Paper: GM may extend 'employee discount'

[HenryTo]

Does anyone have any opinion on this? Would this further cannablize future sales? Are they getting into a price war with Ford and the Japanese/South Korean companies? This just doesn't seem like it can help GM's operations in any meaningful way in the long-run.
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Program has worked well, General Motors exec says, and dealers have been asking for more.
June 27, 2005; Posted: 2:14 p.m. EDT (1814 GMT)

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - General Motors might extend through July its U.S. program that gives all customers the same steep discounts that it offers employees, its North American marketing chief has been quoted as saying.

Original link: http://www.cnn.com/2005/AUTOS/06/27/gm_rebate_program.reut/index.html

[nodoodahs]

This is the automotive equivalent of "cash flow underwriting." I will be interested in seeing the impact of this on their accounts receivable on the next quarter's filings. I wonder if they're tying this in with GMAC financing ... make the insurance reference above more apt. LOL.

Interestingly GM just implemented some of the toughest restrictions on insider trading with an email to 400+ top managers.
http://www.investors.com/breakingnews.asp?journalid=28613927&brk=1
http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.asp?feed=AP&Date=20050627&ID=4919716

You have to understand, GM is not a cyclical automobile manufacturer. It is a mortgage and finance company with a dead industrial concern, a union, and an underfunded pension plan attached "for free."
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He was wearing my Harvard tie. Can you believe it? My Harvard tie. Like oh, sure, HE went to Harvard.