Chinese invade Detroit.

[GRG55]

Re: Chinese invade Detroit.

GM moved all it's non-US operations to Shanghai a few months ago, but it didn't even make the headlines.

Rick Wagoner might still have a job if he had figured out that GM's future was in selling cars to Asians instead of sub-prime mortgages to Californians...:rolleyes:

[jk]

Re: Chinese invade Detroit.

Rick Wagoner might still have a job if he had figured out that GM's future was in selling cars to Asians instead of sub-prime mortgages to Californians...:rolleyes:

buick is a big brand in china [i've read]. so it's not like they ignored that market. i just think he figured he could be jack welch and build the finance arm to generate even more of the profits. as it was, financing the cars was what made the money for a long time. production itself was, at best, break even.

[GRG55]

Re: Chinese invade Detroit.

buick is a big brand in china [i've read]. so it's not like they ignored that market. i just think he figured he could be jack welch and build the finance arm to generate even more of the profits. as it was, financing the cars was what made the money for a long time. production itself was, at best, break even.

The frequency of "Zero Down and Zero Interest" offers plus regular "Cash Back" incentive programs over the years should have been ample warning that something was amiss with that business model. But then the solution for the whole global economy was ever cheaper and ever more plentiful money/credit with every cycle...culminating in the current widespread belief in the absolute necessity and magical healng powers of ZIRP.

We've all lost our minds...

[jk]

Re: Chinese invade Detroit.

The frequency of "Zero Down and Zero Interest" offers plus regular "Cash Back" incentive programs over the years should have been ample warning that something was amiss with that business model. But then the solution for the whole global economy was ever cheaper and ever more plentiful money/credit with every cycle...culminating in the current widespread belief in the absolute necessity and magical healng powers of ZIRP.

We've all lost our minds...

"cash back"- it just hit me! duh! given the financing, cash back was just making the loans bigger! more dollar volume for the [fire] financing arm! i.e. if you dropped the cash back, you'd have to just charge less for the car up front, thus producing a smaller financing loan. zero down, even zero interest, had the same effect - raising the volume of dollars being financed. i'd never really thought about it before.