Pssst .. wanna buy a used car company .... just in time for the holidays ?

General Motors Corp. Chief Executive Richard Wagoner, Ford Motor Co.'s Alan Mulally along with Robert Nardelli of Chrysler LLC are scheduled to testify at a House Financial Services Committee hearing later today after telling a Senate panel yesterday that they need US$25 billion to keep operating. (They each turned up in their respective corporate jets)

Their shares reacted today - GM were down 15% @ US$2.63 - Market Cap US$ 1. 7BN and Ford were @ US$1.49 down 11.3% - Market Cap US$3.54.

So the US taxpayer stumps up US$25 Bn to keep them going to Christmas and yet they share a Market value of ... say US$ 10 Bn. ...tops ?

Since the first amphibians crawled out of the slime
We've been struggling in an unrelenting climb
We were hardly up and walking
Before money started talking
And it's sad that failure is an awful crime.
Well it's been that way for a millennium or two
But now it seems there's a different point of view
If you're a corporate titanic
And your failure is gigantic
Then in Congress there's a safety net for you.
I am changing my name to ChryslerI am going down to Washington D.C.
I will tell some power broker
What they did for Iacocca
Will be perfectly acceptable to me
I am changing my name to ChryslerI am headed for that great receiving line
So when they hand a million grand out
I'll be standing with my hand outYessir, I'll get mine.

—Tom Paxton, "I'm Changing My Name to Chrysler" (1979) (hear it sung by Tom on You Tube)

That's a picture of cars imported being held at Long Beach, CA...some of them have been lying around 3/4 months. ...

See GM makes you sick 18 / 3 /05 also Friday, February 24, 2006
Disembowelled US - 3 more years of Dubya

Will the last person leaving Michigan please switch off the lights.