Archives

http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/2/AmericanFlag.jpg GM lost $9.6 BILLION in the fourth quarter of 2008....would have had to file for Chapter 11 in January without loans. (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/business/27auto.html?hp)

http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/501/carl_sagan.jpgNick Bunkley - New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/) - Feb. 26, 2009

I wish this was Nova or science fiction, but this is real :( --Ed.

The automaker General Motors said Thursday that its cash reserves were down to $14 billion at the end of 2008, a year when the industry’s worst sales slump in decades nearly forced the company into bankruptcy before the federal government gave it a lifeline.

G.M. lost $30.9 billion, or $53.32 a share, in 2008 and spent $19.2 billion of its cash reserves.

For the fourth quarter, it lost $9.6 billion, or $15.71 a share, as its global sales fell 26 percent. In the fourth quarter alone, it spent $6.2 billion of its reserves. The company has said in the past that it needed a minimum of $11 billion to $14 billion in reserves.

In 2007, the company lost $43.3 billion, a record, mostly the result of a noncash accounting charge; it adjusted the figure higher by $4.6 billion Thursday....http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/business/27auto.html?hp

<sarcasm> 9.6 billion? Heck, they only needed to sell 19.2 million extra cars in the quarter (assuming a profit if $500 per car) to break even. </sarcasm>

The press expressing the loss as a decimal number with the word "billion" insulates people from the reality of the numbers. If they report it as "$9,600,000,000.00 lost in 13 weeks", or "$4,395,604.40 lost every hour of that quarter" or "$73260.07 lost every minute" or "1221.00 lost every second", people would really see the magnitude of the problem.

Preliminary sales figures for the first quarter of this year seem to point to the fact that in April, they will be wishing the loss for Q1 2009 was "only 9.6 billion". I can't wait to see what the incentives will be for next month - "Employee pricing plus 0% for 6 years plus a complimentary peanut butter power-bar that we found in a warehouse plus an official GM-Accounting-Department calculator that displays numbers in scientific notation so they don't look so bad."

Employee pricing plus 0% for 6 years plus a complimentary peanut butter power-bar that we found in a warehouse...

If they insured everyone that they sold a car to and used peanut butter power bars made by Peanut Corp in Georgia, this might end up being a successful business plan...

"An official GM-Accounting-Department calculator that displays numbers in scientific notation so they don't look so bad."

Yeah, like 2 raised to the power 634 (or whatever the heck it would be)

If we had someone in the employ of a foreign government, acting on their behalf, we'd call them a spy, or at least a foreign agent. If we have someone who promotes the interest of Big Oil and who is a major financial drain on our economy, what do we call them?

GM?

Only a corporate bean counter could change a number to scientific notation, thereby preventing himself from wetting his pants when he glances at the balance sheet.

General Motors has said it could run out of money by the end of March and needs $2 BILLion in March and another $2.6 BILLion in April to stay in business

Of course....Carl wasn't the one who popularized the saying "Billions and Billions"....that was Johnny Carson. ;)

According to IRS information for fiscal year 2003, just over 130 million individual tax returns were filed. So we can conclude there are 130 million taxpaying individuals or households in the US.

Using that number, 2.6 billion dollars - GM's request for April, amounts to $20 per taxpaying individual or family. While that number is sure to raise some emotions, it also illustrates just how much bleeding is going on in Detroit.

According to IRS information for fiscal year 2003, just over 130 million individual tax returns were filed. So we can conclude there are 130 million taxpaying individuals or households in the US...

Sorry, but I can't come up with 130 taxpaying individuals from that number. Too many of them are returns filed by people end up getting back equal to or more than they put in (and includes well over half of the military members I normally come into contact with). This is easy enough to do with EIC (counts as taxes paid) and the "stimulus" payments that went out last year.

These returns aren't from taxpayers.

God help us if the government gets it in it's collective mind to nationalize GM.