GMC and Crysler continue to hobble through their desperate restructuring dance. As we all know, they are asking for billions more from the US government, but the Gimmie Money Corp is also asking the Canadian and Ontario governments for a $7.5 billion crutch to keep them upright. Seven Billions Dollars. That's a fuck of a lot of money. True, it is only a loan, but I would feel more confident betting on the Cubs to win the next World Series than loaning money to GM.
To put that amount in perspective, if you have $7 billion to spend, you could rebuild the economy of a entire nation, and not just any nation, but a nation that has 10 sextillion per cent inflation:
Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has said the cost of rebuilding his country's economy could run as high as $5bnThis would still leave you with $1 billion to bet on the Cubs, and another $1 billion to build new CFL stadiums in Halifax, Quebec City, Winnipeg and Ottawa.
"As for the long-term economic recovery it has not been assessed," Mr Tsvangirai was quoted as saying at a press briefing in Cape Town. But he added: "I think it would run into billions of dollars, maybe as high as $5bn."
Inflation in Zimbabwe - estimated by some economists at 10 sextillion per cent - has left its currency almost worthless.
Zimbabwe has something else that GM doesn't: a leader who is not afraid of bold action. For example, as we speak his people are starving to death and 80,000 of them are dying of cholera, but even that can't distract Robert Mugabe from achieving his goal of ethnic cleansing and stealing farmland from white land owners. Can you imagine the UAW standing up to this guy? The International Human Rights tribunal should sentence Mugabe to two years as GM CEO. He would right the ship in no time. Either that or strip it of all valuable materials and disappear to the Caribbean, but the company is on the path to bankruptcy anyhow so I think it's worth a shot.
I'm looking forward to driving my new flexi-fuel Chevy Genocide in a couple of years. I'll pay with cash: