Chevy Volt a Failure - GM to Layoff 1,300

That's pretty funny. I'd love to see the list of people who wanted to buy a Chevy Volt who couldn't find one. Do they require poor Don Johnson to put on a Baghdad Bob costume when he fields a phone call like that? And how do you write that story and not point out that the "boost" in sales that everyone was reporting for two months were due to giveaway leases designed to make the car look like it was not a failure going into the election?

The other thing, also. ... In October, there were dozens of stories--it was all over the place--reporting the nonsensical sales number, when 75 percent of those sales required the consumer to put only $4,000 to $5,000 out of pocket for what amounted to a two years rental, not a sale (and that added millions of dollars to our national because each of those "sales" cost all of us in added government debt).

Then, they stopped that insane practice (no political reason to try to juice the numbers by subsidizing cars to insane levels) and sales fall off a cliff. Where are the dozens of stories reporting that? The news media in the aggregate really has dropped the ball here. It just reprints press releases and any misleading info that GM feeds them without questioning anything. No press release this month because it would be damn near impossible to spin those sales as a positive. So no stories. Sad.

 

I realized I never linked to this:

http://live.wSportsJournalists.com/video/why-is-california-pushing-electric-cars/7008A2DB-9A55-4C33-BC53-A7E6CF2DB119.html?KEYWORDS=chevy+volt#!7008A2DB-9A55-4C33-BC53-A7E6CF2DB119

It's Mike Ramsey sort of matter of factly talking about California trying to force car makers to sell electric cars -- even though they have to do it at losses.

Bastiat would have had a field day with this. There is no demand for a car that makes no sense. So government decides to mandate supply of those cars, on the ludicrous notion that supply somehow will create demand. Naturally, the world doesn't work that way. So we get a combination of government subsidizing these sales -- costing all of us money -- and car companies being forced to sell cars at losses in order to avoid staying afoul of government interference in their ability to sell cars that people DO demand.

This whole thing is like a Kafka novel. If we substituted the mafia for the state and federal governments' roles, it would be called racketeering.

 

Not even close. GM was a bailout. Ford was mere graft. They didn't step into a bankruptcy proceeding with Ford and takeover the company. So the level of political punishment (rightfully so) is much less. It's not right that our government is giving Ford arbitrary gifts of billions of dollars in handouts (or any company) -- this was not a loan. Ford didn't put up collateral and has loose terms that have it paying it back by 2022, even as our country pays interest on the national debt it created that will make it cost us all. But it's not even nearly on the same plane as what we did with GM.

The biggest problem with Ford is that even though they have managed to turn things around a bit -- actually increase revenues and boost profits -- the company is swimming in debt. That debt is more responsible for those cars than the government loan. Ford has actually strengthened its balance sheet and it still has more than $100 billlion in debt -- put that into the context of the $5.9 billion government handout you are saying is responsible for those 2013 models.

And that puts Ford in a precarious position. Right now it has barely been able to manage its debt load. It has done some good things like pay some debt down. But it is on a hampster wheel. It has to dramatically increase sales and keep increasing them to avoid a collapse. And that is a question mark. Sales in the U.S. are OK, but it doesn't do well in Europe and with the European slowdown the warning bells have been ringing.

Either way, our government handed Ford $5.9 billion on the condition that politicians get to decide certain cars they produce. You can call it a loan. But let's be realistic. It was handout that we may or may not ever see back. Producing plug-ins -- one of the conditions that came with that money -- isn't going to help Ford keep increasing its profitability to avoid being overcome by its debt, so in effect it was a deal with the devil that hopefully won't actually cause Ford's failure.

 

How about neither? It all comes from the same kitty that is putting our country on precarious fiscal footing. And it's all done for corrupt reasons.

 

I swear this wasn't written by me. This guy isn't much of a fan.

http://nlpc.org/stories/2012/12/06/chevy-volt%E2%80%99s-insignificant-100-million-mile-boast

It is pretty stark, though, how when they boosted "sales" by almost giving the cars away for two months prior to the election, news sites were filled with stories about the record sales. Then with the election passed, and that game over, sales plummeted in November. The dearth of stories is telling. Google "Volt" and "100 million miles," though, and it's a HUGE story.

I'll give Bastiat Motors one thing. They do have a good PR team that is able to control the news.