GM's new low

From this article about how GM is hitting new lows:

DETROIT (Reuters) - Shares of General Motors Corp. tumbled 6 percent Thursday, hitting a 23-year low, after Banc of America Securities warned of an increased risk of bankruptcy at the financially struggling auto giant

Maybe they can drag Lee Iacocca out of retirement and perform another Chrysler miracle. Wikipedia lists him as currently working with a company that makes electric bicycles, but this would be a great challenge, if he's up to it. It will definitely be tough, though, to overcome the inertia and expense of all those pensions.

I question GM's intelligence in offering all those "employee discounts" to everyone. They may have sold a bunch of cars, but they sold them at a reduced price and probably sacrificed future sales for current revenues. Add to that the glut of used cars caused by people trading in their old cars when they bought a GM, and I'd say they shot themselves in the proverbial foot. It's now probably much cheaper to buy a used car than to buy a GM.

As an accounting major in college, I worry when big companies, no, I mean huge companies like GM have to restate earnings because of screwy accounting practices. I understand the practice of manipulating the figures to make the investors happy, and I really dislike it.

That's my long way of saying that I think GM is headed for tougher times, probably including bankruptcy. They may be "too big to fail," though, and that disappoints me because their low quality doesn't deserve to be artificially perpetuated with a government bailout. Thank goodness my pension isn't tied to GM.