When Cerebus purchased Chrysler they promised to NOT break it up, or sell off divisions.
Now the financila news I heard yesterday suggests that they may be about to do just that. It is rumored that they may sell Jeep and the Dodge Ram to who knows who.
I hope this doesn't mean the loss of my liftime friend.

Rumours!! Nothing but rumours!! The "Germans" went through the same idiocy - the "Germans" were going to sell off Jeep, they were going to sell off Dodge, they were going to sell off Chrysler and Dodge, they were going to sell off the tank division, etc., etc., ad nauseum. By the way, the tank division was sold off in 1981. Even had one person claim the "Germans" were going to sell off the Chrysler Building, a neat trick considering the Chrysler Building was never owned by the Chrysler Corporation. (It was owned by Walter P. Chrysler and his children, who sold off their interests in 1947.)

So far this year there have been rumours that Chrysler was going to declare bankruptcy followed shortly thereafter by a rumour they were going to sell off Mopar parts.

In this case, Jeep and Dodge Ram are building vehicles whose sales are softening due to rising gas prices. Does anyone actually believe Chrysler would find a buyer for these two lines when every car firm is slashing production of similar vehicles as well as cutting back on future models? This rumour is just as idiotic as the previous ones.

All these rumours of gloom and doom do not help Chrysler present a positive, secure image to the publc. They also fly in the face of agreements Chrysler is presently carrying out and making with other firms. We know Chrysler is working with a Chinese company to build small cars for Chrysler. Chrysler has also recently signed an agreement with Nissan to build trucks for them and Nissan will build small cars for Chrysler. As well, next month production begins on a new model for Volkswagen based on the Dodge Caravan.

So remember - rumours are just that, rumours. If you want Chrysler to survive, do not spread them. The only statements you should believe are the statements made by the management of Chrysler Corporation. Anything else is just nonsense some writer is spewing out to validate his/her job.

Bill
Vancouver, BC

Good morning Bill,
I agree they are rumors.
Let's not forget who we are talking about here. Cerebus is made up of "Financial Vultures" thay are not hanging around to preserve the company that I have loved so dearly since the early 60's, they have other factors motivating them like GREED.

Chrysler is pretty strong in the small car image stakes and have been since the slant 6 days. In the 80s they went to an all 4 cylinder program for a while and later brought out popular small offerings like the Caravan, Neon and PT Cruiser.

Of all the Detroit auto makers Chrysler should have the least trouble coping with the new auto sales environment.

They are the least dependent on trucks, SUV's and luxury cars for their profits.

Pretty sad when a class outfit like Chrysler has the Chinese building cars FOR them...sad indeed.

Unfortunately, at present Chrysler has little in the small car department - Calibre and the PT Cruiser. They are VERY dependant on trucks, SUVs and 'minivans' for their survival at present. Their biggest mistake recently was dropping the Neon completely and replacing it with a crossover vehicle, the Calibre. And that is why Chrysler is dealing with China and Nissan to get small vehicles in their showrooms as quickly as possible.

Bill
Vancouver, BC

But that is what capitalism is all about - GREED! Without it, it would not work. "Communism" failed due to the fact greed was not a part of it. There was no personal gain, financially speaking, unlike capitalism.

Cerebus is an investment company, and like all investment companies, is out to make a buck to pass onto the people who invested in them. Right now sales are down in the U.S. and Canada which makes a sell off of company divisions a poor proposition at this point in time. And considering Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep build vehicles on shared platforms now, it is going to be difficult to sell any one of them individually. Plus the marketing of the vehicles is interconnected as well. So it is basically all or none - there is nothing else to spin off these days.

It is to Cerebus's advantage to keep Chrysler in one piece and spin it off when times are better.

Bill
Vancouver, BC

You probably voted for Bush.

Bill,
Look at the real estate mess that was caused by Speculators driving the prices sky high, and now they have done the same to oil.
You're missing what I am saying, all of the dumb sh*t middle class slobs like me and many many others are paying for this Bushite hierarchy of the "Haves and Have-mores"
And stop projecting by throwing the word "Communism" around.

The minivan market might be a good place to be right now. I expect a lot of SUV owners will be going back to minivans.

Chrysler may be in trouble but not as bad as GM or Ford.

Unfortunately communism does not eliminate greed. It just channels it into politics instead of business. The grand experiment in Russia and Cuba shows that this doesn't work very well for the health of the economy.

The real estate mess was caused by greedy lenders making crazy loans to irresponsible people. At the government's urging.

I don't blame the borrowers, they were just responding to what they saw on TV and what their neighbors were doing, and figured they could live the high life on borrowed money. After all everyone else is doing it and the banks wouldn't be sending them credit cards and making the 100% LTV mortgage loans if it wasn't OK would they?

Rusty,
Did you happen to hear that minivan production was halted last week?
What a shame that is, I get 27mpg highway with my 2003 Caravan. I won't be getting a hybrid any time soon.

Actually Rusty the real estate problems lie more on the shoulders of speculators gobbling up new construction in hopes of making a quick profit on the flip, thereby causing a glut of property on the market which is driving the prices down and leaving those folks with a mortgage larger than their property is worth, consequently we end up with the mees that we have now.

Forclosures and bad loans only make up a small amount of the problem. Ther are just a bunch of vultures out there that want you to think that is the problem.

Chrysler's venture with Chery was both expected and makes good business sense. You need low cost manufacturing to make money in small cars. The current smaller Chrysler offerings are not very successful. The blended design manufacture/design is not new - what era to check? Austin Bantam? Nash Metropolitan? Omni/Horizon (remember they had VW blocks at first)? It made no sense to continue with Mitsubishi - the designs were not very common and Mitsu's reputation right now is downright horrible.

That's odd. In the last week I have seen several new Chrysler minivans of a totally new design.

Perhaps they shut down the old plant and are making the new ones in a different plant?

I have been following the bank crisis for 2 years now in various financial papers and this is the first time I have heard it blamed on speculators.

As a real estate speculator myself I only wish we had the power to drive prices wherever we like. It would be so much easier and safer to make money. But that is only a fantasy used by politicians to baffle the rubes.

You are right Chrysler did start manufacturing the 2008 design minivan, but they have since halted the assembly plant, sighting slow sales.

Being a real estate person, I am surprised that you have not heard about the mess that speculators/developers have caused here in Florida.
From the time I moved here in 1999 until 2006 prices sky-rocketed, my own townhouse went from $120k to over $400k during that period, and now the comps in this area are around $225k. Now the average Joe is trapped, unable to upgrade or sell. I must say that the property values are more realistic now and I personally am not hurting, but what about all of the folks that paid those inflated prices brought about by the glut of speculators/developers buying up everything in sight to take a cut out of the new buyers pocket.
Most of the new construction was purchased by them before it was built.

As far as blaming the speculators, it has been all over the news lately, and cites their activity as causing about 40-50% of the fuel price hike as well. Finally people are catching on to the way the economic wool has been pulled over their eyes.

I was in Bogota Colombia in May and they are buying/driving Chinese made vehicles already. I must say the prices are higher down there, I noticed a Kia Sportage advertised at close to $30,000 (ouch), and they are paying about $.50 a gallon higher for their gasoline.
One thing I am curios about however is diesel is cheaper that gas down there like it used to be here. I don't understand why it is so high here.

I've been watching certain real estate BBS for years and noticed Florida probably has the craziest market in the US.

There was a big real estate boom. Then there was a hurricane that hit some city (not Katrina, before that)and everybody moved out. Prices dropped 40%, on this BBS Florida investors were dumping everything and predicting Florida was through.

Couple of years later, another boom came along and soon people were complaining prices were so high they couldn't find anything to buy or afford it if they did.

Now comes this credit crunch and Florida seems to be taking more of a drop than any other place.

These are the ups and downs of the last 10 years or so, and Florida was well known for real estate booms and busts before that all the way back to the 20s.

I'm thinking of selling all my Canadian real estate and moving to Florida while prices are cheap, to get set for the next boom.

It's the St Louis plant that is closing, the main minivan plant in Windsor Ontario will continue to produce minivans.

Chrysler has a 36% share of the Canadian minivan market, their minivan is one of the most popular vehicles in Canada. So I don't see them stopping production.

I can see people dumping their SUV's and going back to minivans but I don't see the minivan market dying. There is simply nothing else that will carry so much, so conveniently, at such low cost.

Oh, I see said the blind man, apparently the blurb I was watching on the news did not mention the other plant, they made it sound like they were halting all minivan production for a while.

The tax structure here in FL did not help either, as values went up the tax % stayed the same. My home I purchased for $120k has taxes of $1800 while the same townhouse purchased in 2006 @ $350k is paying about $7000 in taxes. This was another reason that sales started to slow, in many cases your tax bill would be larger than the mortgage payment. And to top that off the cities used the inflated tax revenue to base their budget on, and now find themselves having to cut services and lay off people.

Few people seem to be aware of the "auto pact". This is a free trade agreement between Canada and the US that dates back to 1966.

Auto makers can freely swap vehicles and parts across the border. So for every Canadian made minivan sold in the US there is a US made car or pickup truck sold in Canada.

The idea is to avoid wasteful duplication of production facilities while keeping a fair division of sales and production between the 2 countries.

There were plenty of opportunities to plug financial holes at Chrysler but management does not like being embarrassed and they will retaliate to the point of framing employees and trumping up charges leading to dismissal.

Example:
Here is a die cast die that a vendor claimed to have lost. A requisition was written for two new dies and the vendor ground the numbers off the old die and sent it in as a new die. After it ran awhile in the diecast machine I saw numbers rusting through the die. I knew immediately what happened. This vendor was also convicted of bank robbery in Michigan, said he was desperate because he couldn't pay his FICA tax because Chrysler didn't pay on time. This guy had lots of friends in management. Did I get any acknowledgment for pursuing this criminal act? Nope, he was their golf buddy and they turned on me.

Guys

I hate to see these forums get political. But,

Chryslerati you need to learn about basic economics. Supply and demand is what drives a "free" market and sets the prices and production rates. The US no longer has free markets, there is to much government control of private business. The definition of government controlled privately owned business is fascism, ie: Nazi Germany and Mussolini's Italy.

The so called real estate crisis is because the feds say loans must be made to unqualified buyers. If there wasn't government insured or guaranteed loans (FHA, VA, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, there would have never been 100% or 100%+ loans which fueled inflation in housing prices. When those buyers default on loans they should not have been given what do we get, more government interference (control) in the form of a "bailout."

We pay more for diesel than gasoline in the US because government controls have prevented the construction of new refineries for the past 35 years but demand continues to grow ahead of refining capacity, so, we now have to import diesel fuel.

Idiots in Florida don't want offshore oil and gas exploration and production because it will "ruin the tourist industry." Los Angeles, Orange and Ventura Counties, California, have had oil and gas exploration and production since the 1890's right in downtown LA, on the beaches and off shore. It's a good thing that oil and gas "ruined" California's tourist industry or the Los Angeles basin would be wall to wall people, freeways and cars.

Wake the hell up people, the out of control liberal government of the US is the problem not the solution!

I feel better now.

PS. I'm building a 331 and a 354 Chrysler hemi for hot rods and I guarantee they will be gas guzzlers and I will drive them like I stole them and be proud of it. Global warming is bogus "science" and I'm doing my part to fry the whinning libs by burning all the "fossil" fuel I can before I die.

Ha ha ha I just watched a Hollywood musical made in 1933 called Let's Go Collegiate. It is about a college rowing team. Rowing scenes show hundreds of oil derricks in the background, along the shore. They were so close together they were nearly touching each other. Evidently in those days no one thought anything about it.

Typical republickan projectionist point of view.

Have you even been to Florida? The real estate crisis is real here and it is mostly the fault of over zealous speculation.

The bad mortgage crap is only a very small percentage of the problem.

I have been to FL lots of times. I have relatives that have lived in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Coral Gables and Homestead, when Homestead was a tomato farm, since the late 40's. My late father-in-law lived in Sarasota. One uncle had the good sense to sell out in Fort Lauderdale and pack up his airplane hanger, he was and A&P mechanic, and move back to Oklahoma before he died.

I lived in north San Diego County in the late 90's and saw real estate escalate by 25% per year and waiting lists to get on the list to sign a purchase contract on a house to be built and all the buyer could choose was the floor plan and everything else was per the builders specs. Used houses were a bidding war with all selling above the listing price.

Speculators do not drive up prices, it's the stupidity of the buyers, aided by the stupid government lending policies, paying the outlandish asking prices that drive up prices.

I lived in California because I was in the oil and gas business dealing with buying and selling producing oil properties all over Los Angeles County. Yes the producing wells are still there by the thousands. Some you can see but the majority are screened from view by shrubs and fake buildings. There are hugh refineries in the middle of Torrance and Long Beach. But, the people keep coming.

If we took away the petroleum industry and its products today, tomorrow you would be living in a cave beacuse you would have no cars, trucks, trains, airplanes, plastics, radio, television, chemical fertlizers, insecticides, nylon, rayon, kevlar, and hundreds of other polymers, and thousands of medicines and other chemical compounds and solutions we use everyday.

This is appearently what you leftists want and if the uninformed dumb masses churned by the government socialist indoctrination centers, commonly referred to as public schools, continue to elect leftist governments, Bush and McCain included they sure as hell aren't conservatives, that's the type of life your grandchildren can look forward to.

Sorry to use this forum as a political soapbox.

GEEEZZZZ---move on Chryslerati---if life was fair horses would get to ride half the time!!