Tag: Chrysler

Shell game in Detroit: Government lends Chrysler $3.5 billion so Chrysler can repay government $3.5 billion

There’s a shell game going on in Washington. They think they’re sneaky, by the con is easy to see. The government lends Chrysler $3.5 billion so Chrysler can repay government $3.5 billion

When President Obama finally leaves office, we expect him to end up working in New York. Not on Wall Street, but in Times Square. He’ll be there with a card table, challenging suckers to figure out which shell the ball is under.

While you may think this is an odd occupation for a former resident of the White House, it seems to be the one for which he is most qualified.

chrysler-obama-shell-game
Suckers continue to lose the Barack Obama shell game

The Washington Examiner has the story:

American taxpayers have already spent more than $13 billion bailing out Chrysler. The Obama administration already forgave more than $4 billion of that debt when the company filed for bankruptcy in 2009. Taxpayers are never getting that money back. But how is Chrysler now paying off the rest of the $7.6 billion they owe the Treasury Department?

The Obama administration’s bailout agreement with Fiat gave the Italian car company a “Incremental Call Option” that allows it to buy up to 16% of Chrysler stock at a reduced price. But in order to exercise the option, Fiat had to first pay back at least $3.5 billion of its loan to the Treasury Department. But Fiat was having trouble getting private banks to lend it the money. Enter Obama Energy Secretary Steven Chu who has signaled that he will approve a fuel-efficient vehicle loan to Chrysler for … wait for it … $3.5 billion.

“Come on up, friends. It’s easy. Just keep your eye on the little ball. Tell me which shell the ball is under and you can win. Come on up.”

Source: The Washington Examiner

Congratulations! You now own nine of the worst cars on the road!

Don’t run out to the garage looking for them. You only own them because Barack Obama and Tim Geithner “invested”$80 billion of your tax dollars in General Motors and Chrysler.

Forbes magazine did its annual “Worst Cars on the Road” review and you may be disturbed to learn that you own nine of the eleven on the list.

Don’t run out to the garage looking for them. You only own them because Barack Obama and Tim Geithner “invested”$80 billion of your tax dollars in General Motors and Chrysler.

2011-dodge nitro
Don't you find it somehow appropriate that a car named the Dodge Nitro is a bomb?

Here’s the bad news from Forbes:

… with three exceptions–the Mercedes-Benz S550, Smart Fortwo and Nissan Titan–all of the cars on this year’s list of the Worst Cars on the Road are (still) made by domestic companies. That includes the Dodge Dakota, Chevy Tahoe Hybrid and Chrysler Town & Country. The only American car company with zero vehicles on the list? Ford.

Ford? You mean the same Ford that declined your tax dollars? The same Ford that now has the largest share of the new car market? The same Ford that is reporting record profits?

Yes, that Ford.

Oh, by the way, just in case you were wondering, here’s the complete list of the Loser Eleven: Cadillac Escalade, Chevrolet Tahoe Hybrid, Dodge Nitro, Jeep Wrangler, Dodge Dakota, Mercedes Benz S550, Chrysler Town and Country, Chevrolet Colorado, Chevrolet Aveo, Jeep Liberty and Nissan Titan.

Source: Forbes

Nice work if you can get it: GM and Chrysler to pay bonuses equal to 50% of pay

General Motors and Chrysler, which went hat-in-hand to Washington begging for bailouts, are getting ready to cut big, fat bonus checks to their salaried employees. Some of them may add up to 50% of their annual salaries.

General Motors and Chrysler, which went hat-in-hand to Washington begging for bailouts, are getting ready to cut big, fat bonus checks to their salaried employees. Some of them may add up to 50% of their annual salaries.

gm-headquarters
An evolution: General Motors, Government Motors, Gimme Motors

Bloomberg.com has details of yet another taxpayer-funded rip-off in Motor City:

GM plans to pay bonuses to most managers equal to 15 percent to 20 percent of their annual salary and as high as 50 percent to less than 1 percent of its 26,000 U.S. salaried employees, said one of the people, who asked not to be named revealing internal plans. Bonuses for Chrysler’s 10,755 salaried workers will average about $10,000, with a small group getting as much as half of their salary, one of the people said.

The payouts come as GM, Chrysler and Ford Motor Co. prepare for contract talks this year with the United Auto Workers, which is seeking a share of the industry’s growing prosperity. Ford, the only U.S. automaker to avoid bankruptcy in 2009, is expected to pay bonuses equal to 10 percent or more of base pay to some salaried staff, said a person familiar with the plan.

“The union is going to be very angry about this,” Gary Chaison, a professor of industrial relations at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, said in an interview yesterday. “If these kinds of bonuses are paid to salaried workers, then the union’s demands will increase, knowing management can’t claim an inability to pay.”

The unions are going to be angry? Screw the unions. As a result of the bailouts, they now own the damn companies. Their cushy pension plans and generous medical plans remain intact.

Far as we’re concerned, it’s the American taxpayers who deserve to be pissed.

Source: Bloomberg

Chrysler repays American taxpayers by hiring Italian ad agency

The geniuses in the Obama administration spent billions of your tax dollars to keep Chrysler out of bankruptcy. And Chrysler has repaid your “generosity” by hiring an Italian advertising agency.

The geniuses in the Obama administration spent billions of your tax dollars to keep Chrysler out of bankruptcy. And Chrysler has repaid your “generosity” by hiring an Italian advertising agency.

As if that weren’t bad enough, they fired BBDO Detroit, their long-time American ad agency, which will now be forced to lay off hundreds of employees come January.

Well, you say, surely Armando Testa has been ordered to create some hard hitting commercials designed to drive people into Chrysler dealerships. Right?

Wrong.

Advertising Age describes the situation:

“The 30-second commercial for the sleek Chrysler 300 sedan breaks today on national TV and is very similar to a Lancia commercial from a year ago calling for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma’s pro-democracy leader and 1991 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, who has been in and out of house arrest since 1989. Although the car is shown, it is not the focus of the commercial. A version of this latest video was initially created as part of the Lancia brand’s sponsorship of the 10th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates in Berlin last month. Lancia also sponsored the event a year ago, when the first Lancia spot broke.

“We produced the TV film in honor of all those who put their lives at stake in the hopes of making the world a better place,” Mr. Francois said in a prepared statement. “For Chrysler, this is a chance to use our brand image to join with others in the fight for peace and to knock down the walls that divide us. We at Chrysler believe in doing the right thing and making a difference.”

The way we interpret Francois’ comments, he’s saying that increasing sales isn’t a priority.

Any question why these morons went bankruput?

Source: Advertising Age

Chrysler’s electric car program shorts out

Chrysler has disbanded a team of engineers dedicated to rushing a range of electric vehicles to showrooms and dropped ambitious sales targets for battery-powered cars set as it was sliding toward bankruptcy and seeking government aid.

The Chrysler Peapod has come to the end of the road
The Chrysler Peapod has come to the end of the road

Chrysler, part of the Obama Motors cabal, says its electric cars are dead. Not the batteries, the whole damn program. A huge pile of your tax dollars were at its bedside when it died.

Fox News reports Detroit’s latest tale of woe:

Chrysler has disbanded a team of engineers dedicated to rushing a range of electric vehicles to showrooms and dropped ambitious sales targets for battery-powered cars set as it was sliding toward bankruptcy and seeking government aid.

The move by Fiat SpA marks a major reversal for Chrysler, which had used its electric car program as part of the case for a $12.5 billion federal aid package.

As late as August, Chrysler took $70 million in grants from the U.S. Department of Energy to develop a test fleet of 220 hybrid pickup trucks and minivans, vehicles now scrapped in the sweeping turnaround plan for Chrysler announced this week by Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne.

So Chrysler used the electric car scam to get a $12.5 billion bailout and then took another $70 million in grants and now they’re closing down the program less than 90 days later?

Bait and switch from a car dealer. Who ever would have expected that?

Source: Fox News

June sales for GM and Chrysler even uglier than predicted

June sales for GM and Chrysler even uglier than predicted. Ford weathered the storm better than most–with no government bailout.

ugly June car sales

Ford may have manufactured the Edsel, but even it was prettier than what’s happening to Chrysler and Government Motors.

Sales are down for everyone. But GM and Chrysler come in at the back of the pack. Here’s a complete list of June U.S. auto sales:

▼ 5% Kia, 26,845 units vs. 28,292 units

▼ 11% Ford, 148,153 units vs. 167,090 units

▼ 15% Volkswagen, 26,551 units vs. 31,411 units

▼ 20% BMW, 20,849 units vs. 26,155 units

▼ 23% Nissan, 58,298 units vs. 75,847 units

▼ 24% Hyundai, 37,943 units vs. 50,033 units

▼ 26% Mercedes, 16,271 units vs. 22,121 units

▼ 30% Honda, 100,420 units vs. 142,539 units

▼ 32% Toyota, 131,654 units vs. 193,234 units

▼ 33% GM, 175,792 units vs. 264,065 units

▼ 42% Chrysler, 68,297 units vs. 117,457 units

Please note that Ford, which declined a government bailout, a government intervention, and a government take-over, seems to be weathering the downturn better than most.

Source: Chrysler.com

If you want to see Chrysler and GM’s future, look at Amtrak’s past

Amtrak's Taxpayer Express has completely derailed
Amtrak's Taxpayer Express has completely derailed

President Obama doesn’t want the government to own car companies. No, no, no. Anyone who thinks that is sorely mistaken. He insists this current “ownership” thing is just temporary.

Why, three years from now, both companies will be so financially robust that they somehow will no longer need billions of dollars in government subsidies.

Hey, wait a minute. That’s what the same thing they said back in 1971 when Congress legislated Amtrak into existence. Here’s Wikipedia’s description of how that’s worked out:

“Amtrak commenced operations in 1971 with $40 million in direct Federal aid, $100 million in Federally insured loans, and a somewhat larger private contribution. Officials expected that Amtrak would break even by 1974, but those expectations proved unrealistic and annual direct Federal aid reached a 17-year high in 1981 of $1.25 billion. During the Reagan administration, appropriations were halved. By 1986, Federal support fell to a decade low of $601 million, almost none of which were capital appropriations….by 1995 Amtrak was on the brink of a cash crisis and was unable to continue to service its debts.”

So Congress dug a little deeper into your pocket and upped the subsidy. Every year. Here’s what you’ve kindly contributed to Amtrak in the last five years.

2005 $1.2 billion
2006 $1.8 billion
2007 $1.9 billion
2008 $2.2 billion
2009 $2.6 billion

To summarize: In 1971, Congress said Amtrak would be self-sufficient in three years. 38 years later, the subsidies are bigger than ever and the service is worse than ever.

It doesn’t take Nostradamus to predict the future for GM and Chrysler. If you can read history, you can see the future.

Just add a couple more zeroes to the subsidies.

Source: Wikipedia, Heritage Foundation

New Chrysler car designed to pound your tax dollars down a rat hole

According to Chrysler, their new 2009 Chrysler Peapod will have a “new look and feel.” And if that doesn’t give you a warm glow about President Obama’s brilliant investment, they also say it has an “innovative, groundbreaking design.”

2009 Chrysler Peapod What’s Chrysler doing with those billions of tax dollars you’ve so kindly handed them? Trust us, you don’t want to know. But since you asked, it’s our obligation as journalists to tell you the truth.

How innovative can the PeaPod be when it looks just like a golf cart?
How innovative can the PeaPod be when it looks just like a golf cart?

Sigh. According to Chrysler, their new 2009 Chrysler Peapod will have a “new look and feel.” And if that doesn’t give you a warm glow about President Obama’s brilliant investment, they also say it has an “innovative, groundbreaking design.”

Are we the only ones who think this concept may have been originally sketched on a cocktail napkin on the 19th hole at some golf course outside Dearborn, Michigan?

You know all that bail out money President Obama’s poured into Chrysler? Kiss it good-bye.

Source: PlanetGore

What are the odds: Chrysler closes 789 dealerships, but all three networks interview same dealer

Cheer up, Chrysler dealers. Be happy that you survived this 1965 model.
Cheer up, Chrysler dealers. Be happy that you survived this 1965 model.

Jim Anderer is the first guy in the last two years to get more face time than Barack Obama on the network news.

Who is Jim Anderer? He’s owns Island Jeep in Lindenhurst, New York. Island Jeep was one of the 789 dealerships across the nation that Chrysler announced that it was going to eliminate on Thursday.

Yet, with 789 dealerships to choose from ABC, CBS and NBC News all somehow ended up talking to Anderer.

If someone had wanted to buy a car at Island Jeep on Thursday, they couldn’t have. Not the way network TV news crews were mobbing the place.

As NewsBusters said, “…only Anderer, who must have had a busy day in front of film crews from the national and local media, earned the triple play on the broadcast networks. Following a piece from Chris Bury in Chicago, ABC’s World News ran a ‘1st Person’ segment with Anderer railing against Chrysler. The CBS Evening News put two bites from Anderer in a piece narrated from Atlanta by Mark Strassmann and NBC slid a clip of Anderer into a Nightly News story from Lee Cowan in Los Angeles.”

In the old Soviet Union, every store carried the same poor quality products. Not unlike the network news in 2009.

Source: NewsBusters.org

I HATE THE MEDIA ™
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