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Total Bailout Bill: $97.4 Billion, with a 'B'
With all the rescue/bailout talk going on here at Autoblog and, oh, just about everywhere else, you may find that it's tough to keep up with it all. Thankfully, the scribes over at Detroit Free Press have consolidated the discussion down to one easy-to-read but tough-to-comprehend figure: $97.4 billion. That's the total you get when adding up the initial $25.4 billion that automakers were promised to help retool their plants to build more fuel efficient cars; the $25.5 billion that auto suppliers have banded together to seek from the Feds and the $39 billion in loans that General Motors and Chrysler have requested from the feds to stave off a worst case scenario.
Of that $97.4 billion, a total of $24.9 billion has already been paid out to General Motors, GMAC, Chrysler and Chrysler Financial. If the entire amount were paid out, every American would then have contributed $874 to the auto rescue/bailout.
[Source: Detroit Free Press]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
HotRodzNKustoms 11:05AM (2/20/2009)
Preparation H anyone?
Reply
13enS 6:01PM (2/20/2009)
Just have more kids... they're the ones paying for this any ways.
Noidor 12:10PM (2/20/2009)
Right - and don't forget that back in October everyone with even slightest bit of common sense was saying that 1) Total bailout would far exceed $25bil 2) It would open door for suppliers coming with an open hand 3) Government would simply print this money because borrowing is not working out all that well.
Well chickens are coming home to roost...soon this will prove to be a disaster. They should have filed BKs, sold off assets to investors who then would have would have made these companies more efficient. But we had to go the communist way...stupid
notYou 12:46PM (2/20/2009)
AB: "Total Bailout Bill: $97.4 Billion, with a 'B'"
Reality: "Total Bailout Bill: $97.4 Billion, with a 'B' ... _so_far_"
Flashpoint 1:23PM (2/20/2009)
But no one ever talks about the corporate welfare we are giving to Lockheed Martin...
strange that no one wants to talk about the 99 Billion to be spent on JUST the F22...or the billions we wasted on the cancelled RAH66 Comanche program.
Americans are the dumbest Lot I'll ever meet.
The difference between high tech weapons and automobiles is that we can SELL AUTOMOBILES abroad.
How else is america going to make up its trade deficits?
Nato 2:17PM (2/20/2009)
By putting its high tech weapons into use?
Big Rocket 3:54PM (2/20/2009)
@Flashpoint: This is (at least) the second time I've noticed you defend the auto bailouts. Your defense is pretty interesting: instead of defending the auto bailouts based on their own merit, you defend them based on all the other bad decisions our country has made. As if two wrongs ever make a right, right? If you thought you could win us over with that kind of poor logic, you really must think the American people are the idiots you claim we are.
Flashpoint 9:27AM (2/19/2009) wrote: "I don't remember the BANKS being forced to make any cost cutting measures or concessions at all... The American People are IDIOTS."
http://www.autoblog.com/2009/02/19/chrysler-lowers-temperature-removes-clocks-and-cuts-down-on-chr/#comments
Jared 4:23PM (2/20/2009)
*loads gun and prepares for WW3*
Brandon 7:37AM (2/21/2009)
LM/Boeing/NG/Raytheon together is making World's Best fighters/bombers/missiles in the world. They employee only American citizen. Its technology will be used to defend this country (as well as attacking other countries).
We can, of course, sell F22, F35 abroad and make tons of money. We just need congress and DOD approval. There are many countries wanting to buy F22, F35, even 30~40 yrs old F15/F16/F18 with simple upgrades, whereas congress has to press other countries to sell our autos.
If, for some reason, defense funding is cut and LM/Boeing/NG/Raytheon have to lay off their engineers, they'll be recruited by the rest of the world on the spot.
Please, don't ever compare half American auto industry and pure American defense industry. That's a real shame to the world's best.
JF 11:08AM (2/20/2009)
So where is this all coming from again? Are we printing extra or is China just tightening their grip on our balls?
Reply
Mazda FTW! 11:09AM (2/20/2009)
Why do you think Hilary is in China today?
cFoo 11:18AM (2/20/2009)
It's a doom day scenario. If the Chinese loosen their grip on our balls, it will mean more Chinese made products aka. cars on American roads. A dooming scenario for our crappy unproductive auto industry. No Chinese cars in the US? no money. no bailout.
The begging will not stop. The industry will keep on asking if the gov is willing to handout.
John P. 11:09AM (2/20/2009)
I am hoping and yes,... praying that Ford doesn't have to dip into bailout money. I know they probably will, but it doesn't look good for Detroit now that Washington is involved. Oh well, it was good knowing you GM.
Reply
Mazda FTW! 11:11AM (2/20/2009)
I think GM should wrap up their North American operations and focus entirely on Asia, Latin America, Australia and the Middle East where they are doing well and are respected. A decade or two later, they can re-enter the North American market. That way they can save the company now and have the warm, fuzzy "import" glow North American loves when they re-enter the market lol.
BigMcLargeHuge 11:13AM (2/20/2009)
When Ford releases the Ecoboost for their pickups and SUVs, they will be in a completely different league from the rest of the truck market in terms of fuel efficiency and power.
Even though the entire car market is looking bad, FoMoCo is still in a position to steal market share to cut their losses.
KC 11:14AM (2/20/2009)
I always wonder: why spent 2.3 trillion to save everything that is going to fail? Why not just give it out in cash($7300+) for all 300 million Americans?
Reply
why not the LS2LS7? 11:21AM (2/20/2009)
For the people who have these mortgage problems, $7300 wouldn't be a solution. So I dunno if it would be an effective bailout. Direct money to people is really more stimulus and a significant portion (a third?) of the stimulus package is money to individuals through tax cuts and tax cut advances/tax rebates.
peter 11:43AM (2/20/2009)
Give Avg. Joe 6 pack thousands of dollars? He already can't manage his own money and so lets blow it on him vs. blowing it on loans to comapnies who (if they dont actually go bankrupt) will pay it back?
Lets put blame squarley where it belongs, on ALL OF OUR SHOULDERS. Yes, the big 3 contributed heavily, but so did Joe- the avg. person cannot balance their own checkbook, believed they could live in a house with a ballon mortgage and make payments @ un-godly %'s, got behind in credit debt because they spend money like GWBush, and then cry poor when the monthlies eat them out of house and home.
I would rather not GIVE anything away, but i trust Joe less then loans to business who at least have something productive to show, (however small right now that is) - lets face it, give the Avg. american money and he is bound to spend more then he has 6 days out of 7.
BigMcLargeHuge 11:40AM (2/20/2009)
I'm not sue how close we are to the point at which traders and economists worldwide look at the dollar as unrecoverable.
As in, our economy at peak growth could never pay off our debt.
Currency as we know it would fail, leading to a worldwide depression
that lasts a decade or more.
We are already at a point where cutting interest rates is not curbing
inflation as it used to.
Reason: we can't curb inflation with this much debt. Our debt is so big in terms of numbers that if our dollar was of a higher value, that big number would be an un-achievable objective. (if you need me to explain that in more detail, I'll try to word it another way).
We inflated our own economy at all levels. Private, Corporate, Government.
The only way to pay off all of our economy's debts is to inflate the dollar. The only way to inflate the dollar is to create more debt (print more money, etc).
We're in a death-spiral at this point.
Invest in toilet paper now folks. There may come a day when money isn't worth
worth wiping your ass with.
stevezilla 11:39AM (2/22/2009)
because it's not Joe Six-pack's money; it's yours. And your childrens'.