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Ford and Chrysler to work summer shut-down

Somerville

Somerville

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Hmmm, I thought I heard the auto bailout was a big failure of socialist economic practices.

Bittersweet news for union families as automakers keep plants open to meet surging demand

It seems that the automotive production world is either feast or famine. Right now it is feast. Like all heavy industries the automotive manufacturing plants schedule shut-downs to do maintenance. Both Ford and also Chrysler have announced that their plants in the US will remain open this summer for all or part of the scheduled shut down. Demand is so strong right now they cannot afford to miss out on the possible savings due to product shortages. Jim Tetreault , vice president of North America Manufacturing for Ford captures the mood well in this statement posted by Ford. “We are working most of our North America plants at maximum capacity and we are adding production shifts in three of our assembly plants this month alone. Requiring more capacity from our plants is a good problem to have and having the flexibility to add a week of production in our plants goes a long way toward solving it.”
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After all didn't someone write an opinion piece titled, Let Detroit Go Bankrupt and in Feb of this year defend that statement, Romney Defends Opposition to Auto Industry Bailout?

Couldn't possibly be the same guy who just yesterday was saying, "I'll take credit for the bailout", could it?
 
Somerville said:
Hmmm, I thought I heard the auto bailout was a big failure of socialist economic practices.



After all didn't someone write an opinion piece titled, Let Detroit Go Bankrupt and in Feb of this year defend that statement, Romney Defends Opposition to Auto Industry Bailout?

Couldn't possibly be the same guy who just yesterday was saying, "I'll take credit for the bailout", could it?
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excellent news...i work for a part supplier, and we are up to our eyeballs in work right now.
 
Ummm, Ford didn't get bailed out.
 
PerfectStorm said:
Ummm, Ford didn't get bailed out.
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Yes, that is correct. However ... if GM and Chrysler had been shut down thru bankruptcy as advocated by some folks, then all of the smaller businesses that supply the bits and pieces to the car builders would also have been affected, causing many of them to close their doors and that would have affected not only Ford but also the other car manufacturers in North America.
 
Somerville said:
Yes, that is correct. However ... if GM and Chrysler had been shut down thru bankruptcy as advocated by some folks, then all of the smaller businesses that supply the bits and pieces to the car builders would also have been affected, causing many of them to close their doors and that would have affected not only Ford but also the other car manufacturers in North America.
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not to mention the trickle down to other businesses...restaurants, theatres, other small businesses.....things would have definitely gotten nasty.
 
SE Michigan would have been devestated. As would other cities and towns all across America.
 
This wasn't the first time that Chrysler got bailed out. They were about to go under in 1980 and were bailed out by the federal government. If we let Chrysler like we let most companies fail or succeed on their own merits other companies would grow and new companies would come in to fill the void. That is the healthy way to for economies to grow and prosper. It is patently unfair for the government to selectively bailout companies who throught their own fault have mismanaged their way to bankruptcy.
 
PerfectStorm said:
Ummm, Ford didn't get bailed out.
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While Ford was making noise about not taking federal bailout money, they and other major automakers (both foreign and domestic) got federal aid to the tune of tens of billions of dollars when the economy tanked in 2008.

Yesterday, the federal government released the names of companies and the amounts of loans handed out during the financial crisis of 2008 to keep loans flowing as credit dried up everywhere. A number of those companies were the lending arms of automakers.

Automotive blog Jalopnik broke down which automotive lending companies got the most help, and leading the way was Ford Credit, which borrowed $15.9 billion. GMAC, GM’s financing arm which provided auto loans beyond the GM family of vehicles, took $13.9 billion. BMW took $6.2 billion. Chrysler $4.9 billion and Toyota $4.6 billion.

The GM and Chrysler loans were completely separate from those two companies’ government-financed bankruptcies.

While the news and numbers aren’t earth shattering — funds to the automotive lending companies totaled just $57.9 billion out of $3.3 trillion in TARP funds — it could color Ford’s perception as the only Detroit-based company that didn’t need a federal handout during the economic crash.

That’s a perception the company has fueled itself, by making statements about how not taking a “bailout” has been beneficial to its recent resurgence. We realize the two transactions are quite different, and this loan was not a bailout.

But we wonder how the public will see it.

All of this aid has since been repaid with interest to the government.
Report: Ford Took Federal Funds, Too - KickingTires


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Ford applied for $11 billion dollars from the Department of Energy’s Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program (ATVMP). It received $5.9 billion, payable over 25 years. They are applying for another $5.1 billion. The mainstream media meme—that The Blue Oval Boyz are “pure” capitalists untainted by the stink of federal handouts—is bunk. Lest we forget, the DOE loans were the original bailout: a thinly disguised attempt to channel funds to the domestics. The money pays for retooling that the recipients would otherwise have to fund—freeing those funds for other purposes. Keep the lights on kinda stuff. When the “viability” requirement made the DOE loan a moot point for Chrysler and GM, THEN they headed off for “bridge loans.” Which became an investment in shares or, in Chrysler’s case, a partial write-off. Oops! Question: does anyone believe the DOE loans will help ensure that Americans drive more fuel-efficient vehicles?
Point of Order: Ford HAS Taken Federal Money | The Truth About Cars
 
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Gimmesometruth said:
While Ford was making noise about not taking federal bailout money, they and other major automakers (both foreign and domestic) got federal aid to the tune of tens of billions of dollars when the economy tanked in 2008.

Yesterday, the federal government released the names of companies and the amounts of loans handed out during the financial crisis of 2008 to keep loans flowing as credit dried up everywhere. A number of those companies were the lending arms of automakers.

Automotive blog Jalopnik broke down which automotive lending companies got the most help, and leading the way was Ford Credit, which borrowed $15.9 billion. GMAC, GM’s financing arm which provided auto loans beyond the GM family of vehicles, took $13.9 billion. BMW took $6.2 billion. Chrysler $4.9 billion and Toyota $4.6 billion.

The GM and Chrysler loans were completely separate from those two companies’ government-financed bankruptcies.

While the news and numbers aren’t earth shattering — funds to the automotive lending companies totaled just $57.9 billion out of $3.3 trillion in TARP funds — it could color Ford’s perception as the only Detroit-based company that didn’t need a federal handout during the economic crash.

That’s a perception the company has fueled itself, by making statements about how not taking a “bailout” has been beneficial to its recent resurgence. We realize the two transactions are quite different, and this loan was not a bailout.

But we wonder how the public will see it.

All of this aid has since been repaid with interest to the government.
Report: Ford Took Federal Funds, Too - KickingTires


----------------------------------------------------------------
Ford applied for $11 billion dollars from the Department of Energy’s Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program (ATVMP). It received $5.9 billion, payable over 25 years. They are applying for another $5.1 billion. The mainstream media meme—that The Blue Oval Boyz are “pure” capitalists untainted by the stink of federal handouts—is bunk. Lest we forget, the DOE loans were the original bailout: a thinly disguised attempt to channel funds to the domestics. The money pays for retooling that the recipients would otherwise have to fund—freeing those funds for other purposes. Keep the lights on kinda stuff. When the “viability” requirement made the DOE loan a moot point for Chrysler and GM, THEN they headed off for “bridge loans.” Which became an investment in shares or, in Chrysler’s case, a partial write-off. Oops! Question: does anyone believe the DOE loans will help ensure that Americans drive more fuel-efficient vehicles?
Point of Order: Ford HAS Taken Federal Money | The Truth About Cars
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what many fail to realize as well is if chrysler and gm both tanked, they would have taken a chunk of the supply chain with them, as many part suppliers supply more than one auto company....ford would have suffered as well.
 
You do realize that the "auto bailout" was basically a debtor in possession bankruptcy with the government providing the restructuring capital, right?

And, by the way, "failing" and "going bankrupt" are two very, very different things.
 
Somerville said:
Yes, that is correct. However ... if GM and Chrysler had been shut down thru bankruptcy as advocated by some folks, then all of the smaller businesses that supply the bits and pieces to the car builders would also have been affected, causing many of them to close their doors and that would have affected not only Ford but also the other car manufacturers in North America.
Click to expand...

Actually, GM was never really near total bankruptcy. Only their North American operations were in real trouble and even then they could of restructured, and would of already done so, if they had gotten concessions from the Unions. They had already closed and consolidated several plants, unfortunately, due to Union Contracts and sometimes state laws, closing the plants proved to be costely and left them holding a lot of debt. If they would of filed bankruptcy, it would only have been to shed a lot of Union debt. But, if the government is going to hand you free money, why not take it. Unfortunately for them, they didn't read the fine print and the bailout they got was not the bailout they wanted or what Chrysler got back in the 1980s.
 
DVSentinel said:
Actually, GM was never really near total bankruptcy. Only their North American operations were in real trouble and even then they could of restructured, and would of already done so, if they had gotten concessions from the Unions. They had already closed and consolidated several plants, unfortunately, due to Union Contracts and sometimes state laws, closing the plants proved to be costely and left them holding a lot of debt. If they would of filed bankruptcy, it would only have been to shed a lot of Union debt. But, if the government is going to hand you free money, why not take it. Unfortunately for them, they didn't read the fine print and the bailout they got was not the bailout they wanted or what Chrysler got back in the 1980s.
Click to expand...

That's mostly true. However, one of the big problems that GM and Chrysler faced was that they could not find sufficient restructuring capital given the bad economy. And the government's bailout was in response to this problem. However, GM and Chrysler could have gone ahead and restructured with what was available, but it would have probably meant significant decreases in US capacity, which is what the government wanted to avoid.
 
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