[TunerSteve]

GM (aka General Motors soon to be Government Motors) is now on sale! Stocks are selling for $0.75 a share. These are the lowest prices since 1933! These stocks were nearly $55 just two years ago, so you could really get a bargain. If you buy before midnight tonight we'll throw in a ceo or maybe a few middle-managment executives that we no longer need. /scarasm

I've always been a GM buyer. Chevy, Pontiac and GMC. It pains me to see the dismantling of a company, but in some ways it pains me more to see how it's being done. Too much government involvement and it really pains me to know that many stockholders will walk away with nothing. I also admit I don't understand how the whole bailout works. Who has the authority to spend these funds in this way. Is it congress, the White House? I thought the TARP funds were specifically for financial institutions, but I very well could be wrong.

[Playn4God]

One of the major problems with GM is and always was their stone-age way of selling cars. They just stretch themselves thin, selling cars across their brands that are literally the same car, but re badged, therefore competing against each other. It is sad as I am a huge car fan, but they really needed to get rid of some makes and streamline and focus the company more (why pay more for the extra marketing, R&D, management, etc costs associated with more brands when they sell the same cars?). Getting rid of Pontiac, Saab, and eventually Saturn will be good moves, and will focus the company more. In fact, I would argue scrapping Buick and focusing on Chevy, GMC, Cadillac in the US and their other overseas brands (Holden, Vauxhaul, etc).

You are right, government ownership of GM is ludicrous. The government would have been better suited not taking a financial stake in GM and leaving it to the shareholders to do this. Chapter 11 corporations restructure all the time without government help, and I don't understand what the government would do differently that necessitates them buying GM. At least if GM tanked, it would have just been shareholder money going down the tube rather than taxpayer (ahem, mint-printed money) going down the tube. GM has had the power to properly restructure their company all along, they just needed their current financial state to be the reality check to do it.

People don't buy Chevrolet young, then later Pontiac, then later Olds, then later Buick, then finally Caddy in old age like they did back in the good ole' days.

[mulletman]

$.75? Ha. Rookies. Mesa Airlines stock was down to 4 cents a little while back. GM will have to beat them to impress me.