Monday, 23 February 2009

Please Sir, can I have some more?

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 $5bn

"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.
This 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.

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:

5 comments:

  1. Scott MacNeil24 February 2009 at 01:31

    For $7 Billion I could start my own Auto manufacturing plant! Better Ontario just puts the money into a new car company called "York Motors" or something. Wouldn't give these guys one red cent without first gaining the property rights to all their Canadian land holdings, buildings and plant assets first!

    ReplyDelete
  2. cherenkov24 February 2009 at 12:07

    $7b is a hard pill to swallow, given the high probability that the co. will still go belly up or come back for more.

    Speaking of bellies ... why are you using Beer Belly Buddah's avatar? Hmmmm...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Scott MacNeil24 February 2009 at 12:54

    Cherenkov,

    Guess you were unaware that I was forced to divorce Smart Arse and leave TwoRippingArseholes a couple of weeks ago. I did post a goodbye on the site but he took it down. After the divorce I created a new forum for Fat Arse at http://arsenisms.blogspot.com/

    The whole tawdry tale of our separation can be found there in the posts "Truth, Trust & Integrity" and "Arseholes Divorce".

    As for being BBB - guilty as charged. SA took great glee in "outing me" in his comments on my new blog. Saw no reason to censure them or deny his accusation - he probably would have just used his forum to 'out me' at a later date anyway.

    Also, I am 1eyedpecker - but since I have another buddy who wants to start posting on it I will keep it going. All this blog confusion stems from fact that when SA originally indicated he wanted to collaborate he didn't want to do it on BBB. He wanted me to create a new 'identity' for us - ergo TwoRipping's.

    Still not sure how I am going to co-ordinate the blogs? Would get rid of BBB but it was my first born and I am fond of it. Ah... the price of digital schizophrenia.

    ReplyDelete
  4. cherenkov24 February 2009 at 22:06

    I was unaware of the drama. As for coordinating your blogs, I would just pick one and stick with it if it were me.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Freedom Manitoba26 February 2009 at 02:17

    If they want a loan, they can go to a bank.

    ReplyDelete