Weird little car companies

Yep. The Big Three of Detroit ... and getting littler and weirder every quarter. Too many bad decisions and too much bad luck. Though as the slogan goes, winners make their own luck. Today's Wall Street Journal has the bad news written by the rag's Detroit bureau chief. He thinks a bail out would be a bad bad thing. Also thinks, for unstated reasons, that Obama would most likely provide such a bailout. Unstated is the assumption that McCain wouldn't. Then he proceeds to show that the Chrysler bailout actually netted the American taxpayers $400 million!

Here's a brief take on the scale of the disaster:

In 1991, General Motors posted a then-amazing, full-year loss of $4.45 billion, and 10 months later CEO Robert Stempel was out. Last week, GM reported a $15.5 billion loss for just one quarter, and GM's board this week reaffirmed its support for CEO Rick Wagoner. GM's loss easily eclipsed the quarterly loss of $8.7 billion announced by Ford just a week earlier. As for Chrysler, pick a number. The company is owned by private-equity firm Cerberus Capital Management, and thus its results aren't public.

OTOH, the author thinks that Ford is doing a better job of turning around than GM but that Chrysler will be bought by someone. Again.

On the other other hand, if GM can pull off its much vaunted (and criticized) Volt plug-in hybrid on schedule before the end of 2010, GM may make it.

The American automobile business. Showing why American CEOs are the best compensated in the history of the planet. Worth every penny, for entertainment value at the very least.

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