No, Cerberus doesn't want to divest from GMAC. They also wholly own the Chrysler counterpart to GMAC. When GM and Cerberus were talking a short while ago about Chrylser (minus it's finance arm) Cerberus wanted GM's remaining stake in GMAC.
If the financial sector had not collapsed, leading to the Wall Street bailout, and the credit market did not remain closed despite all that money thrown at Wall Street, the automakers wouldn't even be looking to Congress. Over the last few years the automakers have been quite successfully restructuring themselves and all were well positioned in their plans until the credit crises hit, damaging their cash flow because they can't get access to the credit lines they had before. GM, being the largest, is having the most difficultly. They aren't broke, they have plenty of assets, but they just don't have enough cash on hand to function well and they can't tap their equity because the banks aren't lending. Ford lucked out because a few years ago they mortgaged absolutely everything they have, including the Blue Oval logo, to maximize their cash on hand.
For a number of reasons, including it's industrial sector, Michigan is a left leaning moderate state, and frankly, Detroit's caught in the middle, getting whacked by both sides.
Southern Congressmen, mostly GOP, are serving self-interests after having lured foreign manufacturers there with massive incentives and tax breaks (which includes Michigan tax money since Alabama and Mississippi are huge 'debtor' states - that rankles here).
Free-traders would love nothing more than to see the union broken.
Left-wingers can't see over their Prius windshields to even look clearly at what the Detroit makers offer now and will have on the market in the next two years.
Most of all no one at the Federal level wants to acknowledge the inherent disadvantage US manufacturers face when competing against importers into the US market. Most overseas competitors have government supplied health care and/or retirement. Many countries heavily subsidize their globalized companies, and some countries essentially close their markets to US products.
Given these conditions it's no surprise American manufacturing barely exists anymore.
Aside from obvious economic reasons the real reason to not bury the US automakers is that no one else commits money to technical research and development like they do. It's a fallacy that the Japanese companies are ahead in technology now, but they are great at PR and get the media pundits to climb aboard and that's the US makers downfall, which has become painfully apparent these past few weeks.
Rep. McCotter's speech hasn't been given aany coverage by the national media that I've seen, but it certainly struck a chord here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zI2nCkl19ZM "In the end, this issue is even larger than the Big Three, in many ways larger than the economy. It is what type of nation do we become. Do we become a nation that no longer produces wealth, that no longer has a path to middle class prosperity? Do we remain the America we inherited? Or do we just let it go and watch real people suffer in the process?"
