jg95z28

Which came first the chicken or the egg?

The mortgage crisis was driven by the falling dollar and rising credit rates. That increased the rate of foreclosures. As people started losing their homes they started spending less and driving less. As people stop paying their mortgages, and buying less, the banking industry began to collapse. People began losing jobs which made things worse. Stop buying, stop driving, stop going to work, demand for oil drops. As demand drops the price for oil drops. etc. The economy may have been doing better, but it was falsely driven higher by greed and overspending. There had to be a correction at some point. While yes it is all tied together, to oversimplify it by saying the crisis we are in is driven by falling oil prices is silly. Saying that the mortgage crisis has no bearing on it is simply incorrect.

JohnnyTuinals

Greed and overspending naaaaaaaaEveryone that gets a $1* million Plus bonus deseves it...CEOs are making money for the investor....If it was the housing crisis why is the problem worldwide?We have a very small part that has gone BK7 and the rest are payingon time.....Let me know where I am wrong....
I am sure you can say its the houses an gas prices and spending,,,yep thats a small part.
Many people should not own houses,,,most should be renting

Tokuzumi

I said August, which will give some time for the Camaro to get out on the roads, or possibly not, if sales are in the toilet. Also, if the Cruze doesn't do well here (even though it won't be here until 2010, correct, as a 2011?), it could very well be bye bye for the GM as we know it. I don't think the name will disappear from the car manufacturing list, but GM's domestic involvement may all but disappear, and focus overseas.

JohnnyTuinals

You should go to Yahoo and read some of the message boards on GM....
Ohhhhh I will not believe everything people say on there,,,but it does give you a better idea where GM is at now.........
Many are saying that GM is Broke and will be gone by Jan of 2009.
As for some of the uneducated sumks on here that think GM will be around forever.Well they will not.......
Maybe they should do a bit of reading other then staying on this site all day.

jg95z28

So you're suggesting that a bunch of internet investors who's emotions are driven by short term capital gains know more than a bunch of internet enthusiasts who's emotions are driven by a life long dedication to the marque?

Tokuzumi

The message board is full of negativity for my company, as well. Comments about if you set all the dead wood on fire, you could see the fire from Pluto.

anasazi

jg95z28

The one thing that keeps me thinking that GM will survive is that in 1979, the federal government bailed out Chrysler with guaranteed loans to help them avoid bankruptcy. Now some 30-years later, the government is bailing out banks to keep them from folding, but they're not going to do the same for Detroit? Sorry, I just don't buy it.

Silverado C-10

I agree with this and will add to it further.... I'm no expert at all, but in my opinion, this all started when gas prices shot up!

My view:

The avgerage American was doing OK at $1.80-2.00/gal gas (ntl avg.). In the mix is a large group of Americans who were lent money for a house they could just barely afford and in my opinion the majority of them also owned a pickup or suv they bought new or fairly new, which as we all know, use a lot of gas, have higher insurance rates, and usually a more expensive payment. When gas (and diesel, especially diesel) started jumping to the $3.00 range people started cutting back where they could to pay for gas. Less eating out, less unnecessary goods, etc... This had a negative affect on the economy, but nothing like what was to come...

So now, we're to the point where diesel is up to $5.00/gal. The diesel jump had a large negative affect as well, almost everything is shipped via truck, farmers use diesel to run their equipment, as do contractors, etc.. the price of all consumer goods rose a good bit, and as that price climbed higher, so did the price of all goods. Been to a grocery store lately?

I believe that this is the straw that broke the camel's back...

What have we got now? Gas is now costing the avg. american $100 more per month than it did just two years ago ($200/mo if both parents work), consumer goods took a large increase in price and now desperate Americans can no longer cut back so what do they do? They make minimal to no payments on credit cards. They spend more and more on gas and put it on the CC's, again, most likely in a vehicle they are already "upside down" on, only making min. payments on everything, skewing our income/debt ratio, they begin to bail on vehicle and loan payments. At the same time, americans who can get by have their rear cheeks clenched and stop buying unnecessary goods like new cars, TV's, furniture, eating out, maybe they even cut back on what they put into savings, and people who haven't bought a home yet step back and hold off... the whole economy is slowing, so no new homes, no new stores, no new restaurants, so the construction industry is taking a huge hit, well, then, what's the need to buy new equipment and trucks?

...then because of all this ****, the financial institutions begin collapsing...

It all one interconnected giant *** snowball...

This was going to come eventually, but I honestly believe if gas never hit above $2.-2.50/gal everything would be "ok" right now. Maybe things would have collapsed slower, or not at all for a few more years....it would have come, just not as fast.

The good from all of this is that a lot of things have been put into check that needed to be. The bad.... a lot of people will lose jobs, inflation, large businesses are closing...maybe even GM... and when the hell is it going to end?

JohnnyTuinals

I never said I believe every post
But many do make sense
Well its no big deal right now.....
In a few Days GM will report their Earnings
If their earnings are that bad,,,,wellllll I think GM will be history
before years end.....


gee and I didnot want to buy a Challenger Rt,,,but I guess I will have too now

jg95z28

JohnnyTuinals

Let me see when Chrysler had their bailout the country was not like it is now???
Ohhhh I do agree if it was like many years ago I am sure the Goverment would help out...
Today is a differant time....
Maybe we can helpout the airlines since their stocks were so low today also.

HuJass

Yeah, you're right, it was a different time. It was a time when the government actually cared about it's citizens and the welfare of it's businesses. A time when the government realized that if these two did well, the country did well.
Not like now, when all that matters is short term profits and windfalls for big businessmen and politicians.

JohnnyTuinals

Yep I agree

jg95z28

Even if the government doesn't bailout GM, and even if GM doesn't try to cut costs (which they are actually attempting at this time), they have enough cash to stay out of bankruptcy well into the middle of next year.

Your time line doesn't hold water.