GM Posts a $30.9 billion loss in 2008

"US President Barack Obama said that his administration would not protect automakers from their bad choices."

GOOD! seriously...no offense to the workers... i feel their pain, but the company is seriously pathetic and should go down right now. horrible cars, high ego, and didn't spend money in areas of need.

If anything a lot of offense should go to the workers. The union was asking for more and more beyond reason. Instead of spending money on R&D..., they had to appease the union because they wanted a prime roast beef for dinner instead of lasagna. Admittedly it was stupid for them to show up in their private jets when they did, but that goes to show you that the problem is spread throughout GM, not just in the higher ranks.

glad i shorted gm when it was still 5 bucks a share .. it's pathetic companies like these that i ride in a porsche everyday ..

I attended a local motor show today and the only people who didn't show up was Porsche, even Aston Martin and Bentley were showing off models.

German, Japanese and Korean auto manufacturers had better management than American companies by far. Even banking system was more prudential in other countries than in the US, where the (subprime) crisis started. American top politicians were so busy to fight wars for the benefit of their oil companies who helped them being elected, instead of taking good care of their domestic economy. Now they have to pay the price. The problem is that because of the globalisation we all pay the price, not only the Americans.

What happens now with GM and Chrysler is not the result of the crisis, but the result of the bad management and the low quality of the cars they produced in recent years. The crisis only deepened their problems.

In Europe, few people heard of Chrysler. The most well-known and appreciated American car is the European Ford. Opel is also known in Europe, but is considered as a lower quality car compared to other popular brands produced in Germany: Ford and Volkswagen. And Chevy is seen as being nothing else but a cheap Opel.

OMG, does this mean there will be no more retarded piece of garbage called H2 ?

i'm so sick of the whole bailout situation for the auto industries. bad & corrupt company with greedy union need to have taxpayers money for their mistakes/ mis-management/ failure/ bad products? correct me if i'm worng, in their profitable days before, have they ever give back anything to the country/ society/ community?

As much as I agree with your sentiment, all the people that GM employ pay taxes, and GM as a company pays taxes, so thats their contribution back to the country.

There comes a time though that enough is enough with the bailouts, and thats fast approaching. The argument thats its cheaper to keeping GM afloat than have the combined cost of putting all employees and suppliers on handouts plus the loss of their spending and tax, is a weak one. In a market with a largely constant demand for new vehicles, a loss of a major player will cause supply to drop back below demand, causing other maunfacturers to have increased sales, hence requiring other manufacturers to boost their production. So the potential loss of employment is partially mitigated by the subsequent increase in demand for other manufacturers. Given that the suppliers are all interconnected, that increase from other manufacturers will cancel out the loss of GM part orders.