ORIGINAL: demort71
Quit worrying! The hard part is over, Ma Mopar and GM have bridge loan money coming after they sign on the dotted line Dec. 29. Trust me, the CEOs and investors are breathing a sigh of relief. Even Canada threw in $4 Bill on top of the U.S.'s dough. That is a good sign for us GM and Mopar collectors and lovers. I heard Germany was doing the same for GM's Opel division, but they were waiting until the U.S. got off their larthagic arses and got over the Republican protectionism of the South's foreign auto industry.
Closing the plants down for a month is a good defensive move for Chrysler. The econ is tanking right now and this protects their working capital. Why should they keep building inventory (and financing it) and then give it away in a few months, like they have with their left over 08 models? Doesn't make much sense does it? What they have to do is survive the rest of the 09 model year and get to next fall.
They will still make the Challenger next year. It should be clear to the Chrysler powers that be the Challenger is a hit and there is a demand for it. Do you think their dealers are whining about Chall. sales when most of them won't come off the sticker price and many demand above sticker? It's the hotest car out there right now. Think the new restyled Stang is going to set the world on fire-No Way Jose! The new Camaro will likely sell well, if people have enough balls to buy one given their job situations.
I work for the world's largest construction equipment manufacturer in Peoria, IL. They have been enjoying a five year run-for-the-profits and sales (enjoyed record profits and sales year after year) thanks to growth of the world's econ and infrastructure. Their orders suddenly went down in November (and were cancelled) and they have a few indefinite lay-offs in their manufacturing facilities and temporary dept. shut downs. They are in great shape financially compared to GM and Chrysler, but does that mean you won't be able to buy a D10 dozer in 12 months? Heck no. They are cutting inventory by temporarily curtailing production, same as Ma Mopar. I am right there on their factory floor, running CNC machines.
What we need is for the econ to bottom out (layoffs stop). Get the new administration and congress in place and put them to work on the econ. It's going to take time to get it started the other way, but it will if we remain proactive as a country. It really sucks that our econ is where it's at today. Lack of oversight in the banking industry is the big culprit and stupid people borrowing too much money is another culprit. Guess true capitalism was a failure.
That loan doesn't guarantee anything. Why all of a sudden do you think that if they just get a lump sum of money that the problem is over? The bailout of the banks are already being proven to have failed because the core problem hasn't been resolved. The same thing is true here as well. The big three have underlying problems and this could potentially make things worse by not dealing with the problems now when the costs and damage done by doing possibly what needs to be done will be less now than later. Also, you need to remember that the U.K. tried this back in the 70s and it didn't work.
I'm not going to bother getting into the politics of everything because I have better things to do with my time than to start the blame game and I encourage all of you to avoid getting into an endless debate full of personal attacks, poisoning of the well, class warfare, and all other distractions which sadly is what our political discussions in our country consist of these days. The thing I will say is that history shows us that there ARE ALWAYS going to be times when people make poor decisions that lead to problems, but to say that a downturn automatically equals failure is just illogical. In my view, the failure is people letting fear control them into ADDING to the problem that caused all of this and believing somehow that a group of people who cannot get rid of a debt that has been around for a long time and been consistently growing no matter who is incharge and on top of this cannot eliminate corruption, cannot be transparent themselves, cannot keep hardly any promises that they make and continue to make more of them, cannot do anything quickly and efficiently, are consistently showing they are NOT above influence by contributors and buddies, and to top this all off have ignored the people who warned us about the dangerous of this kind of world who had to go through this before in Europe who gave us the foundation for our freedoms to prevent this kind of disaster. The failure is people believing that these people can possibly do a better job of taking care of them than they can take care of themselves. These people live in a different world than we do and will never understand what is good for us or good for an economy.