In Defense of GM

"Logansteno: Bought a VW?" (logansteno)
04/30/2014 at 21:19 • Filed to: None

I apologize to those who are tired of hearing me defend this company.

For those of you who don't venture to the front page, today's Morning Shift talked about how bailing out GM caused the US government to lose $11.2 billion. Or in government terms; pocket change. The story went on to say the government originally claimed an $10.3 billion loss, but a new "administrative claim" from the Treasury Department said the government lost another $826 million. Using this story as an inspiration, Hardigree made the Neutral question this:

Was the GM bailout worth it?

And people answered. With mostly negative response.

To quote a few:

Well now I think we should have let them die. That's a fuckton of money. Maybe I'll change my mind after the rage cools down, but for now I'm grabbing my pitchfork.

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Wait GM is giving a free manual equipped SS to every tax payer they fucked over?

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Honestly, I think they should have just died. I think the cars they're putting out now are great - I would be so sad to have missed out on the new Corvette, for example. But what's the advantage of these two companies (GM and Chrysler) sticking around.

Now, these hit me as a little more offensive than they probably should have. Other people went on to rebuttal that with GM (and Chrysler) gone, the economy would've hit 1930s Depression levels of bad. I have to agree with these people.

My dad's worked for both GM and Chrysler in the past. Currently and back when shit hit the fan, he worked for a GM supplier. When news got around about GM going down, people got scared. A lot of people were terrified they weren't going to be able to support their family, my dad included. Weeks went on and an official statement was made that GM was pretty much fucked. Plenty of people left, but my dad being a large supporter of GM, stuck around for the long run. It was coming down to the final hours when finally there was news of GM's rescue by the US government. Both my parents and other people at the company were more than relieved, they we're elated. There are over 3,000 people that work just at my dad's work alone. So imagine how all the people who are employed by GM worldwide felt once news came of the bailout.

This leads me into my next point, the amount of people worldwide that would have lost their jobs if GM were to tank . GM themselves employ around 200,000 people worldwide, if you factor in sub companies, that number rises into the millions. If GM went under, 200,000 people at least would have lost their jobs. Now think about all the people that would've lost their jobs at the companies GM contracts. Now I know what you're thinking:

But those sub-companies could just be contracted by another manufacturer and none of the employees would lose their job.

And to that I say: Yes, there is always the possibility of other companies giving these manufacturers contracts, but there's also a possibility they don't get contracted. Then that company goes under and those employees lose their jobs. Do you see how this all goes back to GM? The government realized this and thought, "Oh geeze, that's a lot of people out of work and money out of the world economy, we should probably do something about that." And so they did.

Now lets get onto the "New General Motors" and what they have given us already.

The new Z/28: The GT-R killer, the Nurburgring smasher, the best Camaro ever made. It uses technology that was, until now, exclusive to F1 cars. It uses a new type of carbon ceramic brake developed by Brembo. There's no doubting is stands out in the pony car game. And don't try to tell me your don't lust over it even a little bit. The C7 Corvette, both standard and Z06, is a 911 beating sports cars. The new Z06 could even be called a super car by a few certain criteria. There's no doubting it does what a 911 does at nearly half the cost. We have Cadillacs that are considered better driving cars than a BMW. Cadillacs better than BMWs! That's not something you could say about the Caddys old GM was putting out.

If it weren't for the government bailout, we possibly could have never seen any of these cars come to be. And I know there's some of you, me included, who would be really sad by that. No one wants a company to go out on the sour note GM could have. They understood their problem areas and are trying their best to fix them, with varying degrees of success (looking at you Equinox and Malibu) but for the most part they're putting out class leading or at least class competitive cars.

Now comes the big issue, the lost money that went towards reviving GM. 11 Billion dollars isn't a small amount of cash to any human being. But to one of the largest governments in the world, that's mere pocket change. Think about all the silly stuff the US government has spent money on (Obamacare, anyone?) then think about what the money lost on GM went towards. It went towards saving some of the oldest auto manufacturers in the world, towards saving millions of jobs worldwide, towards giving a company a second chance to do things right. It made sense to me for them to then, and now seeing what GM has done since, it really makes sense now.

So continue doing what you're doing GM, we don't want 2010 all over again. But you might wanna hurry on getting those ignition switches out.

DISCUSSION (8)

FJ80WaitinForaLSV8 > Logansteno: Bought a VW?
04/30/2014 at 22:12

Couldnt agree with you more.

JR1 > Logansteno: Bought a VW?
04/30/2014 at 22:52

I personally think that's GMs biggest issue currently is the ignition switch problem. That's why people want to see GM go down the drain. They are pissed, uninformed, and FP posts. You can't expect may constructive comments.

Logansteno: Bought a VW? > JR1
04/30/2014 at 23:32

The ignition switch thing is for sure what's pissing people off. I really wonder if some people know that some of the new switches are already being installed in cars.

JR1 > Logansteno: Bought a VW?
04/30/2014 at 23:34

It's unlikely they know.

ptak appreciates old racecars > Logansteno: Bought a VW?
05/01/2014 at 09:43

Hey, I was going to do the same ("reblog") a post of mine from yesterday. How do you do that?

I thought if I was going to ask that I'd read the article not to be a douche. I have to say I agree with you. GM and Chrysler are huge corporations.

Logansteno: Bought a VW? > ptak appreciates old racecars
05/01/2014 at 09:50

To repost you go to the little triangle thing at the top of the article where you would edit a post

Kinja'd!!!

Click on that and on the little drop down menu click share to kinja, then you can post it to oppo again

ptak appreciates old racecars > Logansteno: Bought a VW?
05/01/2014 at 09:51

Thanks man!

Logansteno: Bought a VW? > ptak appreciates old racecars
05/01/2014 at 09:52

No problem-o!