By some reason Volt sales are not taking off. Excellent product way more advanced and functional at the same price as PIP but sales are rather moderate.

The problem may be with the disappearing/shrinking USA's (and EU's) manufacturing sector. The current USA manufacturing activity level has dropped another 2.4% to 48.3% instead of the forecast 51.2%.

All manufacturing, including Big-3 activities, are affected. To maximize profit, outsourcing is still very active with the exception of pollution going down or being transferred to China.

Can USA and EU maintain their high living standards without a very strong or with a diminishing manufacturing sector? It is currently being done by going deeper and deeper in debt. What will happen when the debt has reached unsustainable levels? Will we go through the same hardship as Greece, Spain, Portugal etc?

Another short term solution used by USA and EU is selling out accumulated real estates at the rate of a few $T/year. This can only last another 10 to 15 years before most valued properties are sold.

We might want to consider the prolonged attack on GM and their Volt by the right-wing press. The amount of anti-GM, anti-Volt writing has been enormous. Just a couple days ago I saw a piece about Volts catching on fire and burning their drivers to a crisp.

The right wing has promulgated tons of "false facts" about GM and the auto bailout, some of which we see on this forum regularly. That has created an anti-GM atmosphere in which traditionally "Buy American" folks have turned against an American car company.

Toyota hasn't suffered these sorts of attacks. They had already built a very good reputation with their Prius and products in general. Adding a charge cord to the existing Prius was more of a small evolutionary step than GM's big leap.

I wouldn't be surprised if GM also suffers from some bad feelings from some of those on the left. The US car companies have generally been enemies of their employees. And Detroit has not produced the fuel deficient cars that more environmentally conscious people wanted. Toyota has earned a reputation for quality and efficiency while GM is a newcomer in this category.

GM shafted their debt holders?

I guess one could look at it that way if they chose to not look too far.

GM failed (as did Chrysler and Ford almost joined them) because our financial industry was under regulated which created the housing market bubble and let lending institutions operate without adequate ability to suffer a housing price downturn.

Thousands and thousands of American businesses went bankrupt, not because of anything they had done, but because a small number of very greedy people were allowed to throw us into a very deep recession. Millions of people lost their incomes and millions more became afraid to make major purchases even if they had a decent income. People quit buying cars.

GM did not screw you. You and GM got screwed by the big banks and financial institutions. You and GM got screwed by Zombie Reagan and "We don't need no stinkin' regulation".

No the fact was the debters were supposed to get paid first as a part of the deal that gave gm better interest rates on the debt.. I wasnt involved at all because frankly I didnt trust any of em and also I dont have any wealthy whatsoever to invest;/

But BOY did I hear about it from others older then me who did get shafted. Gm wont find it easy to get debt ever again thats for sure.

You dont get it gm only got the rate it did on that debt because it was supposed to be far less risky because it was supposed to be first in line for being paid off in case things went bad. Because of this screwup on gms part the next time they go into debt will most likely be thier last.

I didnt care enough about it at the time to save links. Oh and its not that they cant sell the bonds its that they will never again be able to sell that type as it depends on a garrantee they now wont be trusted to keep.. So debt will be ALOT more expensive next time.. likely too expensive.

Were Banks, Real Estates, Insurances, GM++, many million investors, home owners, unemployed workers etc victims of smart speculators or the 3%? Who really benefited the most with the transfer of a few $T and many properties from A to B during the last 4+ years?

Will the coming Debt Bubble burst do even more damages or can it be corrected and stopped? If nothing is done, the 97% will soon owe more than their collective worth and will technically be in a bankrupt situation. It could become a huge Class Action for smart lawyers.

I just read this this morning and find it most interesting. It's something that Senator-elect Elizabeth Warren said in an interview...

"Coming out of the Great Depression to basically late ‘70s, early 1980s, just almost every piece of legislation that passed through Congress was through the filter of: Does it strengthen the middle class? Does it create more opportunities for working families? And that was the litmus test.

That switches in the early ‘80s, when the Republican party says the role of government is to protect those who've already made it, let them keep more of the money, let them keep more power.

And so we tried that for 30 years and ended up with an economy that almost ran over a cliff and crashed into the stone age….

This was not a natural disaster.

The crash of 2008 was man-made."

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/elizabeth-warren-interview-14094700

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