Jobs Cited As Reason to Save Big Three
from The Washington Business Journal
 Bad news about job losses could be good news for U.S. automakers’ chances of obtaining emergency loans from the federal government. The CEOs of General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC appeared before the House Financial Services Committee Friday to make their case for $34 billion in bridge loans. Just before the hearing began, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that U.S. nonfarm payroll employment fell by 533,000 jobs in November - the biggest monthly loss in 34 years. More
American Axle & Manufacturing Announces Asset Purchase Agreement with FormTech Industries
from PR Newswire via Virtualization
American Axle & Manufacturing announced that it has executed an asset purchase agreement with FormTech Industries LLC. As part of this agreement, AAM exchanged its hub and spindle forging business for FormTech's differential gear, hypoid pinion and ring gear forging businesses. In order to compensate for the difference in value between the assets and businesses exchanged by the parties, AAM made a cash payment to FormTech. The parties also exchanged certain direct and indirect inventories, fixed assets and tooling related to the exchanged businesses. More
Analysis: Nobody Wants Blame for Auto Industry Crisis
from The Minneapolis Star-Tribune
Not surprisingly, neither the outgoing Bush administration, President-elect Barack Obama nor the Democratic leaders of Congress wants to be blamed for the loss of a once-proud domestic auto industry and the disappearance of hundreds of thousands of jobs. But that's not the same thing as a three-way agreement on legislation to save General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co., and Chrysler LLC, an accord that presumably could clear the House and Senate with relative ease and be signed into law. Instead, maneuvering in a sort of political twilight zone, two administrations and the Democratic leaders of Congress all give rhetorical support to the survival of the industry while trying to reassure recession-weary taxpayers there will be no blank check from the federal treasury. More
Dodd Calls for Firing GM’s Wagoner, Chrysler Merger
from Bloomberg
Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd said General Motors Corp. Chief Executive Richard Wagoner should be replaced as a condition for federal aid and Chrysler LLC may have to merge to survive. "You’ve got to consider new leadership," Dodd said on CBS’s Face the Nation. Wagoner, he said, "has to move on." GM spokesman Steve Harris said he didn’t interpret Dodd’s comments as making Wagoner’s exit a condition for aid, adding that the company management, employees and dealers "all feel like Rick is the right guy to lead us at difficult time." More
Obama Offers First Look at Massive Stimulus, Jobs Plan
from The Washington Post
On the heels of more grim unemployment news, President-elect Barack Obama yesterday offered the first glimpse of what would be the largest public works program since President Dwight D. Eisenhower created the federal interstate system in the 1950s. Obama said the massive government spending program he proposes to lift the country out of economic recession will include a renewed effort to make public buildings energy-efficient, rebuild the nation's highways, renovate aging schools and install computers in classrooms, extend high-speed Internet to underserved areas and modernize hospitals by giving them access to electronic medical records. More
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Bush, Democrats Seek to Finalize Auto Bailout
from Reuters
White House and congressional negotiators sought on Sunday to remove remaining differences over an emergency rescue for the struggling auto industry, a stark symbol of the deepening U.S. economic crisis. Prodded by shock unemployment figures which showed the country shed more than half a million jobs in November alone, negotiators tried to forge an agreement in principle to provide "The Big Three" American automakers with at least $15 billion in short-term loans. More
Argentine Automakers to Sell at Cost, Protect Jobs
from Reuters
Argentine automakers will sell basic models at cost through state-subsidized loans in a plan to protect jobs in Latin America's third-biggest economy from the global economic slowdown, government officials said on Saturday. Local plants of Renault SA, General Motors, Peugeot, Ford Motor Co., and other automakers will participate in the government's plan to protect 150,000 auto industry jobs and to keep production from falling steeply next year. "We have agreed with the plants that these cars will be offered without a profit margin and the dealerships will also reduce their profit margin," Industry Secretary Fernando Fraguio told a news conference on Saturday. More
Washington Wants 'Car Czar'
from 24/7 Wall Street
Czar Nicholas II is not available due to his untimely demise, so Congress and the adminstration will have to find someone else to act as the "car czar", the role of making sure that The Big Three do not make any mistakes while spending their bailout money. Some kind of deal is in the works to get Detroit $15 billiont to $17 billion this year. That should keep GM and Chrysler from having to go into bankruptcy. More
America's Other Auto Industry
from The Christian Science Monitor
The U.S. auto industry is throwing bolts, but here in Georgia's Chattahoochee Valley a South Korean car company is building a massive new manufacturing plant along the new Kia Parkway, replacing abandoned textile mills. The recently opened Korean BBQ House now vies for customers with Roger's Pit-Cooked Bar-B-Que. And in an indication of just how welcome Kia's nonunion jobs are, some 43,000 people applied for 2,600 positions – with starting wages of $17 an hour - as the plant gears up to turn out its first model next November. The expansion of this "other" auto industry – one that's foreign-owned, nonunion, and based largely in the South – stands in stark contrast to this week's dire reports from America's own Big Three, whose CEOs laid out plans for a dramatic downsizing before traveling to Washington to plead for $34 billion in federal aid. Critics charge that the Japanese, Korean, and German auto companies are taking advantage of desperate communities and a longstanding distrust of unions in the South. More
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