if the government can step in with the banks they ought to be helping the three biggest names representing our country across the globe. especially now that their products are as competitive as ever and they are actually trying

Wow!! a little common sense left in the governmental offices. Good luck to Carlos Ghosen.

Excellent. Put the fork back in the drawer kids, Chrysler’s not done yet.

By the way, happy Halloween everyone! I’m dressing up as Kerkorian and handing out Ford shares tonight. If that doesn’t scare ‘em I don’t know what will.

so GM wants to buy a competitor, and it wants to use OUR money to do it???? does GM have to pay that money back? what is going on in this country? i remember in the 70’s/80’s when chrysler hit hard times and they BORROWED money from the gov’t… AND THEY PAID IT BACK!

Great news!!! I work with all the manufacturers and Nissan is the most organized and on top of things as you can get. I hope they can do the same with Chrysler, it seems like a much better fit than GM. At least they wouldn’t dismantle all the brands as fast as GM would have to.

Keet, any funding would be a loan and not a gift by the government, that’s why Bush didn’t approve it, he must have felt they wouldn’t pay it back. Bush has business sense, Obama on the other hand…

Selling Chrysler in pieces should yield more $$$… For example, if you sell your cars parts it will probably pick in more $$$ than selling it as a whole. I prefer to have Chrysler to be sold in pieces, you get more bang for the buck.

Not to mention should it be anti-competitive to have GM and Chrysler merge. Should the DOJ be investigating?

@johnnycanuck

I’ll take all the Ford shares you want to send my way. Ford is an absolute bargain right now. In two year’s it’ll be back over $20. All you need to do is look at K-Mart’s recovery.

Good. The government shouldn’t be giving money to companies who are just going to lay off half their workforce as soon as the check clears. I’d rather take that 10 billion and pay off the mortgages of laid off autoworkers. Myself included.

Something that actually makes sense coming from our government. Hopefully Cerebus will listen to Nissan’s offer now. Wait…..they don’t care if Chrysler dies off, they are just in it for the money.

KEET: correction: Chrysler didn’t borrow a dime from the government in the 70s/80s. they got LOAN GUARANTEES from the government saying the feds would cover them if they defaulted on their loans.

big difference.

Good – this whole merger plan stinks anyway. I hope the whole deal dies. Really stupid on GM’s part to even consider it.

I believe that Chrysler is done. What government refused to do is to provide funds for GM to sell GMAC and close Chrysler plants. If not all of them, majority of them. You see kids, Government can not be in the business of plant closings.
I think the remaining hope is either Renault ( a good thing) for whatever will be left of Chrysler or …. Russians. They do have fairly large and incompetent auto industry which is cash rich, ’cause large number of European companies bought chunks of it. The owner of Russian auto industry owns (or owned) 5% of GM at some point. Also, Russians are producing Chrysler Seibrings under license. If French Jeep does not strike your fancy, imagine hammer and cycle adoring the hood!

beemerdude, big difference… if you’re splitting hairs. the point was they borrowed money and they paid it back. when i see “aid”, it concerns me that it’s money that does not have to be paid back. i never see the words “loan”, “borrow”, or “repay” used in the articles about the GM/chrysler deal and the money GM wants from the gov’t.

This is what was meant to happen, it’s Dodge & Nissan, just like Ford and Mazda, you see will get in to Japan and take all the good stuff, then we’ll gang up on Toyota and “Slay the Dragon”.

Its not a simple merger / cut cost = profit equation in this case. Especially when they both have massive UAW & Dealer network that won’t let the new GM/CHRYSLER off the hook.

Payton Byrd- my sentiments exactly!!! On the topic of not lending, I’m pleasantly surprised the government did the right thing here. It has already set a bad precedent by bailing out mortgage companies. It has hopefully learned from its mistake. If GM is going through $1 billion a month, how long would that $10 billion really last anyways??

………….John McCain, on the other hand, is in support of Bush’s decision on the matter.

What a shock!
DrFill

CRAZY! Taking points from a letter to Elizabeth Dole two days ago (yep NC here) since the government started bailing out entities… EVERYBODY has thier hand out! As I noted to her.. does it really make sense to help GM – who bleeds money like it’s water.. and closing companies and laying off workers to acquire Chrysler?? Chrysler from something i read earlier is losing less than GM or Ford presently. I mean ALL three sat back, built gas sucking vehicles with poor quality and they all had their cake.. Lots of blame to go around.. the government should have dumped the lobbiests and mandated vehicles with higher fuel mileage. Personally I don’t want to see the makers’ of my beloved Grand Cherokee go under but hey were they all not watching Toyota, NIssan, BMW, Hundai and others… let’m scrape like the rest of us who nobody else will help! (getting down of soapbox now.. i’m getting altitude sickness)

You republicans should be proud of you boy Bush, he’s riuned EVERYTHING and still dont give a ****.

Chysler was done in by years of crappy product from the Germans. They have no new product in the pipeline and its being ran by a bunch of hedge fund managers. I have been saying from the beginning…they will split it up in the parts and pieces, and thats whats happening. They are done as we know it. Maybe a niche vehicle company (Dodge) will emerge from the blowup, and thats a long shot. Product, product product…thats the car business. And Chrysler was done in by bad, lackluster product with no loyal crowd to follow it.