OT GM Lies

Anyone catch the new GM ads where the new chairman is saying they paid off bailout loans in full,and ahead of time ? I see they paid 9.5 billion , but still owe 45 billion ?

He is just doing what the great leader does. Saw that and about fell out of my chair.

Everybody external_link touches lies. Nothing new about that.

Are you surprised?

If I understood it correctly, they're in worse trouble with the truth in advertising people than the bankers over this outright lie.

technicaly, they did not lie. they did pay back all loans. what they did not pay back, and likley never will, is the money the govt invested in them by buying up 51% of them

Yeah, I saw the commercial and almost had a stroke. The new CEO juggled words around and tried to make it sound as if the total bailout was paid - which is rediculous. In fact, GM hasn't made one penny of profit and is still showing huge losses every month.

I was a life-long Chevy guy until this mess came about. Now, I'm a new Ford fan. At the least, they've handled their money pretty well and haven't taken a dime of bailout money. I still like my 65 Chevelle SS, but the GM that created it is dead and gone, but still whining.

The "may the best car win" also gets to me. The best car WAS allowed to win under normal business practices - and GM failed at it.

They great warranty also gets me. Isn't it our tax dollars now paying for those warrantees?

All the Loans were paid back in full 5 years ahead of the promised date. The remaining investment which is not a loan, will be cashed in probably later this year when there is an IPO of GM stock. Just as with all the bank loans, The government and us taxpayers stand to make a lot of money on these investments. Most of the Tarp funds have been repaid also. I have noticed that most of these comments are made by people who dont't fully understand the facts. Why is it that there are a certain minority of the people who are constantly negative and cannot admit that our Government has Americas best interest at heart. They have many more resources and are in a much better position to make these decisions than the cynical people who are constantly bashing our Country. Read the news, we are in much better shape today as a country today than even the most pessiminstic experts predicted a year ago. I am proud today to be an American supporting American companies.

They did pay back what was borrowed through the bail-out loan program, with interest, ahead of schedule. Like was said though, they did not repay the money spent to buy up shares of GM by the Federal Gov't. That money is to be made back over time as GM becaomse a sound and financially stable company with stock that gains in value. That has yet to be seen. My take is that they did not lie in the commercial, but they didn't tell us everything, which is just as important as what they did tell us. Come now, common business sense and marketing. Tell the people what they want to hear, the good news, and whoops! leave out the not so great news or put it in little print.

I hear and believe you, from the news reports I gathered, yep they paid SOME back butttttttttttt it was the money the Govt loaned/gave them that was used to do so, NOT any new big GM profits lol

A Bumper Sticker I saw read: Defeat Socialism, buy a Ford" which is what Id do if I were to buy a new car.

John T

I heard it was pretty much another debt for equity swap. Pretty hard to pay back a loan when they lost 3.4 billion in the 4th quarter of '09. Sure made a good sound bite while it lasted. Looks like the FTC is on them now for misleading advertising.

Hey Brian, when you get your check for all the money being made maybe you can tell the rest of us how to get ours. Also i'm sure the canadians would like to know when they are getting their money back. Plus mybe you can tell me just what persent of GM is actually american?

external_link owes the unions big time, and the GM bailout was one installment. It's no more complicated than that.

WOW, I'm pretty sure most of the people on here are also proud to be Americans, HOWEVER, I think you must be a 100% Fan of the person we have sitting in the oval office. I for one cannot see where he or his congress has greatly helped our country. In our area we're sure not seeing any great improvements in the economy-Oh yea I forgot, the oil & gas companies are getting MUCH better- I can tell cause the gas prices just keep going up as well as tires and just about everything else we have to buy. My appologies, I guess you're right, the economy IS getting better, we're having to spend more without making more, in fact alot of our people around aren't making cause THEY DON'T HAVE JOBS. Keith

Mr Cooley, I think the only relation to agriculture you have is that you are a plant. My guess is that you sit in a small dark room, and comment favorably on all of zero's wonderful achievements! How much does he pay you?

I guess that they only owe the US governement 6 billion is what I read.

Think about this: For years GM sold retail bonds on the market, even while the company was losing millions of dollars a day, super bad management.
Common stock holders were wiped out and GM common stock became worthless paper, real sad. I remember when GM common stock was $90 just 10 years ago.

If GM wants to do the right thing then get tough with the UAW, make ALL employees take a 15% wage cut. (that includes Executives) and cut the company cars and put someone accountable for all the hardware in all the GM plants. The theft that occurs is sickening.

I sold my GM bonds last week....I am super lucky, I am waiting for the statement from the broker cause I still want to see it with my own eyes.

I bought Ford bonds a year and a half ago. Three months later they needed them back. I made 23% in 3 months. All of my trucks, cars, tractors are Ford.

Wow, thats good. 23% in 3 months-- you should right a book on how to make a killing.

A year ago I thought I flushed $10,000 down the crapper. By purchasing those GM bonds. I lost some sleep over the last year and a half. I think the only reason Ford isnt doing even better in sales is due to the fact that their warranty isnt as good as the GM 100K mile powertrain Warranty.

There's no lie here. GM paid of the loan ahead of time. The government remains a shareholder in GM, and that investment may or may not be recovered.

They can run all the adds they want. I have always been a Chevy man since I was a little kid, only thing my granddad ever had. The newest GM ride I have now is a 2000 work car. When it gives up it will not be replaced with a new Government Motors or a Dodge made by the good folks at Fix It Again Tony.

My next farm truck will be a Ford and any cars we buy will be Toyota.

Dave

I still like the GM vehicles. I will never buy a Ford. I worked as a technician for 25 years at a Lincoln/Mercury dealership and I can tell you one way Ford saved money every time they ran into a crisis. They would cut the warranty time that they would pay out for the service work on their vehicles under warranty. Cut the time in the early nineties, late nineties, after 9/11. That was when I had enough and left. I will never buy a Ferd.

As a farmer you should know better than to buy a Toyota. My wife has one and it is falling apart. Her dad bought if for her I wouldn't have made the mistake. You need to get GM's or Fords they are the only American cars and the only ones that are built good enough to last. These knew Toyotas are horrible. I would buy a Ford too, but I have a hard time paying more for something that won't last as long as the GM. I will continue to buy the tried and true GM as soon as I can find some stupid sucker that wants my wifes Toyota.

Different strokes for different strokes for different folks I guess. My wife has a 04 corolla and I have a 00 cavalier. The corolla is twice the car the cavalier is. Both have over 125,000 miles and while both have been good cars the toyota rides better, has more leg and trunk room, the heater heats up faster, even the radio sounds better. I got a sour taste in my mouth for GM about 5 years ago when I got an itch to buy a new 3/4 ton truck and couldn't find one with a manual trans.

And as for American made cars there is a Toyota plant an hour north of me and it's the only place around here folks quit the coal mines for. They even quit the few union holes around here to go to work there.

Dave

If the chairman is lying, he should and probably will, be called out on it.

To me, the bigger issue is:
Should we hope that they do pay off in full, or hope they fail? I get the drift that there's lots of hope for failure among the posters here. Or are we not actually hoping for GM to fail, but instead, for the present administration to fail?

My biggest concern was the loss of manufacturing potential - for defense purposes. If I remember my history correctly (a subject I hated in high school) the automotive plants were fairly quickly converted to defense plants during WWII. I'd rather we have the ability to build our own weapons, rather than purchase weapons from another country, especially from one who we are deeply indebted to. . . Some of these countries that we owe great amounts of money to are NOT our friends. . . Empty and stripped automotive plants would be useless.

I'm personally rooting for success on this issue, mainly because we're already belly deep in bailouts, but also for the reasons stated above. What will failure bring us?

But I guess if we refuse to buy from GM we'll be "rubbing their nose in it". That'll show 'em.

I mean, that'll show us. You know, this is OUR money we're talking about here.

I agree 100% that we shouldn't reward failure, but I think we should hope for success in this bailout issue, now that we're involved. Again - this IS our money. But maybe after the November election, we should yank what money we can back from them, sell everything for scrap value, and board the windows. We might get a whopping penny on the dollar. Won't that be a proud day?

This reminds me of the famous Pogo statement - "We have met the enemy, and he is us".

Paul

Its one of those things that angers anyone keeping an eye on the shell...game. Borrow $61 Billion, pay back $8 Billion, after the same politicians that loaned them the $61 Billion in the first place use $8 Billion more to buy up stock they've already loaned them money for in the first place, so that GM can then use that funny money to pay towards their loan, and then claim "WE PAID IT BACK IN FULL" while still operating at a continued sales loss. How in the world, one must ask him or herself, can a company continue to operate at a loss, and then somehow come up with the money to pay back $Billions? They can't, and didn't. And why in the world would anyone drive down to one of their dealers to shell out good money to purchase a vehicle for the second time, after already having paid to build the vehicle a first time? Pay for a vehicle twice? Not me, they already stung me once, against my will.

That guy Ed Whitacre used to be our CEO over at SBC and AT&T after we became the latter. Don't miss him. Won't miss our current CEO, Whitacre's son-in-law, Randolph Stevenson when he's finally gone one day either. Maybe he can become the big guy over at Chrysler and compete for taxpayer funds against his daddy-in-law.

I've never been a Ford guy per say, been a Dodge truck guy, but in the future will either be a Ford or an import because after TARP and all of the other garbage that came out of Washington at taxpayer expense, you couldn't give me a GM or Chrysler product, and if you did, I'd have the neighbor bring his dozer over to drive over them a few times.

Mark

The news media hoots about Toyota not coming clean fast enough Remember those we had to sue:
1. Unsafe and any speed?
2. Gas tanks back of your pickup seat?
3. Class action to get help to fix trannys on the 77 chevys.
What about the story of wheels falling off Dodge pickups? Wheres the outrage?
I have seen four differnt GM vehicles sitting along side the road...not old rust buckets, but nice looking cars with their whole front wheel at a crazy angle up under the fender...all GM. Never a Toyota. So if we are cherry picking complaints and vowing to be loyal/disloyal to a brand, it says more about us than the perfection of any car or car maker.

I agree completely.