Senate Democrats took the first step toward bailing out the nation's crippled auto industry on Monday by proposing a $25 billion loan program, a plan that faces stiff political headwinds with millions of jobs potentially riding on the outcome.

With the year's congressional calendar down to a few days, lawmakers and the Bush administration sparred over the best way to extend help to General Motors Corp, Ford Motor Co and Chrysler LLC.

"We're surprised that Senate Democrats would propose a bailout that fails to require automakers to make the hard decisions needed to restructure and become viable," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.

The Senate bill would, however, impose conditions. The government would take warrants for shares in exchange for aid, which would come with limits on executive compensation and a prohibition on the payment of dividends.

Automakers would also have to submit plans on how they intend to remain competitive, pummeled by plunging sales, little access to credit and a weakening economy.

Executives from the three companies are expected to amplify their calls for help at congressional hearings beginning on Tuesday.

Carl Levin of Michigan, the plan's chief advocate in the Senate, said the proposal to amend the Treasury Department's existing $700 billion rescue plan for financial services firms is the most efficient way to help auto manufacturers.

House Democratic leaders, led by House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, released a draft of almost identical legislation later on Monday.

But the White House and many Republicans favor amending another law -- one approved in September to extend automakers $25 billion in technology loans to retool factories and make more fuel efficient cars.

MARKET FEARS

A rescue package for U.S. automakers could avert another stock market plunge like the one seen after Lehman Brothers' collapse in September.

"The reason people think failure could be cataclysmic is that there are so many companies that are tied to the auto industry," said Marc Pado, U.S. market strategist at Cantor Fitzgerald & Co in San Francisco.

The Senate proposal comes as GM said it would delay incentive payments to its U.S. dealers by two weeks in an effort to "gain some cash liquidity" for the fourth quarter.

The payments for dealer incentives, which are made on a weekly basis, will be delayed from November 28 until December 11, GM spokesman Pete Ternes said.

Liquidity is the key concern for the automakers as their remaining cash reserves dwindle.

"If General Motors is unable to solidify government aid this week and is forced to wait for the next administration, we would become more concerned about working capital related liquidity risks... ," Citigroup autos analyst Itay Michaeli said in a note to clients on Monday.

The companies and their allies in Congress argue a bailout is justified on grounds they back one in 10 U.S. jobs.

GM, Chrysler and Ford employ close to 250,000 people in the United States and supporters claim they touch more than 4 million other jobs including suppliers, dealers, car haulers and rental companies.

Many parts suppliers and dealers have agreements with transplanted automakers as well, potentially interrupting the business of competitors to the Big Three in the short term.

A potential threat to the integrated supplier network prompted Japan's Honda Motor Co Ltd to support an aid package for its U.S. rivals.

BAILOUT SKEPTICISM

But segments of the public disagree that a rescue is in order. In interviews, Americans said the planned rescue was unfair and would make it harder to reform the U.S. automakers.

"They need to restructure. If they get bailed out they are not going to do it," said Eric Smith, a paint contractor interviewed in Chamblee, Georgia, on the outskirts of Atlanta.

U.S. automakers say they are urgently trying to overhaul their businesses to meet a global demand for fuel efficient products, like better performing gasoline engines, electric cars and more hybrids.

But industry executives say they may never get there unless the bailout is approved. They add that the shock of any collapse will shake the economy.

If the auto industry comes under severe pressure, GM Chief Executive Rick Wagoner said in a television interview on Sunday, "the impact on the whole U.S. economy will be devastating."

All three companies have rejected reorganizing under bankruptcy protection.

For the Senate measure to pass, it must gain support from both Democrats and Republicans in the narrowly divided chamber where 60 votes are needed to overcome any procedural hurdles.

Aides and lawmakers have expressed doubt about the Democratic effort with so little time and White House opposition.

Nevertheless, two prominent Republicans senators signaled they would be willing to consider a plan. Pennsylvania's Arlen Specter said he was open to supporting the automakers under certain conditions, and Christopher Bond of Missouri, expressed a similar sentiment and said action was needed now.

"I'm pleased to see there seems to be broad support for assisting the auto industry despite disagreements," Bond said.

Bush, whose limousine is made by GM, opposes a bailout using Treasury rescue funds that the administration argues are, by law, intended only for distressed financial services companies.

President-elect Barack Obama, who will be sworn in January 20, has encouraged an aid package, but not a blank check. Obama has said conditions should also include labor, suppliers and lenders so that "we are creating a bridge loan to somewhere, as opposed to a bridge loan to nowhere."

Shares of GM closed up 5.7 percent to $3.18 on the New York Stock Exchange, while Ford slipped 4.4 percent to $1.72. Chrysler is privately held by Cerberus Capital Management LP


www.reuters.com . . .

Buying foreign vehicles should have a "Anti-American Tax" applied to it.

Buying foreign vehicles should have a "Anti-American Tax" applied to it

letarsier59 wrote:

I wonder what the WTO will think of those commies.

we already have this and we call it a TARIFF. You already pay a 25%!!!! Tariff on foreign cars and trucks.

A British Lesson on Auto Bailouts

A faltering auto giant whose brands are synonymous with the open road. Hundreds of thousands of unionized workers with powerful political backers. An urgent plea for the government to write a virtual blank check.

This is not the story of Ford and General Motors, but British Leyland, a car company that went through £11 billion of inflation-adjusted British taxpayer money, or $16.5 billion, in the ’70s and ’80s before going out of business. All that is left of the company now are memories of cars like the Triumph, and a painful lesson in the limited effectiveness of bailouts.

“It’s all too evocative,” said Leon Brittan, a top official in the government of Margaret Thatcher, the free-market-minded prime minister who nevertheless backed the rescue. “I’m not telling the U.S. what to do, but the lessons of the British experience is don’t throw good money after bad. British Leyland carried on for a few more years, but they’re not there now, are they?”

Other experts are sounding the same alarm. “The British Leyland experience is a relevant and cautionary one,” said John Casesa, a principal in the automotive consulting firm Casesa Shapiro Group in New York. “The government got in the business of trying to make a winner out of a structurally flawed company. That’s the risk in the U.S. as well.”

Though Continental automakers have fared better than British ones, Mr. Casesa argues that the long history of government support in Europe made companies like Renault and Fiat strong players in their home markets, but not worldwide.

“With the exception of BMW and Mercedes, European automakers haven’t been globally successful,” he said. “Nor have they been hugely profitable.”

That comparative history is receiving new attention as Congress turns its attention this week to the fate of Detroit.

The British Leyland bailout remains the classic example of a futile government intervention. The tight cooperation between governments and automakers on the Continent has produced happier results.



For half a century after World War II, the French government was the majority stakeholder in Renault, and Paris still holds a 15 percent stake in the company. In the 1980s, the company received a bailout equal to nearly 4 billion euros, or $5.1 billion in today’s money. Now it is highly profitable — at least compared with its American counterparts.



Today, G.M.’s German subsidiary, Opel, is appealing to Berlin for help, seeking more than 1 billion euros in credit guarantees, according to Carl-Peter Forster, G.M.’s European chief.

Monday, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany said her government would make a decision before Christmas.

“It’s not decided yet whether these loan guarantees will become necessary,” Mrs. Merkel told reporters in Berlin after meeting with Mr. Forster and other management and labor officials.

“If these guarantees become necessary, those funds should remain within Opel” in Germany, she added, echoing a concern some Americans have expressed that any United States bailout money go only to American automakers.

So far, Asian companies have not complained that such a bailout would amount to an anticompetitive subsidy. But José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, said last week that he thought an aid package for Detroit could be “illegal” under World Trade Organization rules.

That has not stopped European automakers from seeking 40 billion euros in loans from the European Investment Bank, ostensibly to help develop cleaner cars.

For Garel Rhys, head of the Center for Automotive Industry Research at Cardiff University in Wales, the trajectory of General Motors is reminiscent of British Leyland not only because of the former’s decision to seek aid to avert bankruptcy, but also for its slow, seemingly inexorable loss of market share. “Both had a history of being the biggest in their market but couldn’t adapt as they lost sales,” he said. “They couldn’t get customers back.”



Historically, British Leyland’s roots stretched back further than Henry Ford’s Model T. The company controlled 36 percent of the British market well into the 1970s, with mass-market brands like Austin and Morris and premium lines like MG and Jaguar. But rising competition from Japanese and German automakers, shoddy workmanship and a breakdown in labor relations brought the company to near bankruptcy by 1975, Mr. Rhys said.

Michael Edwardes, who took over as British Leyland’s chief executive in November 1977, recalled that when he joined, no one even knew whether individual brands were profitable. “It was a farce — no one knew what the costs were,” he said.

As it turned out, every MG the company sold in the United States resulted in a loss of $2,000 for British Leyland.

Wildcat strikes consumed more than 32 million worker-hours in 1977, and the company became a symbol of labor strife, with some employees walking out the door with spark plugs in their coat pockets and engines in the trunks of their cars, Mr. Edwardes said.

Mr. Edwardes immediately began reducing the company’s work force of roughly 200,000 — to 104,000 within five years — and closing 19 factories. He appealed to the Thatcher government for aid, arguing the money was needed if British Leyland was going to be able to afford to lay off workers while investing in new models.

Eventually, the government put up £3.6 billion, equal to £11 billion in today’s money. But the rescue did not do much to preserve British Leyland’s labor force or market share in the long term.

By the time it received its last government infusion of cash in 1988, Mr. Rhys said, British Leyland’s market share had slumped to 15 percent. British Leyland evolved into MG Rover, which was eventually acquired by BMW, then spun off, finally going bankrupt in 2005.

According to Mr. Rhys, just 22,000 workers remain at British Leyland’s successor companies, about 10 percent of its work force in the mid-1970s.

“It was a very poor return,” he said. “We felt collectively and nationally that we got our fingers burnt, and this was always used as a reason to avoid bailouts, both by Labor and Conservative governments in Britain.”

Mr. Edwardes still defends the government aid, arguing it preserved parts of the company that remain in business now — like Jaguar and Land Rover, which were bought by Ford.

Jaguar never made a profit for Ford, however, and was sold with Land Rover to Tata Motors of India earlier this year. Ford recouped only about half of what it paid to acquire the two brands, and is estimated to have poured $10 billion into Jaguar.



Despite the British experience, the case of Renault, which combined fresh money and new management in the 1980s, showed that government bailouts can be beneficial.

The French government help for Renault also came amid increasing losses for the company. But Mr. Rhys said that unlike British Leyland, Renault was able to use the financing to create new car models that were ultimately successful. That, along with tough cost-cutting by a newly installed chairman, cleared the road to profitability by the time the government began privatizing Renault in the 1990s.

If Washington does go ahead and help Detroit, Mr. Edwardes said, it is crucial that the government overhaul the management of the Big Three. “Throwing money at them isn’t enough,” he said. “They need money and they need new management. They need both, not one or the other.”

www.nytimes.com . . .

ibdugefrsh wrote:

Congress mise well force Americans to buy GM as well. I for one stick with our domestic vehicles out of principle. Buying foreign vehicles should have a "Anti-American Tax" applied to it. I know some will bitch about this idea but those people are one of the major reasons we are in the situation.

Atlantic wrote:

Buying foreign vehicles should have a "Anti-American Tax" applied to it.

What a great apology of Free-Trade!

Current US protectionist policies failed to make it up for your Big-3's obsolete designs and manufacturing technology. Why do you think even more protectionism would work?

What does GM do with the money? Flush it down the UAW's toilet of grab bag perks for lazy members, of course!

idahoboy wrote:

When Americans build cars that are not shit, I will start buying them.

feathers wrote:

Idaho,

Mazda is a Japanese company owned by FORD MOTORS Co.

I made a point in buying something American Idaho. See? They are trying to restructure, but they also need the people buying their products.

I could have bought a Escape, or a Saturn, those were on my list too. I wasn't gonna by the Honda CRV.

idahoboy wrote:


If you wanted to buy American, then you should have bought a Ford, especially if your Mazda was made in Japan.

Nov. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Ford Motor Co., reeling from plunging U.S. car sales and a sinking share price, will raise about $540 million selling part of its stake in Japanese affiliate Mazda Motor Corp. to ease cash concerns.

bush_degout wrote:

Not anymore

Nov. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Ford Motor Co., reeling from plunging U.S. car sales and a sinking share price, will raise about $540 million selling part of its stake in Japanese affiliate Mazda Motor Corp. to ease cash concerns.

When Americans build cars that are not shit, I will start buying them

usmc4ever wrote:

Either way it looks to me they are screwed. Chapter 11 is thier best bet. Restructure under chapter 11 protections and build a new streamlined auto industry that can compete without gummint monies!

ibdugefrsh wrote:

I know some will bitch about this idea but those people are one of the major reasons we are in the situation.

feathers wrote:

[q=usmc4ever]Either way it looks to me they are screwed. Chapter 11 is thier best bet. Restructure under chapter 11 protections and build a new streamlined auto industry that can compete without gummint monies!

The problem with chapter 11 is that there is no guarantee they can file under chapter 11 since they will need to make a lot of cash during that process and chances are they won't be able to make it. People won't buy cars from a company in bankruptcy. Then, the other option at that moment will be liquidation. Sad, uh