SUCCESS!!! GM LOST ONLY $4.3 BILLION Between July & December ’09 And Sees “Chance of a Profit” for 2010...Whoooopeee!...

Apparently both Barack Obama and Rahm Emmanuel subscribe to the same “Curly Howard Business Model” – “If at first ya don’t succeed, just keep on sucking til ya do succeed!”

General Motors recently announced that it lost $4.3 billion in the last half of 2009 as it struggled to emerge from bankruptcy protection, repay government loans and cope with a severe downturn in the overall U.S. economy.

The bailed out Auto maker still does according to the AP, “see a chance of being profitable in 2010.”

So there’s a CHANCE!?

Wow! That’s comforting news.

The U.S. government has given GM $52 billion in bailout money and has owned 61 percent of GM since its emergence from bankruptcy. Most of that will be repaid when GM makes a public stock offering, but the company has pledged to repay $6.7 billion in cash. GM made a $1 billion payment to the U.S. government in December and another $1 billion payment in March.

GM’s problems are much deeper than Ford’s, which is reflected in their respective stock prices – Ford’s trading at $12.58/share to GM’s 75 CENTS, that’s right, SEVENTY-FICE CENTS per share!

Of course, Ford took NONE of the government bailout money that5 Chrysler and GM did.

The Coming Pension Tsunami?

According to a report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), GM will need to add $12.3 billion into its pension fund by 2014. If GM and Chrysler (which is in the hole $2.6 billion) terminate their pensions, the taxpayer funded Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation would then be on the hook for as much as $14.5 billion in unfunded liabilities (a/k/a those aforementioned pension funds). The GAO is quick to point out, “However, if GM starts making money the company will be able to pay into the pension fund,” the GAO reports.

If NOT, then it’s more than likely that GM and Chrysler will join a huge number of similarly positioned private and public sector entities that will be abandoning their “unfunded liabilities” onto the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, which could trigger a massive federal default, which could potentially trigger that “Greek-lke” implosion that many economists are currently warning about.