When GM's bailout was just beginning a gentleman that has a house behind me on the lake could only keep saying we need a third party candidate because if GM went bankrupt that meant his retirement would go from a little over $50,000/year to about $750.00/month. Whether this was hogwash or not he was scared to death. Then the bailout came and he has not said another word. My biological father worked for GM and before he passed a year ago I asked him what do I do to get my retirement from GM since I helped bail them out of trouble. He told me "I guess you just go down to the union office and fill out the appropriate papers to get my retirement". I never did, but just wanted to hear his response. I heard all the horror stories from him personally and I took them at face value. When my dad separated from my mom we lived in Texas and I grew up in a right-to-work law state and the word union was a bad word in my vocab. I did not agree with him at all as I grew older and he knew it. Do not get me wrong we did eventually agree to disagree because he was my dad. Whether or not these pics. are true or not it is a shame still on those manufacturers practices.

I noticed a couple references to Snopes throughout the comments. Beware, as Snopes is sometimes, but not always correct, perhaps by design. It was started by a husband and wife, VERY liberal couple, who sometimes play loose with discrediting certain things they do not like. My e-mail group has learn to beware of believing all their comments. We have found some outright lies on those pages.

Yeah, someone sent me that breathless link a few days ago. That's why I have the Snopes.com link on my home page, with the advice of 'click and check before forwarding that email!'

http://www.snopes.com/photos/automobiles...

You may not like their liberal-defending slant, but they called bullshit on that article, too.

vollen-please read my previous comments. Once posted and commented on, it cannot be removed.

Never should have been bailed out in 1979. Will be bankrupt again in the next downturn. 3 bailouts (3rd one including Fiat???)

yes, please see my comments. I'm disappointed Zero Hedge did not vet

The pics I checked (when this was posted on Peak Prosperity) are of port cities with no dating etc. So bogus. There is plenty of dealer space to channel stuff. For car and motorcycle manufacturers in USA a sale is registered when product ships from factory, not when sold to end user.

Back in the 80's a guy named Iacocca went to Chrysler. At the time they were the #6 manufacturer in the world. After meeting all the guys in the boardroom, Lee called down to accounting to get a balance sheet. He wanted to know what they owned and what they owed. After an hour or so no one had brought him the balance sheet. Coming from Ford, where things were already computerized, this seemed an unusually long wait for and accounting document.

So, he went down to the accounting department to meet those guys and see what was going one. He caught them... weighing invoices to estimate how much Chrysler owed it's suppliers. If you weigh 100 invoices, then total the amount of dollars, you can calculate the estimated total with a scale. This was just one of many problems. Instead of manufacturing to demand, they were manufacturing to their profit target then forcing dealers to take and hold cars, or holding inventory themselves.

CUT TO THE CHASE: Iacocca had to tell the union we don't have any $16/hr jobs. We have some $12/hr jobs for guys that like to build cars. He had to figure out the debts and put those guys on a schedule so they could be paid in a logical manner. And most of all, they had to have a product and a pitch people would buy. That's when the add campaign offering $50 cash if people would try a Chrysler and then purchase another brand. "Find a better car and I'll give you $50." By lowering wages and restructuring debt Iacocca lowered Chrysler's Breack Even Point by about 35%, meaning all those extra cars were no longer necessary, and they started earning a profit about 35% sooner.

There stock hit a low of about $2, a few years later it was +$50. I would have given anything to have bought a couple thousand shares at $2, but like so many people in the Carter years I was struggling to buy Macaroni and Cheese. In 2009 when Ford went to $1.91, I did all I could do. The saving of Chrysler back then was very different from the union carve out in the Obama era. Both Chrysler and GM will be lucky if they don't fail again because of the union ownership and the legacy costs for retired union members. Neither of these classes would have gotten special treatment in a text book bankruptcy. With this "fix" these companies are still paying for "unfunded liabilities" with each sale. This depletes other areas a successful company spends, like R&D. I noticed one picture had a field full of Dodge Durangos. They apparently deserve the real lesson of capitalism. Creative destruction.

You paid cash too on the $3K? Now easy credit!

Colorado says they are down to 6%. Buried in the article, they finally stated the obvious. The unemployment numbers are based solely on those still looking for a job. The true number is somewhere in the low teens.

this morning I heard on the news that every state in the union except rhode island was at 6 % or less with respect to their unemployment situation. r.i. is at 8 %.
for all who believe this b-s I will happily sell you the Brooklyn bridge with the option of adding toll booths. welcome to the new usa leading 3rd world country in the world.

yes, the article has already been debunked. see my previous comments.

Just one correction I have to offer to the article's writer: the article ends with a note to the effect that General Motors moved production to China and is importing the cars from there and stockpiling them. That is false. The cars made in China are sold in China. The Chinese market is the one profit-making part of General Motors at the moment. They opened the factories in China to meet the Chinese demand, not to import the cars back to the US.

Where can I buy one? I have a friend who needs a car at a reasonable price.

No kidding! The transmission just went out in my "clunker" and I don't want a car payment. Maybe we can make an offer?

I could see this happening. Gov motors buying it's own product to mess with sales numbers that affect the economic outlook. Makes total sense.

While I'm not perfect, I try to remind myself to be skeptical of everything. Modern journalism (TV, radio, newspaper, internet) is usually gossip-mongering and lack of sourcing for independent verification. So, I rely first on my rational mind to evaluate the plausibility and then seek credible verification if the story interests me... In this specific unsold car story, I wanted to know where to go to maybe buy one cheap...

Thanks for pointing this out robert. I have always found zero hedge to be a reliable source for news stories. Here is what they are saying at beforeitsnews:
http://beforeitsnews.com/motor-junkies/2...

I'm skeptical of this, since it strains all logical credibility. I'm not saying it's wrong. So far, I just have been unable to corroborate this story from any credible 2nd source. I did find a reference to temporary staging/storage areas for lease vehicle fleets and port shipments. The link above showed several pics from UK. Perhaps this is more of an issue with car union agreements in Europe?

Again, I'm not saying it's necessarily untrue, but this story blows my mind... lf true, it's the dumbest business decision-making I've heard of in a long time...

The website's content is pulled straight from www.vincelewis.net. Vince Lewis is a British guy who wrote a book "The Conspiracy Zone" in 2013, about a wide variety of conspiracy theories. I have not read this book and have no interest in doing so. The Amazon.com description of the book seems to indicate he is a proponent of various conspiracy theories, with his own twist on them.

While skepticism is healthy and should be encouraged, conspiracy theories usually are based on guesswork, unsubstantiated data, and inventive story-telling. Lewis' story on the unsold cars includes his own unproven hypotheses of these pictures of car staging/storage areas.

Based on lack of credible verification, I have to conclude this story is bunk...

You said a mouthful!!!

Amazing. It's right off the pages of AS.

My first brand new car I ordered from the factory. $3,000. Now that same car (new model of course) is $40,000+.

Are there any lots full of subarus? They're none union, right?

yes. unions actually get to be part of the negotiating process for production runs.

Aren't the unions playing a huge role in this? Having to down size would reveal the truth. People who buy a new car should at least get pictures of the 3 other cars they also bought that are rotting in a lot somewhere. I guess cash for clunkers didn't quite work the way they hoped. DUH.