Despite TTAC’s GM Death Watch and Chrysler Suicide Watch, the MSM was asleep at the wheel during the domestics’ dissolution. Now that New Chrysler and New GM have appeared, like sin from Satan’s head, the MSM is . . . asleep at the wheel (obscure reference of the day: “miles and miles of taxes”). That said, U.S. News and World Report has this Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) thing wired. The magazine commissioned the Ethisphere Institute to consult its weekly TARP index to calculate the odds that We The People will see our $700 billion (that’s billion folks) “investment” again. The bottom line: the Institute says anyone who thinks we’ll get out bailout bucks back from Chrysler, GM and GMAC should be committed. Make the jump for the run down on the troika of former auto industry stars disappearing your tax money down a TARP-shaped black hole.

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Now that Steve Rattner has surrendered his position as head of The Presidential Task Force on Automobiles (to attend to a federal bribery investigation into his old crew), Ron Bloom is the man running two of America’s three domestic carmakers. I’m sorry? Did I say “running?” I mean to say, “passively protecting.” ‘Cause Ron says his twenty-four member mob—responsible for guarding taxpayers’ $50 billion “investment” in Chrysler and GM—is backing off from hands-on management (e.g., capping GM CEO Rick Wagoner’s ass). They’re only going to step in on “core governance issues” and “major corporate events or transactions.” Did all those quote marks tip you off? It’s true: this makes no sense at all. Didn’t when the checks were cut. Still doesn’t. Anyway, the Detroit News reveals that Big Ron II’s continuing to stretch the bounds of linguistics and credulity to the event horizon. Yesterday, Bloom told the congressional panel in charge of overseeing the overseers that “the best way to get out as quickly as possible is not to commit to a defined schedule.”

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The Swedes are sinking fast. Swedish Wire reports that Ford’s Volvo brand continues to be the elephant fart in the room, sucking wind to the tune of $231 million for the second financial quarter. “The decline primarily reflected lower volumes, partly offset by continued progress on cost reductions and favorable exchange,” the American carmaker pronounced. You mean it could have been worse? Meanwhile, SAAB,’s guzzling a gas tanker’s worth of not good. The former GM division, now owned by Old GM (which is like having an arsonist for a security guard), “made an operation loss last year of 4,148 million kronor ([€]377 million, $553 million). That is an increase of 90 percent from a loss of 2.194 million kronor a year ago . . . . During 2008 the company sold 93,220 cars, according to the TT news wire. That’s 25 percent fewer than 2007 when the company sold 125,085 cars.” And even then Saab didn’t make a profit. Despite deals to off-load the Swedish automakers on suspecting “investors,” their days of mass market sales are färdig. Unlike GM, they probably know it.

No big deal. Just $650m net income over the last three months. That’s almost double what analysts expected, and comes despite an 11 percent drop in global sales (not including affiliates). Hyundai’s worldwide market share hit five percent for the first time though, with US share up over 1 percent in the last year. 56 percent sales growth in China didn’t hurt either. Forget the Genesis, Hyundai’s financial news is going to be what stirs up the competitors’ boardrooms.

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The highly leveraged Australian toll road giant Macquarie Group continues to struggle as the global economy remains soft. On Wednesday, the firm’s toll road subsidiary, Macquarie Infrastructure Group (MIG), lashed out at Indiana state House Speaker Pat Bauer (D-South Bend) for suggesting that the company has been “performing poorly internationally” and that the Indiana Toll Road might be sold off to another company as a result. MIG blasted Bauer in an unusual statement to Australian investors. “In line with previous disclosures, MIG’s sound financial position is well documented,” the company’s press release stated. “Of note, MIG currently has approximately A$900 million of cash on its balance sheet and no corporate level debt.”

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Start saving those pennies, kids! Fiat CEO Sergio “Mad” Marchionne tells the Wall Street Journal that “the true value of Chrysler could emerge when the company would be listed, but this will take a while — not sooner than 2½ years.” Better yet, Marchionne suggests that Chrysler will create “healthy profit margins” if the market has recovered to a 13-14m unit SAAR. Can you dig it? In the meantime, Fiat will be loading up even more debt, offering $1.8 billion worth of bonds at 9.25 percent. Although this rate is lower than the 9.75 percent guidance, it still sent Fiat credit default swaps up six points. Fiat’s second quarter losses hit about $240 million, which is worse than analysts expected. And as Forbes explains, debt, not earnings is the real challenge for Fiat. But as long as things keep chugging along, there might be a Fiat Nano in it for you (especially if you live in Latin America). Which would probably be a better investment of your saved pennies anyway.

Huzzahs will greet Ford’s execs this morning, as The Blue Oval Boyz didn’t lose as much as they could have, and didn’t burn as much of their cash pile as they could have. More specifically, the DOE loan-taking American automaker reported a $424 million pre-tax operating loss on net income of $2.3 billion. (“Special items” created a net gain of $2.8 billion, including a $3.4 billion gain via debt-reduction.) The automaker ended the second quarter with “Automotive gross cash” of $21 billion. That means Ford’s “operating-related cash outflow” (i.e., cash burn) was $1 billion. Before the results, Ford CFO Lewis Booth claimed Ford was “certainly confident of getting through this year” with sufficient cash. True dat. Meanwhile, business sucks: Ford’s second quarter revenues clocked-in at $27.2 billion, down $11 billion from the same period a year ago. [Ford financials here.]

America and Canada have spent tens of billions in taxpayer money “saving” Chrysler and GM. During this Year of Living Parasitically, Toyota hasn’t said boo to a proverbial goose. This despite the fact that a non-governmental ChryCo Old GM Chapter 11/7 would have eliminated most of the North American market’s production over-capacity, setting the stage for a more rapid recovery. Politics, doncha know. Anyway, yesterday, sitting in a Volt prototype at a Toronto GM Chevrolet dealership, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty made an announcement. After July 10, 2010, customers plunking for plug-in hybrid and battery electric vehicles would be eligible for a $10,000 rebate. The car most likely to be so blessed: the Chevy Volt. But that’s not what really got Toyota’s goat. As the Leader-Post reports, “Mr. McGuinty said he wants one out of every 20 vehicles in Ontario to be electrically powered by 2020.”

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I’ve never made any secret of the fact that I’m an auto industry analyst only in the most general sense of the term. In other words, I know what I know and I know some people who know what I don’t know. As they know, I need a good three or four renditions of the same financial information before I can even begin to get a grip on its scope, scale and importance. To wit: one of Our Best and Brightest sent me this little tidbit—Chrysler Financial’s Auto Securitization Trust 2009-A—with some explanatory notes. I’m still not sure what to make of it. You? [thanks to you know who you are]

The key takeway is on Page S-10 where they summarize that the raised $1.263 billion uses $1.641 billion of aggregate principal balance of vehicle purchase receivables owed to ChryslerFinancial (77,730 cars).

Page S-20 is the most interesting… basically it breaks down the $1.641 billion by the APR range and amount of the loans that fall in those APR categories. They smartly left off the average term length conditions, so you cannot calculate the present value of those dollar amounts; and instead just have to take the aggregate principal balance future value.

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I’ve taken a lot of heat in these parts for predicting that Ford’s bankruptcy bound. Having watched GM and Chrysler’s long march to Chapter 11, the signs seem pretty obvious to me: lousy branding, excess nameplates, non-competitive models, a pegged BS meter and a proven inability to take in more money than they spend. Yes, there are differences; his name is Alan Mulally. But, as The Detroit Free Press finally reports, The Blue Oval Boyz are burning down the house. Or, to put it more politely, “Even if Ford Motor Co. reaches all of its targets by 2011, the Dearborn automaker’s growing debt load could end up weighing the company down.” As far as euphemisms go, that one just went.

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Life inside Chrysler Financial hasn’t been a bowl of cherries ever since Cerberus coveted the auto lender’s carnacopia of profits. And then the auto bubble burst, but good. Cerberus sidled sideways, sidestepping the pile of excrement that their investment in “new” Chrysler had become—but hanging onto its raison d’etre: the financial side of the biz. Our inside sources report there’s a certain . . . Captain Queegness to the company these days. Or is that Don Corleone? No matter how you look at CEO Tom Gilman, the industry vet is taking no prisoners. We’ve been reporting for some time that GM has been using GMAC to force dealers out of biz, though usurious rates and excess hoop-jumping. No surprise, then, that Chrysler Financial is hoeing (ho’ ing?) the same road. Automotive News [sub] reports that “Chrysler Financial is asking many of [dealers] to pay large sums to handle possible loan losses. The money — ranging typically from $75,000 to $250,000, dealers say — is designed to cover such risks as early loans payoffs and defaults of consumer loans.” Too right too! Early loan payoffs are . . . un-American! Loan defaults, however, are the new zero percent financing.

Businessweek reports that GM’s Korean Daewoo Automotive Technology (GM-DAT) partner is in as much trouble as the Detroit-based mothership. GM-DAT, which develops much of GM’s small-car capability, has seen its sales fall nearly in half in June (particularly in Russia and Korea), prompting some to question whether the firm will emerge from a mounting liquidity crunch. Last year GM-DAT exported 900,000 vehicles and one million knock-down kits last year, accounting for a quarter of GM’s global sales. But as the firm’s Chevy and Buick brands have sagged, so to has GM-DAT’s income. The Korean unit is seeking loans from the Korean Development Bank, which owns 28 percent of the firm. KDB reportedly will only back GM-DAT if it becomes a full-line vehicle developer, rather than a small-car specialist. This would threaten GM’s Holden subsidiary in Australia, which has put the kibosh on such talks. Meanwhile, we’re hearing rumblings that the GM-DAT liquidity crisis is being caused by GM underpaying for its imports.

The Department of Transportation’s (DOT) is administering the forthcoming Cash For Clunkers (a.k.a. CARS) program. Although the program’s popularity remains to be seen, one thing’s for sure: they’re going in with their eyes wide open. “We’ve spent more time on issues involving potential fraud than anything else,” Spokesman Rae Tyson told us. “If we discover any criminal acts, we’ll hand the cases straight to the Department of Justice for immediate investigation and prosecution.” To that end, the DOT is subcontracting to an as-yet-unnamed third party for an as-yet-unspecified fee to hire an as-yet-unspecified number of “spot checkers.” Hey, you try creating and administering a federal program in 30 days. Truth be told, with just seventeen days left before CARS goes live, the DOT’s still grappling with the basics needed to protect a billion dollars in taxpayer money.

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A 2008 Suzuki Forenza. After reading the owner reviews, it pained me to even think about buying the car. I found a 2008 S model on eBay for $6700 (incl. bogus fees). Only 7500 miles? What a deal! But for whom? Since this car was sub-par for a multitude of ‘too cheap for their own good’ owners, I deep-sixed it. That left on eBay a Kia Rio LX, a Chevy Aveo LT, a Ford Focus SE (with about 15k more miles), and the ringer: a 2008 Toyota Yaris. Prices/mileage were $7100/16k, $8000/21k, $8500/33k and, ahem, $10,700 with 12k. All automatics. All with power windows/locks. None with sunroofs or any other high end stuff. Just good solid A to B transportation with a lot of good owner feedback. On second thought, screw it. I don’t believe a tightwad would be happy with real world fuel economy in the mid-20s so I’m nixing the Aveo. Begone! As for the other three . . .

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