This is my personal take on things, notice I haven't supplied references, so agree with what you can agree with and pitch the rest. GM just bought back 20 billion of its own stock and the net result is that it is down 3% for the year. Even market can't suspend disbelief on GM. That's money that could have been spent on R&D and new factories but instead it was spend on trying buy off Wall St because the market doesn't believe in its future. GM is in a very transparent place. For instance Musk predicted Bolt sales to within about 1000 units because he said GM wasn't serious and was only trying to game the subsidies- more below on that. Now GM shows a concept electric car with no controls- at this point likely an attempt to anti sell electric cars. There is a solid basis for the market's non-belief in GM. GM is essentially in the petrol retail business. Its core purpose in reality was always to help move petrol. That is still its focus. And that completely undermines confidence in its future, because that exact focus has a huge history of failure and under the most ideal of conditions. For instance, at the height of the most pro petrol regime in history, the W. Admin, GM went bankrupt. Hmm... what was the supposed cause? GM said it was unions. But then look at BMW and its unions and it stomped GM during that period, double the profit, double the pay and double the benefits etc. GM went bankrupt because of unions? Its part of why Obama lopped the head off GM as part of its bailout condition, because of this kind of basic dishonesty. The lie was very much like the other bailout lie. The W. Admin crashed the economy. Why did that happen? Per the petrol focused W. Admin it was because of home loans to poor people and poor people being to lazy to pay of their VAR loans. In reality it was because of banking derivatives collapsing. Then as today most derivatives were insuring petrol debt. So in essence petrol couldn't pay its debts because it was failing as usual, and that triggered insurance payout s but there was so much default that it collapsed the global financial sector. But how could that have happened. Well in part it is because petrol debt is blind debt by law (because petrol is such a piece of sht business- no one would insure it otherwise) so people who insure it seek to insure themselves without limit. Don't believe it- then here's another hint, remember the Goldman Sachs exec recently noting that petrol had to borrow from big banking to pay its dividends, and his quip that big oil was never all that big? It can't make its loan payments but it still borrows to pay dividends? That is the kind of idiocy it runs on and it inspired the banking industry to do similar things with its bonuses. And ask yourself why it needs debt in the first place if it's so successful, and you will see that it's in chronic insolvent debt despite endless unbelievable subsidence and chronic to the point of routine but increasing massive destabilizing bailouts. Take a look at Saudi Arabia. Ask yourself how Obama who was all of the above and out of coal country ended up take such steps against petro- it is because they were inevitable and even tepid although it will be his public legacy. The truth about petrol is that it has never been successful has been the biggest loser industry in history. As a recent year example, global petrol fuel/energy took in about 1.25 trillion in supposed revenue, but global direct state subsidies to the industry were about 1.5 trillion- most of it likely tragically coming from the US. So you understand that in that year petrol was not only not profitable it was not even revenue positive. So you also understand that its phony profits were simply transfer payments to the rich or more welfare for the rich. Petrol is the ultimate "welfare queen" that its proponents are always projecting about. And why is that? Because that year wasn't just a fluke it's the norm or maybe even the good end of the norm because you see petrol has in its history never been revenue positive let alone profitable. This is why garbage like the the Cheny energy task for has to be top secret- but its a secret that is out in the obvious open. And if you think about it the US claims to be a 17 trillion dollar economy (even if most or much of it is phony) and the US is only a fraction of the global economy- say 100 trillion a year, so why do we hear so much about this piece of sht industry when its supposedly only takes up about 1% of the economy? Its because even the above isn't even scratching the surface of how pathetic petrol actually is, because its financials and its reality are much worse than the above in actuality. Beyond even its books being garbage, in that the majority of its assets are not just politically stranded, but economically stranded, beyond even that is its now long term need for regular bailouts and its astronomical externalities. Starting with just externalities or indirect subsidies governments (people) globally pay an additional 6.5-7 trillion in externality damage annually to help prop up petrol. But now lets add the cost of the its routine and increasingly destabilizing bailouts generally in the form or wars or financial scams. Take the 90s. The Wall had fallen which was certainly going to impact petrol's normal free fall. During the 90s the US added about 13% more population and CAFE (fuel standards) stayed level but petrol was failing again as evidenced by a 16% decrease in petrol retail stations in the US. And this came even afer the the attempted major bailout with the first Iraq war in the early part of the 90s, but by 2000 radical action would be needed, you see even the Iraq war couldn't stem the shrinkage as evidenced in petrol retail, so by the W. admin Bush part 2 it was a total petrol emergency. So here we go. Presidential selection of W. just like with T- as petrol is in trouble as usual. Yep, install the loser, but in the case of T. the opponent was a natural gas sales woman. Then the Enron scam- used essentially to bankrupt California and to prop up (bail-out) natural gas- have to wonder if that was part of the Cheny task force- but that was a mere 40 billion designed to help undermine opponents while enriching (bailing out) natural gas cronies. Then 911- during which 2 trillion dollars disappeared from the treasury- another bailout. Then Iraq- another 4 trillion dollar bail- out, then Afganistan maybe another 1.5 trillion dollar bailout. And even when the Bush admin ended there is another 500 billion a year apparently unnecessarily added to the defense budget that didn't go away when wars wound down, again more bailout this time annually under idiotic non democratic sequestration- again necessary to cover the petrol scam. Then add 20 trillion for TARP which was still a Bush admin effort but still a bailout of petrol.And think of cost of the political damage to the US for wars of aggression- can you put a dollar cost on that? So during the W. admin 27 trillion in bailouts were thrown at the petrol industry and in the midst of this GM still failed. Granted GM failed after 7 trillion were thrown at petrol but this was in addition to its usual subsidies during a tight 7 year period. But what causes this and how did we get here? Remember in the US that slavery actually ended around 1950 even if technically long before that. And around that time people were noticing the incredibly low economic efficiency of petrol- hence things like the emergence of the peak oil thesis. By then petrol was already mature tech, built out in markets and at scale but policy people couldn't help but realize that it totally sucked and was never self-sufficient always needed subsidies etc. But economic non viability would become a its main feature shortly thereafter. Also it penchant for driving unnecessary wars was a feature. For perspective we could have been rid of petrol in the 1950s and should have been rid of it. Even a pure dirty fission based global society would have been preferable and quite possibly led to a lot less proliferation. Around 1970, approximately 2000 economists including economists on the right told the global policy people that "the economic problem" had been solved and that capitalism was dead (nice message during the cold war.)Dead because automation had already obviated labor and hence capital as well as capital is the other side of the labor coin. So next came crap like the Powell memo. Because economists were saying work was over and people should be paid from birth to death an unconditional high indexed guaranteed annual income- think radically expanded social security. They said in 1870 under agriculture 97% of people worked in the field 16 hour a days, 7 days a week and it was feast or famine but in 1970 the US 3% of people worked in the field and the US could feed the world, hence start people on social security at age 0, increase the rate and make it indexed. Keep in mind that part of this was due to agriculture, as before language and tools people were sufficient outside the nest on 4hrs of work per day. Some animals are sufficient on less than 13 minutes of effort per day. Economists were telling capital that 97% of people needed to be freed from its influence and that it should dry up and join the masses. Note the US incarcerates 3% of its people now. continued in next post
continued- In response capital sought to do the exact opposite to keep its power and prestige in a world that would be much better off without it. They sought to take us back to the plantation, reverse the civil war- part of why you have General Kelly now saying there should have been compromise on a right exploit (slavery) to prevent the civil war because petrol is about a right to exploit (slavery) and is civil rights part II. Petrol depends on a right to exploit for its very existence because it is a mechanism of slavery right down to its property convention- that is the point of it and it yields hereditary plantation style rule. So they converted from the problematic gold standard to the ultra-low economic efficiency petrol economy or petrol dollar. That low 13% economic efficiency (based on physical efficiency) translates into forcing people to work a lot more hours than necessary, tread-milling them keeping them too tired to resist the imposition of the plantation. It also means hollowing out the public sector keeping the state too weak to check capital or put it into its proper non-existent place in current society. (Remember work in the absence of necessity also lacks dignity and security.) They also delinked wages from inflation setting in motion a ticking time bomb on a path to civil unrest or another civil war. And they captured the media through sponsorship and destroying the legal safeguards that prevented capture of the media by money- paving the way for sponsored law. The also killed off the civil rights leaders and broke the unions. So in effect they set up a system where the rich could tax everyone else while endlessly lowering wages and colluding to raise prices to maximize profit for their non-contribution, all the while hollowing out the public sector that could hold them accountable. That is where we are at today. GM is a total welfare case, no different then Exxon. As a member of the Rockefeller family said as they were divesting Exxon (the company their family founded) they were divesting because Exxon was going to be public enemy number one- well GM is part of that just another public menace. It's just as myopic and blind as it's ever been. Was it Bill Press taking about at GM meetings it was non-stop talk about profit whereas even at Toyota it was never mentioned at big conferences. Wasn't it GM that was saying building a car is an inefficient use of capital. Its run by people who think the rich taxing the poor is an efficient use of capital. GM never should have had profit because its profit was just an extension of petrol transfer payments, it should have been run at cost as an investor free entity- it would have been better and less of a scam. GM did the EV-1 as a loss leader just to write it off and appease the left. It did the same with the Volt and Bolt. There is such irony when DeBord criticizes Tesla over struggling to expand production 2x as fast as planned as if it weren't facing the sabotage of an industry that thinks nothing of driving genocidal wars. Irony when Romney calls Tesla a loser. Irony when the shill financial media insists that Tesla be not only revenue positive but profitable through its growth phase when petrol has never been revenue positive let alone profitable. Its as if they think Tesla should be paying dividends, like the do, and do so for investing in what. But here is the thing that will destroy GM and any other petrol ornament. 13% economic efficiency (based on physical efficiency) is the best petrol has ever been able to achieve (slight increment in Japan for a moment- but it was a largely fission powered society so anomaly) - petrol economy is a recipe for failure just an economy today based on something like hauling ore from Pluto would be. Against economies that run at 80-90% economic efficiency off green energy, which is radically more abundant, even if petrol isn't that limited in supply (a petroleum genesis) is an unsustainable strategic disadvantage which will radically reduce the cost of goods in any market that goes green and give an insurmountable export advantage as well as a geopolitical advantage. We should have hit the high indexed unconditional GAIs 50 years ago and we should have transitioned off petrol in the 50s. We are at a stage where the remnants of capital, phony capital are going to be held accountable for their theft, fraud and destruction of society, GM will be part of that culling. When NY divests petrol and then says to Exxon we can calculate your contribution to carbon (as good a measure as any for the overall damage) pay up for future damages you know the change is coming. You can say it was HAARP but Manhattan was underwater for a month. There was also OWS and 911. During OWS billionaires were talking about their plan to flee the country. People are fed up with petrol, its over. Trying to co-opt the internet with another round of sponsorship (anti neutrality anti privacy) isn't going to fix anything or make another bailout with Iran possible. Its over and this time when GM goes down its going down for the count. Ford and Chrysler will go down as well. FCA or Chrysler component will be a 3x loser. There won't be bailouts in either of those cases either. Displaced people will get high indexed GAIs instead, because it will be robots on the assembly lines at Tesla making those GAIs possible. If you need to ask why 5 years, just check out Tony Seba's work If you need to understand why petrol fuel/energy has low economic/physical efficiency and why it's not a matter of supply at the physical level and why even though its sub threshold its gets destroyed against green energy consider the following: Petrol: find it fight for it or buy it defend it extract it ship it store it refine it store it ship it retail it combust it very low efficiency due to heat pollution deal with heat pollution deal with spun cost waste (batteries and petrol aren't any better than petrol an autonomy both losers) maintain the complex machines the combust, capture and distribute it let it poison you food, water and air let it limit you access to food water and clean air let it cause global instability and risk nuclear war let it poison the oceans deal with supply disruptions deal with unpredictable finance deal with hollowing out public sector deal with it exhausting the population from its verticality and unnecessary overhead sub threshold economic efficiency even when built out, at scale with mature tech centralization makes economies brittle subject to the elements Roof top batter backed solar (as an example) electrons come to you electrons themselves don't come with a cost rock solid reliability rock solid predictable finance 30 years out not weeks solid state components largely made of sand or elements more abundant than lead zero emissions hardens against disaster frees up citizen income at a time when its desperately needed way above threshold energy can become almost free 1/1000 cent a kwh vs petrol floor of 13 cents kwh retail grows the economy in a non-destructive way way above threshold economic efficiency mean surplus instead of welfare case reduce cost of goods instead of raising them doesn't use of farm land enables the electrification of land, air sea transport takes the strain of roads and public infrastructure gets rid of nonsense permanent war economy no need to transport cuts pollution heals environment Tesla will be up above GM in stock price soon again, even if there is manipulation at the trading level, and that will take the GM stock price, hits petrol over all too. This narrative that the market believes in utter petrol shill GM is such nonsense. They are calling Bara the greatest leader since Sloan only because of the stock buy-back that didn't prevent the stock from losing ground or dropping below Tesla. Watch what they start calling her as soon as Tesla is back up above GM again. They fear the whole fraud will get out and it will. Just a few points about the political climate. Non viability of shale in the US (let alone tar sands-even less viable) was/is threatening another derivative call banking collapse this time with bail-ins this was what Trump was talking about when he says the petrol transfer payment system was in shambles, but the thing is bankers are unwilling to take the hit for it. But lets put this in perspective. You can get battery backed solar almost any place on Earth right now for 6 cents a Kwh and falling. You can't get any form of petrol under 13 cents a permanent floor that will rise with inflation. Even tariffs on solar in the US don't change this in the US. Trump could be out of office a few months down the road, it could trigger another presidential election mid term if it happens the right way- no obvious mechanism but precedent all over the world for it. Also the good cop bad cop parties will be changing hands in Congress soon making it more possible. Republican party is in trouble and having its transfer payment money cut won't help its whole image is based on its strong man war of distraction reputation, its actual welfare queen status coming to light won't still well with its constituents.
Here is some more evidence to consider. Normally the petrol industry is completely against any kind of carbon tax for a few reasons. They say its one world government, but really they are concerned it quells their nonsense threat of capital strike through capital flight, think it interferes with their bribery (which should be the most aggressive felony) where they try to pit one government or state against another for hand outs and it interferes with their tax evasion as in the Cayman Islands. But in spite of all this Tillerson proposed a carbon tax that would be tied to keeping social security funded. So you see what he was doing was trying to hold one legitimate transfer program hostage with one that isn't legitimate. And this is the industries basic terrorist hostage taking what they try to do with pensions holding them hostage ransoming like human shields while also trying to dilute wrong doing by claiming the victims were complicit in ill gotten gain. If you've read the above you know there isn't a more useless investment than petrol fuel energy, its basically straight theft but so many public pensions are polluted with their junk investments. But notice what is happening here, a non contributing parasitic wealth cohort is demanding payments when it was paid off countless times over for its non contribution long ago but is trying to make present society conditional/contingent on it being able to continue with these offenses. We are in the process of deposing this useless system of hereditary nobility. Its members are going to be cast into the masses so they should be working to see that life among the masses is livable because that is their destination. Above I neglected to mention the 70s embargo. That was our petrol companies trying what amounted to their part of the coup. Remember Eastern Airlines went under and there were 3 hour gas lines and soy in hamburger because petrol was scarce- this was a petrol rebellion. Carter tried to address it but it led to the Iran hostage situation and then given Iran Contra you can tell our petrol companies were behind it- trying to push their scam. But one thing apparently came from it, their transfer payment profits were nationalized for about a decade even if Carter didn't serve a second term- and also surprise, surprise the interest rates (fed) were going crazy trying to knock Carter off the horse. Ironic given that nationalizing petrol in Iran caused an early petrol bailout war where the petrol contingent over threw Iran Democratic government installing petrol totalitarianism open to their control or attempting it. And the issue with both Iraq and Iran has been trading petrol for anything other than dollars, but given how obsolete petrol is that is utter nonsense too. And yet now we've heard Romney, Hillary and T. parrot war in Iran leading to possible nuclear war over obsolete worse than useless petrol. T's abstaining from this rhetoric during the election was likely the main reason he actually got selected. And this idea that petrol is worth fighting for is the biggest part of their marketing scam (not that they aren't serious about the war- its another bailout) its where they try to pretend petrol still matters as if there were no radically superior and necessary replacement waiting in the wings to quickly replace it with massive gains for the world. Christopher Hitchens expressed it as: people talk like petrol doesn't matter, it does. Well, he couldn't have been more wrong, these people fell on their sword 70 years ago, petrol was stupid then and its beyond terminally stupid now. Its sunk costs are just debts to be paid off by the people and their estates, the people that responsible for this travesty. This is the Nixonian legacy. Current petrol fuel energy investment needs prosecution and incarceration not more unjust enrichment, it needs disgorgement. Contingent still wants to make sure it can force people to shine shoes and force other people's children into wars like Vietnam, but transparency has apparently caught up with. If there is a more coherent explanation for all of the above bring it on.
Of the legacy automakers, I expect GM to be one of the last standing. Ford will be gone, Chrysler gone, Toyota gone. VW has a actual chance,...Mazda gone,...BMW might survive. But GM seems to be on a path to sustainability under current leadership.
Lets hope you're right. I'll take that. I always admired where they were trying to go with Saturn (funny name though given the internet lore.) Sad they retired that brand brand of all of them. I've grown fond of Toyota hope they come around, think they contributed to a better outcome. Always been suspicious of Fukushima in a 311 kind of way, wonder if that slowed them down.
Many companies are doing this. Its a way of spending the Trump tax windfall that is going to increase the national debt.