General Motors

Quote from deadbroke:

At a computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated: “If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving twenty-five dollar cars that got 1000 miles to the gallon.”

In response to Bill’s comments, General Motors issued a press release stating (by Mr Welch himself):

If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:


1. For no reason whatsoever your car would crash twice a day.

2. Every time they repainted the lines on the road you would have to buy a new car.

3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason, and you would just accept this, restart and drive on.

4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn, would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.

5. Only one person at a time could use the car, unless you bought “Car95″ or “CarNT.” But then you would have to buy more seats.

6. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, reliable, five times as fast, and twice as easy to drive, but would only run on five per cent of the roads.

7. The oil, water temperature and alternator warning lights would be replaced by a single “general car default” warning light.

8. New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.

9. The airbag system would say “Are you sure?” before going off.

10. Occasionally for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key, and grab hold of the radio antenna.

11. GM would require all car buyers to also purchase a deluxe set of Rand McNally road maps (now a GM subsidiary), even though they neither need them nor want them. Attempting to delete this option would immediately cause the car’s performance to diminish by 50% or more. Moreover, GM would become a target for investigation by the Justice Department.

12. Everytime GM introduced a new model car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.

13. You’d press the “start” button to shut off the engine.
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lol, that was well done. Very clever.
 
Quote from Debaser82:

52 week high: 40$

Today: 22$.

Look at another big victim of the crash of 08.

C

52 week high: 51$

Today: 27$

It's amazing how much money you can lose buying companies that people lost 100% of their money on before!

Mindbogling.
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Yes, some things never change. Just a correction: C reverse split 10 for 1, so the stock is actually $2.70 cents pre-split, a drop of OVER 90% of its value from the 52 week high.

The airline stocks are no different, they just file bankruptcy and then relist the stock later, yet STILL can't hold their gains.

My guess is if GM keeps tanking, it may end up doing a reverse split just like C. The bottom line: "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me."
 
Quote from Debaser82:

Look at it slide.

Face it, you had to be a gigantic idiot to buy it again.
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Everyone has a different timeline and different motivation, but I think some pretty smart people are buying into the stock here. A PE of 5 is compelling though I haven't looked at it much.
 
Quote from newwurldmn:

Everyone has a different timeline and different motivation, but I think some pretty smart people are buying into the stock here. A PE of 5 is compelling though I haven't looked at it much.
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But is it just another moral hazard bet? i.e. perpetual bailouts. And it should be made clear that there are "direct" bailouts and "indirect" bailouts (such as ZIRP, suspension of MTM accounting and the myriad of accounting gimmicks allowable).
 
Quote from denner:

But is it just another moral hazard bet? i.e. perpetual bailouts. And it should be made clear that there are "direct" bailouts and "indirect" bailouts (such as ZIRP, suspension of MTM accounting and the myriad of accounting gimmicks allowable).
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Perhaps. I don't know.

But what the bull thesis is (and I don't know a lot about the company), is that the bankruptcy helped shed legacy healthcare costs. These costs amounted to like $1500/car. This makes the cars more competitive.

Also their european and asian divisions are quite strong and their US cars are improving.

This is from the brief stuff I had read around their IPO, so it's dated and maybe not relevant.

Einhorn is buying GM. GM GMCR spread trade. I guess he doesn't like CR :)
 
Quote from Chuck Rost:

GM has been losing money in Europe for the last 10 years.In Q3 GM posted a pretax loss of 292 million in Eurpoe.
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Yeah. You are right. GME sucks. I must have been reading some propoganda.

However in 2010, their global automotive business did generate almost 6Bn in pre-tax income.
 
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