GM will continue to lose money on every car they sell. They will make up the red ink with bailout funds received during the bankruptcy. When those are exhausted,. Barak “Santa Claus” Obama will simply restart the flow of taxpayer funds into the “good” GM.

Or maybe I am wrong. Maybe the Democrats will not give the UAW everything they ask for. Yeah, sure.

About ten years ago I put a big part of my 401k into GM bonds that mature in 2012. It was a great idea at the time. Now I’ve watched my retirement dwindle. To those who talk about bondholders like big financial types who are just being greedy I thought this point might be of interest. A lot of GM bond holders are just like me — ordinary working folks hoping to be able to retire before they’re 90 years old.
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I feel bad for you Tom. But investing in a corporate bond is assuming a risk to receive a greater return over a secured investment. Putting a good chunk into anyone one high yielding bond is a little greedy…regular joe or a ‘financial type’

Also, investing a big part of your 401k in any one unsecured vehicle is a really bad idea. Diversification is the game here…even at the most aggressive, I would suggest something like 20% in high yield cash account, 30% corporate bonds and munis, 50% mix in ETFs/diversified equity.

Hopefully you are not too close to retirement and you can make up the difference by putting away a little extra.

I really, really hope he doesn’t screw up the auto industry, too!! Already, my newborn grandchild owes more on the federal debt, than it costs to buy the award winning Chevy Malibu. God help us!!

It wasn’t me, it Toyota corporate. They forced dealers to sell only at MSRP. Remember the online order process? That was the only way to get a new Prius from Aug 2000 to May 2002.
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Now you mention it…I vaguely remember something like that. Thanks for pointing that out.

/might be a good model for GM to follow

It wasn’t me, it Toyota corporate. They forced dealers to sell only at MSRP. Remember the online order process? That was the only way to get a new Prius from Aug 2000 to May 2002.

I am kind of curious about something:

How many of you actually pay cash for your cars?

Personally, the only car I ever paid cash for was my first vehicle, a new 1971 Ford Mustang coupe. It was a base price model and cost me about $3K, which was just about my entire life savings. But at 18 years old, I thought it was worth every penny! Every car purchsed since then has been financed, but for no more than 48 months.
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I have bought all my cars cash for the last 15 years…except for when the finance rate was lower than what I could make in guaranteed interest on the open market (just makes sense)

/last financed car at a unfavorable rate was a 93 Grand Am
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#118 john1701a said

My window-sticker from that time clearly says $19,995.

Floormats added $70, plus there was $455 of delivery, processing, and handling fees bringing the grand total to $20,520.
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Good price, I like guys who can beat down the base MSRP out of guys with no dealer premium on a brand new model…I was just stabbing at the aprox average price you could widdle out of them.

You could still make the same $10,000 difference argument if you went with the absolute lowest MSRP price out the door of both products. The Cavalier routinely had discount rebates/sales off the MSRP and 0% financing that Toyota never even considered doing on any vehicle (let alone the Prius)

#108 statik

This was a nice catch. Someone is barring their teeth, eh? If the report is true then the message to the bondholders is clear: take this or you’ll get less in bankruptcy.

And the bondholders are saying: fine, but we can force you to take GM into bankruptcy, which we know you don’t want to do, so sweeten the offer.

Like I said, the game is “Chicken”.
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The game is certainly heating up, should be interesting to just see how the announcement goes on monday, who gives it, what is in it…and most importantly the tone in which it is delivered.

/maybe we will finally get some tough talk (who knows)

“The reason why 95% of them are there to be sold to you is that there are some extremely-nasty technical problems that are very expensive to repair.”

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That statistic is simply not correct. A more correct statistic would be the inverse: 5%.

Most pre-owned cars are from off-lease programs or consumers that are trading up after a few years of use. Many of the pre-owned cars sold today are covered by a manufacturer’s certified extended warranty programs or a dealer’s extended warranty program. Consumer’s reserve the right to have a professional mechanic inspect a pre-owned car prior to final purchase.

Purchasing a pre-owned car remains a good consumer option if approached reasonably intelligently
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