Forty Eight: GM's Cash Burn

Economists typically refer to the rate at which a company goes through cash as a "cash burn" rate. How very appropirate for GM. Actually, it would be better to take GM's remaining cash, and any cash gift currently contemplated by those idiots in Congress, and setting it all on fire. At least some heat would be generated, as opposed to simply flushing the money down the giant GM toilet.

GM has now taken to sending junk emails to dealers and employees, begging those people to in turn send out junk mail to their friends and family, trying to perpetuate the fiction that if GM goes into bankruptcy, the U.S. economy will lose hundreds of thousands of jobs. This is no more believable than assertions a few months ago (by GM) that GM had more than enough cash to carry it through it's current slump.

Two years ago GM posted an annual loss of $12 billion, and at that time had no realistic plan of turning the business around. They still have no plan. The "future" of GM is supposedly the Volt, which requires a $7,500 tax credit to get people to buy. This is the best that GM can come up with after spending $100 billion in capital.

If ever there was a company which deserved to be shot in head, it is GM.