller and academically more modest..."
I look forward to the day when Harvard becomes small enough it can be drowned in a bathtub.
Waterboard them first...
" Has anyone ever "run a project" straight out of school that didn't end up over-budget and delayed?"
Perhaps you should ask the guys at Google about that.
If any of the senior execs from Google or Apple took over GM, I would definitely pay attention. They might fail gloriously, but they would certainly fail in a different manner for different reasons that auto execs of the past few decades.
Waterboard them first...
sheesh... hard core man.
Good night, everyone
welp. futures are headed north. looks as though my puts will go further underwater tomorrow. I guess this just proves once again that it's foolish to bet against the fed.
time to close up and get some sleep.
just remember, as long as the Chinese keep buying, we'll be relatively alright:
Geithner Tells China U.S. Will Tackle Budget Deficit (Update2) - Bloomberg.com
night all.
FOMC meeting this week. No rate cut but maybe we'll get the treasury purchase program juiced to $1Trillion ! More ponies!!
" Has anyone ever "run a project" straight out of school that didn't end up over-budget and delayed?"
Yes.
sheesh... hard core man.
You know you've hit paydirt when you get reprimanded for being too 'hard core' from a guy with the handle 'sneering nihilist'. Double good!
Lefty, I did get it the first time. Just having fun.
I'm not defending KK. I'm just dumbfounded.
As the U.S. economy has shifted away from making stuff, so, too, have skill sets.
It's much more about politicking and "having the back" of "your guy".
It's a failing strategy long-term but apparently that's not important now.
OT - I met Andy Mackie today outside of Port Angeles today. I'd never heard of him, but he had a Guinness Book of World Records sticker on his station wagon so we ended up talking. He seemed almost embarrassed to hand me a business card. The Ying to Kashkari's Yang, I suppose.
Home
sneering nihilist, good advice.
sneering nihilist--thanks for the perspective.
"You are left with an empty wallet and no change"
Sundays sure are nice. Smart snark seems the trend.
Agronox
Go study to be a machinist where you can use your math skills on a practical level . There is a demand for them and I believe should increase in the future and besides it is a great hobby if you decide to go back to lawyering.