General Motors expects to post a massive 2nd quarter loss on Friday

[ByTheLake]

Originally Posted by RCDonner

Did they ever make money with auto business?

Actually, they DO make money in the auto business ... just not in North America.

[gardnet1]

I don't know if Wagoner is a bad CEO but I do know he is snakebitten and riddled with bad luck. Therefore, he must go. Send him to toyoduh.

Give Lutz a couple of years to do the Reagon motivational and to prep a younger fire p!sser to take over.

[kodos78]

I hope you don't spread this one around too much further.

http://www.snopes.com/history/american/gauge.asp

Originally Posted by Buickman

Here is a History Lesson ......

The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5
inches. That's an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used? Because that's the way they built them in England, and English expatriates built the US railroads.

Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were
built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the
gauge they used.

Why did 'they' use that gauge then? Because the people who built the
tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons,
which used that wheel spacing.

Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Well, if they
tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England , because that's the spacing of the
wheel ruts.

So who built those old rutted roads? Imperial Rome built the first long
distance roads in Europe (and England) for their legions. The roads have
been used ever since.

And the ruts in the roads? Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which
everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since
the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter
of wheel spacing. Therefore the United States standard railroad gauge of 4
feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial
Roman war chariot. Bureaucracies live forever.

So the next time you are handed a Specification/ Procedure/ Process and
wonder 'What horse's ass came up with it?' you may be exactly right.

Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two war horses. (Two horses' asses.) Now, the twist to the
story:

When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big
booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid
rocket boosters, or Serbs. The Serbs are made by Thiokol at their factory in
Utah . The engineers who designed the Serbs would have preferred to make
them a bit fatter, but the Serbs had to be shipped by train from the factory
to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run
through a tunnel in the mountains, and the Serbs had to fit through that
tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the
railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses' behinds.

So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world's
most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse's ass.

And you thought being a horse's ass wasn't important? Ancient horse's asses
control almost everything....and CURRENT Horses Asses are controlling
everything else!!

[likearock00]

HAHAHA Buickman!! - Great find kodos!!

Maybe he was the idiot that wrote it back in 2000??

BTW- didn't the Chinese build our railroads?

[mjd1001]

Originally Posted by Clownzilla

Might as well put it all in caps. Don't buy GM ever again because of this MASSIVE LOSSSSSSSS! Sell your stock in GM because of this MASSIVE LOSSSSSSSSS! Buy Toyota because GM is going under with this MASSIVE LOSSSSS!!!!!!! Thanks for telling us the truth on the matter all mighty media.

I think you people are overreacting. The article says nothing but the truth. If GM is expected to report a loss that is one of the largest corporate quarterly losses ever for a company, then I don't think using the word "massive" is out of line.

[tgagneguam]

Originally Posted by mgescuro

...And lets face it, there really hasn't been any strength in teh auto industry for some time. It's been flat.

THe problem with GM, it's sole source of cash flow is the auto business, which isn't doing well because of capital costs, overhead, labor, whatever...

Funny, absolutely none of this applies to Toyota, Honda, BMW and Porsche, who all seem to do just fine in the auto business. GM isn't doing well because GM is managed poorly. To somewhat expand on gardnet1's point, supplant Toyota's management team with GM's, and you will quickly see that it's not capital costs, overhead, labor and whatever driving GM's poor performance. It's a reasonable bet to assume GM's management team is enough to destroy five plus decades of more than solid performance at Toyota. I bet that supplanting Toyota's management with GM's would instantly yield double-digit percentage share losses for TM stock. And I mean that seriously.

Originally Posted by gardnet1

I don't know if Wagoner is a bad CEO but I do know he is snakebitten and riddled with bad luck. Therefore, he must go. Send him to toyoduh.

Give Lutz a couple of years to do the Reagon motivational and to prep a younger fire p!sser to take over.

Wagoner's a bad CEO. It's really that simple. It's not bad luck, it's not the economy, it's not the credit crisis, it's not all the excuses people seem to take comfort in to explain GM's poor performance. It's Wagoner and his team. Six years and GM's burning through more cash, it's at near historic share lows, its market cap is embarassingly low. That's not bad luck, it's poor performance on management's part. GM's team needs to hear that daily.

Yah, I've seen all the machismo from Lutz, and I remain unimpressed. He talks a big, tough talk, but GM is sinking. And to the contrary, deferential management teams at Honda and Toyota stand quietly, as their companies continue to grow sales, and more importantly, find more and more cash for the bottom line and for shareholders. Kinda places Lutz's big tough guy talk in its proper perspective, doesn't it?

[Greg Burr]

Haven't read the posts or the article. Loss will occur from lower sales, buyouts of workers, and a huge hit on truck and SUV lease residual values.

[slowinthefastlane]

Originally Posted by mgescuro

THe problem with GM, it's sole source of cash flow is the auto business, which isn't doing well because of capital costs, overhead, labor, whatever. Their solution is to cut those costs while attempting to improve product and sales, and going for more higher margin sales, as in the retail space (not fleet).

A few years ago, a large chunk of GM's cash came from GMAC. That helped GM get through some pretty lean times during the past 10 years. If GM hadn't sold off 50% of that, they'd be even more screwed now!

[FBODYRULES]

BUT:

I think everyone is jumping the gun on this issue big time, remember GM will be running at a massive loss because GM is making MASSIVE long term investments and has been doing so the last few years to insure a MASSIVE future.

investments in new products, new engine development labs, china etc etc etc

gotta spend to make

[GM Loyal]

New Story?!?!?!
That is about as old as the horse's ass.

[stormwatcher]

Originally Posted by FBODYRULES

BUT:

I think everyone is jumping the gun on this issue big time, remember GM will be running at a massive loss because GM is making MASSIVE long term investments and has been doing so the last few years to insure a MASSIVE future.

investments in new products, new engine development labs, china etc etc etc

gotta spend to make

No GM isn't spending significantly more then it's competitors so the losses aren't because of massive investment. Most of the losses we will see on Friday will be because of plants closings, payouts for early retirements, drop in SUV residuals, etc. That said, GM might as well get as much bad news out of the way as possible on Friday. At some point the black hole that is NA has to end. Let's hope that is pretty soon.

[PhishPhood]

Originally Posted by tgagneguam

Funny, absolutely none of this applies to Toyota, Honda, BMW and Porsche, who all seem to do just fine in the auto business. GM isn't doing well because GM is managed poorly. To somewhat expand on gardnet1's point, supplant Toyota's management team with GM's, and you will quickly see that it's not capital costs, overhead, labor and whatever driving GM's poor performance. It's a reasonable bet to assume GM's management team is enough to destroy five plus decades of more than solid performance at Toyota. I bet that supplanting Toyota's management with GM's would instantly yield double-digit percentage share losses for TM stock. And I mean that seriously.



Wagoner's a bad CEO. It's really that simple. It's not bad luck, it's not the economy, it's not the credit crisis, it's not all the excuses people seem to take comfort in to explain GM's poor performance. It's Wagoner and his team. Six years and GM's burning through more cash, it's at near historic share lows, its market cap is embarassingly low. That's not bad luck, it's poor performance on management's part. GM's team needs to hear that daily.

Yah, I've seen all the machismo from Lutz, and I remain unimpressed. He talks a big, tough talk, but GM is sinking. And to the contrary, deferential management teams at Honda and Toyota stand quietly, as their companies continue to grow sales, and more importantly, find more and more cash for the bottom line and for shareholders. Kinda places Lutz's big tough guy talk in its proper perspective, doesn't it?

The comparo of the TWO GENERALS....

Both Generals were born in the same era of American expansion both on the continent and throughout the world.
Both Generals were/are based in very basic heavy industries with strong union forces creating the products that survived the Great Depression, won two world wars and created the Boom of the 50's and 60's.
One General lit and pulled the country.
One General was the driving force for the entire US economy ( As goes.....).
Both Generals are multinational producers of consumer products facing intense international competition.
Both Generals are based in the United States.
One General is considered one of the best run companies in the world with a market cap of 2-3 times that of Toyota.
The other General.........

Where did they diverge.

[Carver]

Originally Posted by kodos78

I hope you don't spread this one around too much further.

http://www.snopes.com/history/american/gauge.asp

I read the entire rebuttal, thanks.

After reading it, I conclude (as the rebuttal states) that the story Buickman posted is wrong in several details, but it reaches conclusions which are supported by history.

The rebuttal makes mention of the civil war and suggests that if the South had won our RR gauge might be different. The writer of the rebuttal fails to acknowledge that there were forces of efficiency inducing the use of the English gauge. The party in North America which obeyed those forces of efficiency won the war; the party which rebelled against those forces of efficiency lost the war. Hence, the English gauge played a part in determining who won the war in the US.

[vcs2600]

Its a good story, but it only holds up if you're willing to accept +/- 6 inch tolerances.

I doubt horse carts were ever standardized to railroad tolerances, and even if they were there's still multiple gauges used in britain to this day.

[neshapop]

1. GM made Q1 (Q2, Q3, YTD...) massive loss, again.
2. GM is not able making good quality and class leading passenger cars.

That's the news?

I think they are kinda related...