Chrysler finally filed...

I'll be the first in line to get the new "FIALI". (Fix It Again Lee Iacocca) Very similar to a Smart Car, it's a hybrid weighing in at 600lbs. It's so efficient it has to tow its battery packs behind it on a small trailer. The design is so brilliant, the trailer can be used to carry up to 20lbs. of cargo including the bungy cords.

Ever see a Smart Car going down the road? The wind from a pigeon's wings could blow it off the road at 10mph.

stockingfull wrote:3. FIAT's been building much better metal than any of us remember from the old days. (I owned 2 in the 70's.) They've got competitive tech; in fact, they now own Ferrari. Be prepared to be impressed with what you see.

I had a FIAT Spyder in the late '60s. It lasted 28 days.

OK, I'll bite, what happened, menstruation?

I had a '74 128SL and a '75 131 "Mirafiori" (after I crunched the front of the little 128). The bain of both were the relay boards, but the little 128 SL, while just a 1300, was my first FWD car, and it handled incredibly well and went like a Jeep in the snow.

http://www.adclassix.com/ads/73fiatandretti.htm

FIAT has some neat stuff that we've seen in Germany. It'll be interesting to see what they bring over here.

stockingfull wrote:But what Obama has done is brilliant. He's challenging labor -- not unlike in an ESOP -- to rise above the old "labor vs. mgmt" adversary system and actually buy into the success of the company for the sake of their own survival.

And why not? Mgmt had run it into the ground, leaving labor with the last major stake in its survival. And, as a public policy matter, why shouldn't labor have the opportunity to save their jobs and retirement benes? If it can't work, then it'll be time to pack it up. But (and I've been saying this since last fall) fixing healthcare and getting those numbers (current and legacy) off the board is an essential piece of the puzzle.

Sorry dude, Obama and his like-kind predecessors are idiots. In successful industries where the government didn't meddle with labor unions, there is no "adversary system". Pay matches performance. In the car industry, pay matched what the government allowed the unions to extort. There was no expectation of fairness. That thinking pervades management thought by coercion.

Management didn't complain enough about the extortion. That was their error. They allowed the property of their shareholders to be seized. Shareholders acquiesed. Now they all get the results they deserve. Government ran them over.

When the government is allowed control of a business entity, they can exercise their will. The strings attached to the loans represent government meddling. That is the public policy that is wrong. That is all that Obama is doing--political meddling. There is no expectation of fairness. Fairness, at this point, would be for the taxpayer not be involved and for the company to fail or reorganize on its own according to law. There are two other car companies that will take up any slack upon failure. Labor would be justly rewarded as would the bond holders, stock holders, creditors and management.

If Obama hadn`t stepped in & given them bail-out money Chrysler & GM would have been bankrupt months ago. What he did was to give them the chance to change & survive on their own the end result is the same except no one can cry that the government let them fail, they did it all on their own.

Here's the detail of the Chrysler deal:

http://www.foxnews.com/video/index.html ... d=playlist

Chrysler owed the union $6.5B. The union received in the Obama deal, $4.6B in a 9% note, .6B from Daimler, and 55% of the common stock.

Bankruptcy will eliminate the $4.3B of TARP funds owed to the FED. If the company survives and becomes profitable, they will receive another $8B in funds from the Federal government. The Federal gov't gets an 8% stake in common stock.

Fiat will most likely get the company for a mere $2B in the "bidding" process of the bankruptcy court. (Although I am not certain exactly what they are buying....hard assets or common stock? If stock, the union will not have a controlling interest, if hard assets, the union's interest won't have any hard assets. )

Cerberus Capital and the hedge fund investors will get $.29 on the dollar while the taxpayer gets shafted for $12, meanwhile Fiat, a foreign company, gets a sweet deal and the union gets assets worth $6.3B (plus interest worth maybe another $4.6B). It's true that the union will have to earn most of it by keeping the company afloat but what really does the taxpayer get for it's $12B? It gets to bail out, for the second time in history, a second rate auto company that has no strategic importance.

Had the company been allowed to fail, the taxpayer would have saved $12B in TARP funds, lost a portion of the $6.5B on the union obligations of the company after selling the assets to Fiat. GM and Ford would have picked up their forgone business and thus eliminated some of their own need for TARP funds and, most importantly, management, labor and investors all would understand that there is a real risk of demise and they should watch their p's and q's better. Instead, we will delay the fall of Chrysler for another decade for the chance to do it again later. They also get to bail out the wealthiest workers in America making more than the average taxpayer.

The trillion dollar question is this: will the union, if they remain the major stockholder, after cutting management salaries and bonuses, and after cutting dividends, cut its own wages and benefits to stay in business? Their actions will determine whether unions are a rational entity in a capitalistic society or just a mob.

mikeandgerry wrote:The trillion dollar question is this: will the union, if they remain the major stockholder, after cutting management salaries and bonuses, and after cutting dividends, cut its own wages and benefits to stay in business? Their actions will determine whether unions are a rational entity in a capitalistic society or just a mob.

The UAW has stated they will sell their shares to pay for healthcare.

coaledsweat wrote:

mikeandgerry wrote:The trillion dollar question is this: will the union, if they remain the major stockholder, after cutting management salaries and bonuses, and after cutting dividends, cut its own wages and benefits to stay in business? Their actions will determine whether unions are a rational entity in a capitalistic society or just a mob.

The UAW has stated they will sell their shares to pay for healthcare.

Thanks for filling in my "unknown".

Where did you get that info...I'd like to read it.

Is the $2B bid from fiat for stock or assets?

I guess it doesn't matter, had the gov paid the union, the taxpayer would be ahead $6 billion plus some of the funds for GM. As it stands we will have three weak automakers (one foreign owned) instead of two stronger ones.

billlindley wrote:I love my Magnum but it can’t compare to a Toyota in terms of quality.

My wife's '05 Liberty CRD is equally a "hangar queen". By the time it had 65K miles, it has had 2 sets of lower front ball joints (one set under recall), a frozen rear brake caliper, a bad u-joint, 4 (yes FOUR) EGR valves - the last one I did myself for $160 for the part rather than $600 at the dealer as it was out of warranty on the last one, a new torque converter (another recall), and I'm sure a few other things. It's fun to drive with the diesel torque, but mechanically it's a POS.

My '02 Jetta TDI wagon has 140K and while I've done a lot of maintenance work on it, none has been "premature" like the Liberty. OEM struts went at 70K, did rear brakes at about 115K, still on the original fronts, front wheelbearing went at 135K and I replaced both as well as the lower ball joints while I was there. Timing belt and water pump were changed at 80K and are good until 180K.

I worked for a Chrysler supplier on the Caliber/Patriot platform and got to talk with a lot of various Chrysler people from the local plant as well as corporate. They seriously only care that a particular part or whatever makes it out of warranty. That is the design input life. They take cost out until the part just meets warranty and that's it. It's the only way they could make money on the vehicle paying the obscene wages and healthcare costs and supporting the "jobs bank" an other insane "unionisms".