GM headed for bankruptcy - again?

Barack Obama is proud of his bailout of General Motors. That's good, because, if he wins a second term, he is probably going to have to bail GM out again. The company is once again losing market share, and it seems unable to develop products that are truly competitive in the U.S. market.

Right now, the federal government owns 500,000 shares of GM, or about 26% of the company. It would need to get about $53.00/share for these to break even on the bailout, but the stock closed at only $20.21/share on Tuesday. This left the government holding $10.1 billion worth of stock, and sitting on an unrealized loss of $16.4 billion.

It's doubtful that the Obama administration would attempt to sell off the government's massive position in GM while the stock price is falling. It would be too embarrassing politically. Accordingly, if GM shares continue to decline, it is likely that Obama would ride the stock down to zero.

GM is unlikely to hit the wall before the election, but, given current trends, the company could easily do so again before the end of a second Obama term.

In the 1960s, GM averaged a 48.3% share of the U.S. car and truck market. For the first 7 months of 2012, their market share was 18.0%, down from 20.0% for the same period in 2011. With a loss of market share comes a loss of relative cost-competitiveness. There is only so much market share that GM can lose before it would no longer have the resources to attempt to recover.

Woodhill tells the story of the 2013 Chevy Malibu and why it is a metaphor for what's wrong with GM. GM is making half as many cars as they did in their heyday and still can't turn a profit.

The $79 billion taxpayers paid to bailout this dinosaur might as well have been packaged as a gift and delivered to UAW headquarters.They should enjoy the gift now because when the time comes to bail them out again, it is likely that a different president will be in office -- one who will be willing to allow GM to fail.