Comments on: Friday Bailout Snippets

By: PT

PT — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 06:08:18 +0000

Interesting that you raise the private jets issue EnG. Front page news in the Financial Review ( only national Australian finance paper) was the commentary about how the senators had taken umbrage at the fact that the three CEOs had flown independently from Detroit on private jets to complain that they had no money. The basic premise was that nothing has changed in the upper management of the big three and if they get their $25Billion it will be wasted by the same kind of bad decisions that have got them into this state. It was quite funny actually. Not to mention probably correct.

By: max

max — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 17:46:57 +0000

FYI, following a pattern seen before, typical headlines before any major changes happen, comments on profitability is challenging. The Following from Automotive News

Saab to remain in N. America despite sales drop

John Revill
Automotive News Europe
November 21, 2008 14:31 CET

Saab will remain in the North American market despite a sharp drop in sales so far this year.

“The Saab brand is very attractive to U.S. consumers,” said Managing Director Jan-Ake Jonsson. “There are no plans to pull out at all.”
Jonsson reaffirmed Saab’s commitment to the US market, despite a sales drop there of 31 percent to 19,318 units in the first 10 months.
Sales in Canada were down 20 percent to 1,593 units during the period.
“We have been in North America for 50 years, we have a very solid footprint and a large car park there.” Jonsson told Automotive News Europe.
Sales in the U.S. had fallen because Saab was no longer chasing sales volumes at any cost, Jonsson said.
Despite falling sales, Saab is profitable in the U.S., Jonsson said.
He said: “The U.S. is a very important part of our strategy.”

By: eggsngrits

eggsngrits — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 02:21:43 +0000

Joe: I agree, I assumed that they’d mostly had that conversation prior to the hearing. Before a bunch of Congressmen set up some huge meeting with CEOs in private jets one would think that a great deal of thought had gone into the reasons behind the request.

By: joemama

joemama — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 00:36:40 +0000

Ummm…..having to explain what you need the money for first is just common sense.

Was that NOT part of the plan at some part? I mean, c’mon people…

Were they just going to hand over $25 billion?

By: eggsngrits

eggsngrits — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 23:44:33 +0000

Ah, Ms. Pelosi — still the best whiner-in-chief any political party ever had. She’s still not figured out that her party is in the lead. She still thinks like she’s in opposition. Harry Reid knows better, so I would have hoped that he would have made things less confrontational.

I agree with the comment about the forward-looking statements — the committee should know their own rule book.

There’s another train of thought forming in the US, I’ll post about that later tonight (it’s still not supper time on Thursday here in the Central US).