Renault S.A. and Nissan Motor Co. * GM = ?

Is Billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian attempting to spike GM stock only to sell short and bail after forcing a potentially damaging deal? Or is he in for the long haul in what he sees as a positive long term relationship?

I cannot figure this one out.

 

I can't figure out what Kerkorian is seeing in GM right now either. GM is losing money like the Greenback is going out of style and Kerkorian dumps a bunch of money into the stock? Something foul is afoot.

 

That’s why I'm thinking rally the stock and dump when it's up. Looks to obvious though. :? I understand there is a precedent he did the same thing with Chrysler. Then again maybe he thinks it is a good business deal to share engineering tech. I do not see it though. American engineering tech is great is just our quality control sucks cause a plant cannot fire some shit bird for doing lousy work. Thanks to our unions. I cannot see Renault helping out much maybe Nissan though. Those Asians are really on their game.

:idea: I bet he has also got a ton of money wrapped up in Renault stock. I'm seeing the angle now.

 

You can't blame the quality control on the Unions. Non-union shops are having just as many problems with quality control, since most of the jobs in manufacturing are outsourced now. All the domestic plants do now is assemble.

 

This is true, except that the unions are at the root of all things evil.

 

Maybe it's a behind the scenes deal? Maybe it's putting lipstick on a pig? Maybe some people got his back when things finally flop and at that time money won't matter connections will so we'll be seeing more rich people dump their money and shit that doesn't even matter anymore just to forestall the inevitable.

 

Unions are a natural outcropping of the Capitalist way of life. You think Union's are evil, but they are in fact quite necessary and are an integral part of your way of life and your standard of living.

 

Is this why the cost of automobiles has skyrocketed past the rate of inflation?

 

Fact is Capitalism does need to be regulated. There I said it left unchecked it could become its worst enemy. However the answer is yes it is un-natural in the regular business model that a guy with an iq of 5 that stands in a line and torques five bolts in a repetitive pattern all day long should get paid 55g a year with a benefit package worth another 20g three weeks off a year and then that’s not enough every five years or so he wreaks havoc on the business by going on a strike. And they company cannot fire the guy for coming into work inebriated at least two days out of the week.

Is it not funny that Unions are never pointed at when the debate about outsourcing comes along? Fact is unions are the main cause of outsourcing as well as the main cause of hyper inflation in the auto industry.

Where is the regulation of the regulator? And what is sad is while the unions destroy the American industry from the bottom up the Executives that see it happening from the top then fleece their own pockets plundering as much as they can from the top. There is where we really need regulation.

 

In highcost-countries in north-america and europe, the labor-cost is a minor contributor to overall production cost. When you add the benefits given by workers as consumers you get a picture.

If you want the cheapest cars you car buy the models directly from china. KIA of korea can`t match those prices.

 

If you want to look at skyrocketing cost don't look at labor. Automotive labor has always been very well paying (Ford was the first company ever to pay $5 a day in wages, which was unheard of at the time) but not a large part of overall cost because of how productive each worker is.

Joe is right about the executive compensation part. Executive pay in the last 25 years has gone from an average of $800,000 in compensation on average to $18,000,000 in compensation for companies based in the United States. (Referring specifically to the automotive industry, other industries will clearly be different) If you assume that GM sells 9,000,000 cars per year, which they sold about 9,000,000 last year, then each executive in the company costs about $2 per car. That's per person, not overall. And they wonder where all the profitability went.

 

Year there is a huge dysfunction here. Big government says You make that kinda money and we will tax the shit out of you. They laugh and say ok we will raise our saleries ever higher to make up the difference so fuckoff! The regular middle class ends up paying with inflated pricing as compaired to income. The government figures out hey why regulate this thing when we can fleece our pockets to not to mentiojn this whole population of new lobby interest and campain donations.

Also if your so nieve as to believe all the class warfare shit that would have you believe this new uberrich population puts their money into Republican campaigns. Check out the real facts.

Democrats Get More Money From "Rich"

Direct from IRS.gov a government institution the numbers do not lie. The Top 50% pay 96.54% of All Income Taxes, While The Top 1% Pay More Than a Third: 34.27%

 

The real facts, Joe, or your specially selected facts?

 

I don’t know Smurf the spreadsheet came from irs.gov its their numbers of actual dollars and percentages of income by population.

Or are you referring to who gets what political campaign money?

I've seen those obscure statistics for years that show most money to Reps come in small individual contributions. While the Dems get large contributions from the uber rich trial lawyers or celebrities/ media crowd.

That’s off topic though probably my own fault. I am interested in seeing how this GM deal goes down. And it makes for some interesting speculation doesn’t it.

Could be a blatant manipulation of the market in monumental proportions. For instance what if there was a GM rally and he sold the stock short making a profit at the expense of regular stock players. While at the same time invested heavily in Renault stock over seas using laundered money in Suisse accounts. Then dared the World bank to push a fraud charge amid rumors of “bank spying” as were recently started by Times. A charge I find ridiculous because there is not implied privacy at a banking institution so there is no real charge against the administrations ethics. Only thing they accomplished is removing the element of surprise in the intelligence community against fighting terrorism. Hence the valid charges of treason brought forward by some such as Ann Coulter that are brushed off as far fetched. Quite the contrary Times magazine is terrorisms #1 ally these days.

 

I thought you were going to try and stay on topic.

 

Eh... it was somewhat on topic.

 

So what is the 'low' income of the top 50%? The top 1% fact is just a matter of relativity. If I make 100 million and pay 1 million to taxes big deal, if I made 100K and paid 1000.00 in taxes there is no big hurt there. Unfortunately you make, I think 85K your taxes go up to about 39%, up from the 15.3% below 85k. Plus those a-holes can hide a lot of their income in tax shelters that joe schmoe (no relation) cant afford to put away, living week to week. Just ask Dio.

 

What those statistics didn't tell you Joe is the percentage of dollars that those taxes were paid on. I'm fairly sure that the top 1% make more than 34.27% of the income in this country. Taxes don't hit 39% until you hit around $360,000. $85,000 a year still falls into the 25% bracket. The tax code is a terribly complicated beast, but at least they introduced the progressive system to get rid of bracket creep.

And for everyone that bitches about taxes, how far could you drive on the roads you can afford to pay for?

 

If your self employeed the 15.3% used to be up to 70k, thats what it was when I was SE. Then it went up to 39.5%

Gross Income - Expenses = Net Income * .92 = Taxable income. If the amount on line 1 is less than 70,000 multiply it by 15.3% (.153) if the amount is greater than 70000 multiply it by 39.5% (.395) this gives you your adjusted Self Employment tax.

THat was it back in 03. I might have the percentages off a little.

Probably to make up for the SS you dont have matching from your employer. Still too damn much though.

 

Your forgetting to factor in adjustments, write offs, and credits. I think the number you're referring to is adjusted gross income, not just gross income. The tax code is just too damn complicated. I'd really like to see them go to a flat tax, 25% straight up, or a VAT so they could tax consumption instead of income.

And throw a 9% tax on anything containing high fructose corn syrup. That stuff is just as bad for you as alchohol and cigarettes, so I think that taxing it would help pay the costs of the damage it does and also dissuade people from consuming it, but I digress.