In June, when the Cash-for-Clunkers program — which provided a government subsidy to people who traded in older low-mileage vehicles to buy new, supposedly better-mileage vehicles — was humming to the tune of $1 billion, we wrote a piece warning that the program was hardly the environmental benefit More…
For Detroit’s automakers, the bad news just got worse. Just hours after Chrysler announced a request for $5 billion more in federal help to prevent bankruptcy, General Motors indicated it might need as much as $16.6 billion more. Combined, the two companies have already received $17.4 billion in emergency loans More…
Remember when the Bush administration was opposed to tapping the $700 billion Wall Street bailout to help Detroit’s Big Three?
Fugetaboutit.
The Treasury Dept. announced last night that it will spend $6 billion from that fund to bail out GMAC, the flailing auto finance company whose reluctance to lend More…
More bad news for Detroit: Toyota announced yesterday that it expects to lose $1.7 billion for the fiscal year ending March 31 — the first annual loss for the company in 70 years. From The New York Times:
Analysts said Toyota’s downward revision, its second in two months, showed
When Senate Republicans last week blocked Democrats’ efforts to bail out General Motors and Chrysler, which say they’re near bankruptcy, the White House was quick to swoop in to announce that it would lend the help that Congress didn’t.
Aside from the comedy surrounding that development (the Bush administration’s original More…
In a move that spells nothing but bad news for Detroit’s struggling automakers, Toyota announced yesterday that it’s suspended plans to produce its Prius hybrid in the United States.
Why is that bad news for the Big Three? Because there’s been this line of argument that Ford, General Motors More…
To hear Southern Republicans tell the story, the financial burdens facing Detroit’s automakers are self-made troubles to be settled by the laws of Adam-Smith capitalism.
“We don’t think it is the role of government to intervene,” Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) told the Fox Business Network last week. “We need to More…
After Senate Republicans dashed the Big Three automakers’ hopes for a congressional bailout last week, General Motors decided it was time to begin seriously exploring a Plan B. Company executives turned to the biggest name in corporate bankruptcy.
Harvey Miller, who has worked on mega-cases like Lehman Bros., Enron and More…
Check out this exchange between reporters and White House spokeswoman Dana Perino this morning after Perino announced that the White House “will consider” using funds from the Wall Street bailout to help Detroit:
Now it’s the Bush administration’s time to cave. In a statement issued this morning, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said the Treasury Dept. “will consider” using a portion of the $700 billion Wall Street bailout cash to help the struggling automakers. From the statement, via The New York Times:
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