How can Chevy or GM be in financial trouble?

J

Jrh88er

New member
I live in NE florida and literaly (this is no exaggeration) every other vehicle is a Chevy Tahoe, Suburban, GMC Yukon, Caddy Escalade, GMC trailblzer, Chevy Silverado p/u.

Out of every 10 vehilces on the road 8 are a GM product. So this begs my question:

How can General Motors possibly be in finacial trouble when they are by far America's most popular vehicle?
 
Doesn't matter how many they sell. If the money is miss managed there is problems. Just take a look at our poor excuse for a govt.
 
I also sell Chevy's in north florida most of what we sell are trucks. Gm was doing ok till the gas price hit $4 a gallon. The big problem is 1. costs of workers in union factories most of the foreign brands don't pay as much or have to pay for the health care of its workers. 2. Less per unit incentives have you seen Toyota or Honda offer $5000 rebates on there cars? There are a lot of major mismanagement issue I think the biggest is having 4 versions of the same car enclave, traverse, outlook, arcadia when really one will do or 2 versions of the silverado/sierra. If they would drop GMC and make them all silverao's the silverado would be the best selling truck in the US. There are other reason as well but these are what we see the most as dealers.
 
It is because they gave out too much in the "good times" aka before the 70's. they pay all of their workers too much, especially their executives, their benefits are too lavish and their factories too inefficient because of union threats to strike if they update the plants and cut workers. GM pays billions in health expenses for their current and retired employees. they just have too many expenses they set up all their labor costs assuming that they would have near total control of the US auto industry and never adjusted for their declining percentage of the US market share.

I love GM cars but they are just so horribly mismanaged that it is disgusting. What they really need is to file chapter 11 and get rid of their insane expenses.

also one other thing to point out how old are all of the cars that you are seeing? if they arent brand new they arent really helping GM much
 
You got to listen to the exact wording. Every year the big companies(car makers, financial institutes, oil companies and others have to make out a prospectus to keep their shareholders informed to the health of the company. In that prospectus is the "estimated profits" for the coming year. So their best guess through their graphs and charts is X billion dollars"in profit".. Now the analizing accounting is a vague science because of wording. Very lawyer like.
If they don't make the forecasted profit they are claiming a loss (when in reality they still made a profit-but not as much as they thought their crystal ball or dartboard indicated.) So they can call "that" a loss. OK, one or even 2 years there can be a shortfall in the amount of profit expected(they are realistic about that and may even have insurance for it). But when it continues year after year that the profits are less than what was expected, the insurance won't cover it any more then they look for other ways to increase the profit margin. Remember, we are still talking "profit".
Should they get help from the government(or to be more exact "my tax money". My answer is "N.F.W.".
Any other small business has to adjust to a decrease in sales by either decreasing wages, staffing levels, or asking price of product in order to get the people to continue buying the product(and still have to put out a good-if not better product"because there is competition out there that is selling a better similar product for less).
People in a free capitalist society have freedom of choice and they choose something other than the highly priced no better than before"just a different cheap gadget with a different paint job product as before".
I am betting the heads of the firms were wishing that it was "law" to make consumers by Chevy.(just like in former USSR)every 2 years. No matter what the price.
They would not even have to advertise saving even more money.

Remember too, there is more than one way to read a balance sheet. That should be obvious by change in government(whether it be local, civic, state or federal) What the former government claim for a deficit and what the new government claim are 2 different set of numbers. How can that be on an exact science. (you could not fudge the numbers on your tax form without spending some serious time in prison for doing it)
 
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