Tag: Chrysler (page 2)

"It'll never be the same. That's a given. This (bankruptcy) makes the climb even steeper to ... get out of this local depression," said Jacobs, who has delivered the annual economic forecast for Macomb County for 25 consecutive years.

The former longtime professor's prediction was based on jobless rates in the county that exceeded expectations even before Chrysler and General Motors filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

The Macomb County unemployment rate fell from 15.0 percent in March to 14.4 percent in April. But analysts say the decline was due to a large number of jobless people who stopped looking for work.

Via Climate Depot and Gateway Pundit is this piece from serial liar Michael Moore on his own website: Goodbye, GM. Some of you will undoubtedly feel dumber for having read such drivel, but Moore hailing from Michigan and supposedly supporting union workers here in the state, is gleeful regarding GMs demise, and it is thus worth noting here.

I write this on the morning of the end of the once-mighty General Motors. By high noon, the President of the United States will have made it official: General Motors, as we know it, has been totaled.

 As I sit here in GM's birthplace, Flint, Michigan, I am surrounded by friends and family who are filled with anxiety about what will happen to them and to the town.

So here we are at the deathbed of General Motors. The company's body not yet cold, and I find myself filled with -- dare I say it -- joy.

We are now in a different kind of war -- a war that we have conducted against the ecosystem and has been conducted by our very own corporate leaders. This current war has two fronts. One is headquartered in Detroit. The products built in the factories of GM, Ford and Chrysler are some of the greatest weapons of mass destruction responsible for global warming and the melting of our polar icecaps. The things we call "cars" may have been fun to drive, but they are like a million daggers into the heart of Mother Nature. To continue to build them would only lead to the ruin of our species and much of the planet.

Political Agenda with Danian Michael

For research, I was watching the movie Casino (a movie by the way that is based on actual events) when I came upon a very popular practice in organized crime. For whatever reason, a small business owner owes money to the mob; perhaps, it is due to a gambling debt or a personal loan. Now in the world of organized crime, they don't send you a thirty day notice, they send a collector. If your debt is due at 11:50 and you still have not paid it, you can expect a knock on your door at 11:51. The Mob runs a pretty effective collection agency, if you know what I mean.

In some instances; however, if the person owing the debt is a business owner, the Mob seizes control of the business (unofficially) and runs through its resources like an aggressive parasite. They would take out big loans against the business, use it to launder money, and basically suck it dry until all that's left is the human devastation of the owner and his family. Bankruptcy for the owner is almost always the conclusion of this unholy partnership.

Big week, boys and girls.  Big week for Detroit, for Michigan and for hundreds of thousands of moms and dads and kids and... you get the idea.  With Big 3 restructuring deadlines lurking here and there dominos are already starting to fall in what will probably prove to be a few of the most important days in the history of Motor City.

The bottom line question, after we cut through the filler and the nonsense and the periphery issues... the heart of the matter is whether or not metro Detroit will survive in any meaningful way.  Heading into the weekend there was a serious chance that Chrysler, LLC could be completely liquidated via Chapter 11 bankruptcy which would have put an estimated 300,000 Michiganders out of work.  Friday deadlines lurked in the distance and the company's would-be-"savior," Fiat, continued to insist on significant UAW concessions.

And they got some.  THANK GOODNESS meets OUCH (probably).

Read on...

Yesterday stood poised to offer observers one heck of a big, black thunder cloud but one city's effort (and, largely, one families) wrapped it in a pretty substantial silver lining.

When folks turned on the nightly news yesterday they were treated to the regular chorus of rotten news about Michigan.  On steroids.

The Obama administration is preparing to watch local manufacturing giant Chrysler, LLC go bankrupt next week.  Meanwhile, General Motors announced thirteen summer plant closings including four in the Great Lakes State that are expected to shake the foundation of handfuls of suppliers and other businesses, too.  Oh, and did you hear the news anchor mention that regional unemployment rates were up, again, in March?

On a normal day that'd be enough to make a guy change the channel, even if the only other option was a re-run of  Brett Michaels' Rock of Love Bus.  Except that yesterday it wasn't.  Yesterday the rest of the world was buzzing about Michigan and it had nothing to do with unemployment, job losses or shuttered manufacturing plants.

Rick DeVos's big reveal yesterday, that Grand Rapids would host the world's largest and most unique art competition this September has folks buzzing from Detroit to Charleston to Boston and San Francisco and everywhere in between (Albemarle, North Carolina, anyone?).

Even saw buzz on Twitter yesterday from Scotland.

This is the kind of news Michigan needs hitting the wires.  Our second largest and most vibrant big city is hosting a world class arts competition that invites the public from around the world to stop by, visit and participate.

Already making plans with some friends to spend a day or two this September backpacking and biking around the downtown canvas and daydreaming about the potential energy is exciting.  

Big ups and a big THANKS to Rick and the entire DeVos family for making this happen.  We've had a six-plus year string of rotten news in this state.  Nice to have something so wildly different to hang our hats on for a summer.

The alleged unwillingness of banking giant JPMorgan Chase to renegotiate the terms on conversion vans full of cash owed by Michigan based auto giant Chrysler LLC was going to throw a monkey in the wrench of a potential merger with Fiat Group SpA, they told us.  Hundreds of thousands of Michigan jobs were at risk.

The only thing to do, obviously, was cut up your Chase credit cards, close out your checking accounts and hide the cash under your mattress.  

They filmed themselves taking scissors to their plastic.  

They blogged about it.

They circulated petitions.

They launched a Facebook group.

They even brought in other cogs of the Soros / Stryker money machine to help spread the word.  According to Progress Michigan:

"By refusing to help Chrysler negotiate on its debt, JP Morgan Chase is all but assuring thousands of hardworking Michigan families that joblessness is an inevitability, said Leigh Fifelski of Progress Michigan...

If Chrysler is forced into bankruptcy, as many as 300,000 auto workers stand to lose their jobs and their health insurance coverage. Chrysler retirees, too, could suffer a significant setback, as pension benefits and ongoing health insurance plans could be liquidated. This threat is especially significant for Michigan auto workers, as Chrysler and the rest of the Big Three auto makers comprise a large backbone of the state's consumer economy.

Ms. Fifelski is right about one thing... a Chrysler bankruptcy could kill 300,000 Michigan jobs.  And she and the rest of the regressisphere is right, in principle, about something else... Fiat is threatening to walk away from a job saving Chrysler merger.

One little issue, though.  It's the lack of a willing negotiating partner in UAW, not Chase, that could scuttle the deal.

The Detroit News reported yesterday:

Fiat Group SpA CEO Sergio Marchionne is ready to walk away from a proposed alliance with beleaguered Chrysler LLC if the U.S. automaker's unions do not agree to concessions that would put their pay on the same scale as workers at North American plants owned by foreign car companies...

"Absolutely we are prepared to walk," he was quoted as saying by the Toronto newspaper. "There is no doubt in my mind. We cannot commit to this organization unless we see light at the end of the tunnel."

Ron Gettelfinger and Big Labor leadership continue to take a hard line on negotiations and all-in labor costs at the Big 3 remain, by most estimates, nearly double those of automobile manufacturing employees in Right to Work states.  Not other countries.  Other STATES.  That's between $20 and $30 an hour more, for every employee just to operate here in Michigan.

If Gettelfinger and his team continue to stonewall in defense of programs like the "jobs bank," Fiat appears poised to walk away from the deal, killing 300,000 Michigan jobs.  Union jobs.  

What says the regressisphere?

Well yesterday they said nothing.  But I understand, conceptually, how group-think works.  They need to wait for their marching orders out of C4P, the Open Society Institute, MDP and the DNC.  It can take some time for orders to filter down to all of the troops.  I get it.

So I checked again this morning... still crickets chirping.  Crickets chirping and a lot of very crude sexual humor.  (Because nothing says "my ideas are better than yours" than scatological snickering.  Welcome back to the sixth grade.)

How about it, regressives?  When a bank was going to stop a merger because it wouldn't negotiate you threw a fit conniption and cut up your credit cards. No one now willing to call out Gettelfinger and Big Labor leadership?  No one willing to cut up your UAW membership card?

We're talking about the EXACT same principle.  The EXACT same problem.  The EXACT same terrifying reality threatening to ninja kick this State in her collective face.

Nothing?  Really?  So much for principle and integrity.  

Hypocrisy thy name is regressisphere.