GM to Slash 47,000 Jobs, Kill Saturn Brand, End Pontiac Division

I believe that Pontiac is past its prime, but I kinda like the Saturns, but they need to go too.  I know GM can build a good product, just go and drive a new Malibu or CTS, but they cannot support all their brands...  I just hope they can survive.  If they can't I fear we may all be in trouble.

Globally we will have some 100 Million lays off soon. Since this crisis has started. 

All this money given to the car industry and they are still laying off people in droves.  We give billions to an inefficient and ignorant industry so their leaders can stay rich, and they still stick it to the workers! 

47000 employees, who, with health and retirement benefits were probably making on average 100k a year equals $4.7 Billion.  Hell of a savings for GM there!  How much of a burden does 47,000 more unemployed people put on government? 

The cost of the bailouts gets bigger and bigger each day. 

GM saving American Jobs?

It just occurred to me that GM was not specific about the 3 million American jobs that would be lost if they didn't get government welfare. They just didn't tell us which Americans, did they? North Americans, South Americans or Central American.

Hmm. GM has already closed plants in Canada and moved their operations to South America, or was it Mexico?

We have been living on tomorrow's money for too long, and we now think that excess and ravenous consumerism is just normal. 6,000 square-foot McMansions, huge SUVs and a cell phone and a iPod in each pocket and a military budget more than ALL the other counties in the world COMBINED.

When are we going to realize, we just have too much shit and it's killing us and the planet. No way this was sustainable anyway; time to start living within our means, get green and kill that bloated military cow.

Sure the execs are raking it in, and that needs to stop pronto, but a bigger problem is the freaking unions.  $100k a year to put a turn signal on a car?  Absurd.  Wake up America.

I really hate to see Pontiac go. In our rural area the majority of vans and passenger cars bought new and used are this brand. trucks we see all kinds but today while working i saw 14 pontiac montanas , 2 pontiac vibes and 21 pontiac grand ams go thru the red light wow didnt realize how many were actually driven here. I did not see 1 saturn on the road saw one in a driveway on my way home. What do I drive? Had a pontiac Montana and traded it on a Dodge truck

The auto industry is on its way to becoming a replay of the airline industry. The competition is already cutthroat, with razor-thin margins. Now we're going to see that General Motors, Chrysler and maybe Ford too files for bankruptcy. When that happens, they'll walk away from the pension and health care obligations that are killing them. Their plants are in political battleground states so the politicians will help them stay afloat. They're "too big to fail." Once they're operating under Chapter 11, like the airlines, the automakers will launch profit-killing price wars that may last for decades.

Besides, GM and the others have been losing market share consistently during the last three odd decennia and they continued to do so. That's not a momentary crisis but a long-term trend of a slow death.

A number of posters here do not seem to understand economics.

People need to understand that their jobs are only as secure as the profits they make for their company. If there are people someplace else in the world that are more profitable, then that is where the jobs will go.

My customers are demanding lower and lower costs. I either keep costs down, or I lose the business. But my US employees are demanding higher wages, more vacation time, and more sick time, all the while payroll taxes have increased nearly 50% over the past ten years and medical expenses have skyrocketed. I either reduce costs or no one has a job. Therefore, about 15% of my employees are low cost overseas employees. They are better educated and work a lot harder for a whole lot less money. As long as my costs stay under control by shifting some work overseas, the jobs in the US are secure. Those US jobs would not exist if it were not for my ability to offset part of the cost with low cost jobs.

No company or government can sustain ever increasing payments to people who are not working or pay ever increasing costs for the same output.

Remove the disincentives (minimum wage, payroll taxes, progressive income taxes, unemployment, welfare, food stamps, medicade, earned income tax credits, etc) to work and to hire , and we will be amazed at how the economy roars forward. As far as helping the people "at the bottom"? Screw them. If they worked as hard as I did, they would not need help.

i will hate to see pontiac go i hope they dont go they should cut buick nothing but old people drive buicks and my point of veiw old people shouldnt drive any way saturn never wowed me ethier they have a boring look and all this is thanks to foriegn cars cough cough toyota ,honda there piece of crap cars they suck worse than ford and thats bad cause ford really sucks lol

"Clinton", are you a retard?

you're calling toyota and honda "piece of crap" cars while they lead the industry in quality...

find some grounds before you speak.

Truly sad. Saturn is a good brand of cars and Pontiac is legendary.

Saturn to remain under GM until the end of their current products life cycle, which apparently is 2011. I wish they could still extend that.

Why did GM go broke? It was the largest company in the world. It could pick
and choose the very best managers, the smartest businessmen, the greatest
investors, the most far-sighted engineers, and so on.
 
But they kept adding costs, resulting in not being competitive any more, not able to sell cars at a profit.  When you lose money all the time in the end even the best go broke.
 
How is it possible that the best talent money could buy couldn't change course at
GM?  Answer: When institution matures, the parasites take it over.
Retirees, executives with their golden parachutes, the rot, the lame,
employees, managers, hangers on, lawyers, accountants, businessmen, everyone has an interest in keeping the hustle going. The executives want their bonuses, the retirees want their pension, the lawyer wants his retainer, etc. All can see that the old place ain't what it used to be. They all know that the gravy train won't go on forever, but that just makes them more eager to get it while the going was good. So they made up the numbers each quarter to show it didn't look so bad. At last they manipulated the whole system with the result that no one was able to notice that they were going broke.