Zastava_101

jsaylor

3 of his 4 'toys' are Shelbys (the BMW belongs to his wife), guess we know what he thinks of the old man. The FIA/USRRC Cobra is real by the way, an extremely rare and expensive car. The GT350 is real too, only the 427 is a replica, a Kirkham with a 500+ cube Roush V8 and a 5-speed.

bob

Defintely a Shelby fan and man, where is the 2-post lift at?

Glenn

Who is Jim Farley?

2k7gtcs

Wasn't he in Tommy Boy? I thought he was dead.

Zastava_101

Ford's CEO for global marketing.

Next to Allan Mulally, Farley's the main reason why Ford makes money again.

bob

Also not shy about how he feels about GM (caveat: I dont hate GM, but Farley's bit was refreshing)

David Young

I would vote for him if he ran for President....


side note: g.m. wouldn't get any more tax money

bob

But Ford, Chrysler and Nissan should? And I say Nissan because the US government gave them a helluva lot of money to develop a hybrid Titan.

Think on that - auto manufacturers routinely get money from the feds to help defray the costs of developing things like alternative fuel vehicles or any number of other reasons.

This is something virtually all governments around the world do to help develop technology that allows thier car companies to be competitive, especially in a global market place.

Q`res

Not that I agree with the guy you quoted, but Chrysler was a somewhat different situation than GM. Chrysler had some of, if not THE, largest cash reserves of any automaker in the world pre-merger. The government allowed the DCX merger to go through, and Diamler-Benz essentially mugged Chrysler, beat it half to death, than lit the body on fire and left it in a ditch. So the US government kinda owed Chrysler a bailout in my view.

2k7gtcs

Nobody stuck a gun to the shareholders head to approve the merger with Daimler-Benz. Sure they got screwed by Daimler, but it's not the governments job to make stop a Board of Directors enters into a buyout they thought was a merger.

So in my opinion, no, the government owe Chrysler jack ****.

jsaylor

I think the insinuation here, for a lot of folks, is that the Chrysler merger/takeover was effectively illegal, and at that enormously so, by design; that the Fed was complicit in this at best; and that, in the end, the average shareholder was screwed over royally by a compilation of Mercedes, soon to be outgoing Chrysler execs, and those then in the government who should have know better but allowed it to happen anyway. To wit, a lot of folks don't think the then sitting Chrysler execs/board were duped into anything, which goes a long way to explain the multiple golden parachutes those fella's almost universally wore as they were escorted from Daimler Benz HQ not long after the merger was revealed to be a takeover. Lee Iacocca has all but accused Robert Eaton, then CEO of Chrysler Corporation, of being a criminal in a public forum and on more than one occasion.

I tend to agree with Mr. Iacocca on that, and as such the government at least owes those who they blatantly allowed to be duped something for their trouble if for no other reason than to make clear the fact that they can't get away with such gross negligence. Should that have been in the form of a bailout? I'm not a big fan of bailouts to be kind so I wince at the thought regardless of the circumstances. That said, somebody needed to go to jail and, at the very least, some damages are absolutely in order but I'm not sure I would pick Chrysler itself as the benefactor. Unfortunately, as this episode taught us, nobody went to jail and they can indeed get away with it.

bob

You dont have to tell me that, I know what M-B did with Chrysler and thier cash reserves and I agree it was **** near criminal.

and yeah, what jsaylor said!

Q`res

I was being somewhat facetious. But, even if it hadn't been a takeover in a merger's clothing, it should never have been allowed to happen. If it hadn't happened, Chrysler never would have needed a bailout.

I'm not going to make a serious debate on whether or not Chrysler should have been bailed out. It just doesn't bother me nearly as much as the GM one did.

2k7gtcs

Ok

I can appreciate that.

cdynaco

Nobody goes to jail because they were stupid. If the board failed their fiduciary duty to shareholders, that is a civil matter (unless criminal acts were committed). But that would be hard to pursue if the (then) existing majority shareholders made a profit - or at least hadn't lost excessively at the time.

And you're forgetting Cerberus - the next failed decision. Daimler was long gone by the time the bailout (corrupt banko by team Oshama) occurred.

Either way, it is not the gov's job to babysit BOD's or to make shareholders whole.

Agreed. Chrysler received loans - that have been paid back. GM was literally taken over by government and 'secured' with ownership shares - while screwing shareholders, bondholders, lenders when team Obama dictated terms that completely ignored/overturned decades of precedence in bankruptcy proceedings.
Think about that. Executive Branch steamrolls over Judicial Branch. Forces private investors & lenders out and gives ownership to US Gov & UAW.
Imagine government coming in and confiscating your home & Mustang and giving it to the politicians & union slackers down at the 99 park for the 'greater good'.

cdynaco

That's what I thought - but this guy isn't fat enough! lol

cdynaco

Right. Providing Federal assistance to help companies adapt to forced government mandates is no different than providing R&D funds to corporations & universities - both of which are entirely different than using taxpayer dollars for handouts/bailouts for management failures. Apples and oranges.

jsaylor

I thought I made my point clear in my previous post, I may have been a bit vague and if so I apologize. With regard to the takeover being a merger, I don't think any body got duped. Several have insinuated over the years, and I agree, that this was a takeover from the outset and that it was posed as a merger to seal the deal.

Evidence of the same? The smoking gun here is the total lack of evidence that a merger was ever the plan. I've seen planned takeovers that weren't executed this completely and efficiently, that makes it difficult to believe that anybody was duped. The powers that be at Mercedes took over almost immediately upon closure, Chrysler board members/execs were compensated very nicely indeed on their way out the door and, without exception, left without any real evidence of a struggle for power. That doesn't sound like anybody got duped, that sounds like a plan. To be blunt this couldn't have been laid bare more effectively short of Eaton saying 'yeah, we lied'.

In that scenario, a great deal of illegal activity took place. Difficult to pursue? Potentially, but intentionally deceiving the government to sneak through a deal they might otherwise deny opens you up to a lot of prosecution possibilities. I think the reality that made this most difficult to pursue was the potential culpability of government officials in spite of what might happen legally.

Put more simply, to admit that government oversight of this deal was caught so slack jawed that they didn't recognize a planned takeover when they saw one would be enormously embarrassing at best. The possibility that a blind eye was turned to what some knew was a takeover scenario for compensation is obviously much worse and a nightmarish hypothetical I have no doubt the government would rather avoid altogether.

cdynaco

Based on the last several decades, I don't know if there is a true difference any more - legal or other aspects - between mergers and takeovers.


I still don't understand why gov broke up monopolies in the early 1900's, and then at the end of the 1900's gov rarely blocks a mega combination - regardless if they are mergers or takeovers, or domestic or foreign corps.