The Big 3 are doing pretty damn good right now. This week get reports that Ford and Chrysler experienced increased sales in October and GM’s stock price shot up after its third quarter report.
The Obama administration literally saved the domestic vehicle manufacturers and they would like to remind you of that. Video after the jump.
This past Friday, U.S. President Barack Obama and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak visited a GM plant in Lake Orion, Michigan. The visit was, in part, a celebration of a new trade pact between our countries. Unlike previous free trade agreements, Democrats were able to win protections for American workers that will help guard against the types of abuses that have come from NAFTA.
All photos by Anne C. Savage. Please do not use without permission. We’re serious about that. Please ask first. She’s very easy to work with.
Transcript of the Presidents’ remarks after the jump. Click any image to see larger versions and more photos.…
Here are a couple of early photos by my wife Anne C. Savage from a visit to Michigan today by President Obama and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak. They were visiting GM’s Orion Assembly Plant, in part to tout the new trade agreement passed by Congress this week.
Also, the President Obama told the crowd that, unlike Republicans, he believes helping save the domestic automakers in the USA was a good idea. Most Michiganders (except Republican politicians, it seems) agree. Whole-heartedly.
[Please do not use photos without permission. Really. Seriously. Check first. Thanks.]
Go Tigers!
I’m reading former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm’s new book A Governor’s Story in preparation for a review I’ll be writing for its release in a couple of days. I came across a paragraph which reminded me why Mitt Romney should probably just skip right over Michigan if he were to win the nomination. He should probably skip over Michigan trying to win the nomination, in fact. Granholm is telling the story about the CEO’s of the Detroit Three auto companies going to Washington, D.C. to appear before Congress for a second time, this time with their plans in-hand for turning their companies around.…
Good news for the Rustbelt states like mine (Michigan): Ford sales up 19% over last year. GM up 11%. Chrysler up a whopping 31%. Ford actually sold more vehicles than GM for only the second time since 1998.
But GM remains the dominant seller for the quarter with 592,545 vehicles sold compared with Ford’s 496,720 sales.
Crosstown rival Chrysler Group LLC posted another strong month with sales of 121,730 vehicles in March, up 28 percent from February, and a 31 percent increase from a year ago.
…
Lots and lots and lots of talk these days about “shared sacrifice”. But, somehow all the sacrifice seems to be on those in the middle class or below.
Comic by Mike Thompson – Detroit Free Press
But there’s an example of TRUE shared sacrifice right in front of us today. And it worked.
It’s the bailout and subsequent recovery of General Motors.
When the Obama administration made the decision to extend loans to General Motors to save their company, they imposed significant constraints on them. They replaced their leadership, they went into bankruptcy and they made cuts and adjustments from the top of the company down to the very bottom.…
More bad news (not) for the Obama administration. The U.S. economy is picking up a head of steam.
The Commerce Department reports Friday that growth rose to an annual rate of 3.2 percent in the October-December quarter. That’s an improvement from the 2.6 percent growth in the previous quarter. And it was the best quarterly showing since the start of last year.
So much for the GOP’s meme that the Recovery Act was a failure.…
Cross-posted at Daily Kos.
It’s true. I heard it on the Rec List at Daily Kos. Wikileaks is now releasing scads of documents proving that Netflix is being sexually groped by Comcast-funded TSA agents after being sterilized by PornoScanTM radiation. The worst part: President Obama hasn’t said a word about it. Not only is he failing to message this insanity properly, he’s freezing the wages of all Netflix employees.
Meanwhile, GM is hiring 1,000 electrical vehicle engineers and researchers to push its efforts in electric vehicle manufacturing forward.
Sorry, this isn’t meta. This isn’t Obama-bashing. This isn’t Obama-worshipping.…
It’s been a busy day over at the New York Stock Exchange. GM’s initial public offering (IPO) had its stock priced $33 but it opened well over that at $35.40. As I type this, the latest trade was $35.18.
Detroit Free Press editorial cartoonist Mike Thompson perhaps put it best:
As I’ve written about before at Daily Kos and elsewhere (HERE and HERE, e.g.), GM has had remarkable success in 2010 and their impending initial public offering (IPO) Thursday is cause for some rejoicing.
This morning we learn that GM’s share price, originally forecasted to be $26-29, will be $32-33, an increase of of about 14%. This will increase the US government’s take when they sell about a third of their stock holdings by over $1 billion. The US government currently owns about 61% of GM.
They are also increasing the size of their preferred stock offering from $3 billion to $4 billion.…
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