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Tom,
If I was Ford, I would not want any of the government money as the government would try to interfere with them.
The money going to GM and Chrysler is supposed to be a loan, not a free handout.
Ford perhaps lucked out with timing to get their loans refinanced prior to the financial meltdown. It seems that GM and Chrysler were not as lucky with their timing. With the banks not wanting to (or perhaps incapable) of refinancing GM's or Chrysler's debt after the financial meltdown, that leaves GM and Chrysler running to the government for finance. This is exactly the same situation that killed Circuit City, no bank would refinance their existing debt, no buyer to save them, they went into liquidation.
You have a similar situation with people not buying cars. The drastic cutdown in car purchases is not just people worried about the recession. There are people going to dealers just thinking they are going to finance or lease their next new car, just like they do every 4 years or so, and finding out that they can't get the financing any more.
I was watching to that pjtv video above and how the one guy was saying that he liked old school GM cars, but if GM was not selling what the consumer wanted, they should perhaps go down. But the big 3 were selling what the public wanted, big gas guzzling SUVs, and they were making a nice profit on them. The fickle public doing a 180 degree turn on what they want, and the public also finding out that the banks aren't lending money to buy new cars is the problem. GM was the number one auto maker until Toyota just nudged them out recently. Now you have the government talking like the people running these companies were idiots. Nobody plans for such a large reduction in sales. Nobody plans that the banks are not going to refinance their debt when the time comes. Blame the banks for this mess. And be glad that Ford does not have to deal with the government to survive the financial mess going on now.
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