on general motors, again general motors has recovered under president obama and so what mitt romney is is looking at the end stage of that process which was a managed bankruptcy and saying, you see, he did my plan. what he omits there is the fact that president bush of his own party and president obama both provided cash to get general motors to that managed bankruptcy process. the romney campaign will argue and say, well, without that cash it would have happened anyway and the obama team, including steve rattner, who was essentially involved in that, say there wasn't a nickel of private financing available to do that. but the strongest evidence for the fact that obama has the high side of this argument is the fact president bush who was in office when mitt romney wrote the editorial in "the new york times" in november of 2008 also decided they needing the bridge loan. what you have is romney trying to go after both ends of that formulation. not easy to pull that off. >> one of the things that's still an open question about this reiteration of the romney campaign is whether or not they

should they have used the fund to bail out general motors and chrysler? no. >> you said, quote, if general motors, ford, and chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the american automotive industry good-bye. >> you said back in 2008, if you write a check, they're going to go out of business. >> if you write a check, they're going to go out of business. >> let detroit go bankrupt. >> let detroit go bankrupt. >> wouldn't that have been disastrous for the economy? >> that would have been precisely the right thing to do for the economy. >> today mitt romney campaigned in michigan where general motors is now the number one automaker in the world thanks to the obama auto bailout that mitt romney opposed. romney didn't talk about the auto bailout in michigan, but he did offer his keen businessman's analysis of the auto industry. >> a good deal has changed, as you know. perhaps most noticeably was the demise of oldsmobile. it's a fine car and it was a source of pride for the city. and it was also the source of a lot

i mean, if they just-- general motors is well aware of this. this has been one of general motors big problems in europe, because inform' been wanting to cut capacity and it's been difficult. to dagen's point, they knew this. it's against the law to do it there the way we would do it here, so, yeah, i think they could face those kind of repercussions and i think that companies like gm have to decide, do we want to be in europe or do we not to be want in europe. it would be a perfectly valid decision to get out, but it would be a long-term decision. >> you know, jim la camp. i'm wondering, hollande is coming here to the united states to meet with president obama, who is not a big fan of u.s. companies setting up shop abroad anyway. or hiring overseas anyway. so, he might actually find a sympathetic ear in the president? >> i think he might because he -- i think the president probably idolizes this guy. if you look at what the other president operates and the european socialist style system. look, if you can't fire anybody, then you aren't going t

general motors says it would consider closing a plant in eastern france. an advisor to hollande telling we would start to arm wrestle with management and they realize there's a former economic life and respected workers as the values as part after big company. so if our companies are getting the french to kiss off over there, we are looking at more broken hearts over here? and to dagen mcdowell who no doubt broken many in her time. and gary, what do you think? >> there will be a definite effect. look, when you have socialist economic dictators over there telling companies what to do and how many employees to have, that's nothing, but trouble. what if the man dropped and dropping in europe and you don't need that certain amount of employees, that's going to directly affect your profit globally and are' going to start looking at home to do something about it and that means maybe losing some people here and nothing good comes out of something like that. i mean, that isn't even a threat. and i mean, that's just, that's like what my people do. >> and you mean,

makes general motors seem like it's the same general motors, doesn't understand social media.rubs both ways whether or not this decision to release this was a wise one. >> did you hear about this ferrari fail? >> yeah. >> have you heard about this? >> uh-huh. >> there was a recall of, what, 70 -- we're showing the car on the air, by the way. 74 of them in the world. the california and 458 italian models. is this a major problem. is my car now going to be held up? >> first of all, i want to know how you're affording that car. >> that was match box size. tha that's what i own. >> when we first reported on this, it came out about a week, week and a half ago. people were like, what, there's a recall at ferrari? yes, even ferrari is going to have a recall from time to time. it doesn't happen a lot because they make small volume in terms of the number of models out there. this does happen from time to time. it's just that when you're talking about a model this expensive, when you talk about a problem that could potentially cause an accident, people go wait a second. that's not suppo

management is not doing anything morally wrong. >> and that is general motors and so please let me finishefore you interrupt . the unions and the management have to work that out. they go to court and they work it out in a free market system and you would underwrite that. >> and that is a issue of whether or not it saves jobs. do you think that if they come to agreement, it is worth saving jobs verse us the destruction of two big american companis and brands. >> jillian is 100 percent wrong. there is nothing unhappy about a chocolate filled cream. >> yes, you want to save jobs and not the unions fault. you have scott boris as a super agent and 25 million for a baseball player. it is the management fault for being stupid . nothing wrong for the unions asking. there is nothing wrong with them asking. it is the politicians that are agree to saying that they know they can't fulfill and that is where it breaks down. and struggling states are plugging budget wholes. the federal government man dated the program. is that the problem. at over 500 locations, where our dedicated support teams help y

. >> there has been discussion back and forth among those that use facebook, general motors saying it will stopped paid advertising on the site and ford saying they found it very beneficial for the car maker. >> that's right. we heard general motors say that they are no longer going to be paying for ads on the site and will maintain their presence in terms of having facebook brand pages which they can do for free. general motors is only spending about $10 million on ads and spending about $30 million on creating content to fill those pages and for those ads, so some people i talk to say it is kind of a weird way to advertise on facebook and they point to what ford has been doing and investing the money in actual ads as opposed to other content is a wiser way to market on facebook. look, facebook has a very successful business model so far based on the $3.7 billion in revenue it brought in in 2011 and 85% of that came from advertising, so losing general motors will not hurt facebook's bottom line. it does show that facebook advertising does not work for everyone. >> tomorrow of course

in terms of general motors, would you follow buffett into a general motors? we haven't been huge fans of the stock. >> i own it and i might have let warren in there. it's been a painful trade. listen to the gm ceo this morning. the european business is a problem. i don't think it will be turned around. these guys are unleashing 26 new brands at valuation in a world where people are betting against cyclical stocks. when birk berkshire takes a position, it's not on anybody in the space, but berkshire is not trading the stock. he is making a call on the management team and on a devaluation and that is what we have at gm. >> i think tim is 100% right. this was a $39 stock january of 11. you have to wonder under what circumstances does it. valuation is interesting and your risk reward sets up as fals. you are looking at north of 28 and you are risking $20 on the downside. to me that's probably fair at this juncture. >> i hate to be the 1 to bring this up, but how much do we invest given his performance and he's a long-term investor, but he hasn't been up there in

>> general motors is interesting. green light actually decreased their stake by about 5 million shares or so in gm. with that said, general motors obviously been the dog. $39 stock a couple of years ago and in terms of a risk/reward, it is interesting. the buffett thing makes it more interesting but a trade setting up nicely, timmy seymour talked about it. where we basically held on the last dip leads me to believe that even though i don't believe in the tape necessarily, i think gm if you're sort of risk/reward, you risk 20.5 to possibly get a 28, 29 handle on this one. i like gm. >> yeah, jb, let's take the pepsi angle and witworth with relational. trader for me and relative of pepsi versus coca-cola in this scenario. do you have a trade on either name? >> i don't but i see a lot of value in pepsi. i took a look at wit the 13-f came out and actually it fits perfectly with my thesis that defensives outperform this summer and interesting of an activist here. i can't recall a time that an activist taking on coke or pep

but the fact is that general motors is in spectacular shape. sales are great.ain the world's largest car producer, and highly profitable. so if you look at the fundamentals, the fundamentals are fantastic. otherwise warren buffett wouldn't have just bought $10 million worth of shares. >> but tony, something is dragging the stock down. i mean, we still got a cost structure that is a concern. we've still got europe that is a concern. >> no question pensions and europe, and, you know, a lot of other costs. we had a company that came out with a relatively clean balance sheet, relatively clean out of the bankruptcy. but going forward, you have to remember, it's still a company that is still -- the largest shareholder is still the u.s. government with about 500 million shares out there. and, you know, there are questions about it is it a going concern going forward. did the bailout save it in the midst of the crisis? no question about it. but it didn't necessarily make it a going concern for the long run. and it's a big concern for investors today. >> bob, how would

taking small businesses that can't defend themselves and wiping them out the vast majority of general motors in the ways of situation when in the end remastered you already have the businesses that bain took were companies that were healthy small healthy companies they couldn't go up against general motors they didn't go out and start out on all the bain capital's relationships were voluntary the kinds of interactions that bain capital had with companies where those not to they were user should not do that not true that may be true that there were some people there always winners and losers in any kind of a negotiation so here's the question go to buy a house here people want to have a produces winners and losers and you guys are like gung ho for capitalism it let's set aside pirate equity for a moment. what would the republican party do about the losers well what did the democratic party and the president do about the losers in general motors they want billions of dollars in equity lost there were billions of dollars in private interests that were taken away that were prevented from being a

general motors has announced it is moving production of its opal to germany. >> the u.s. carmaker announced it wants to invest $150 million in its british division. >> there are concerns about plant closures and heavy losses here in germany. >> workers can only hope their factories are not handed down a slippery slope toward complete closure. the astor was a high part of the output. there were job losses and plant closures. last year, opal posted a 600 million euros loss. the strategy is putting employees under enormous pressure. the workers are plate -- are paying a huge price. wage cuts over time and increases in the number of temporary workers. they are only a few items in a package of austere measures. the end of germany produced -- the port will be wrapped up to around the clock production. opal will invest 300 million euros, racking up the strain on its german workers. that could mean the end of because plant that opened in 1962. >> 12 hours from now, the entire investing word will have one word on its mind, facebook. >> the biggest ever internet ipo takes place on

. >> bob lutz, former vice chairman of general motors, was the man in charge of developing their new he says he owes tesla and its roadster a debt of gratitude. >> if a small silicon valley start-up believes that they can do a commercially viable electric car, are we gonna sit here, as general motors, and say, "well, a guy in california can do it, but we can't"? well, that didn't sound very good. >> that's embarrassing. >> yeah. >> and so the race was on, with lutz overseeing the research and development of the chevy volt, which is a four-door family electric. >> so you see that it's got twin screens. >> the volt is not purely electric. it's called a plug-in hybrid. it'll drive on battery power alone for 40 miles. go beyond that, and a small gasoline engine kicks in to recharge the battery while you keep driving. >> 78% of trips in the united states are under 40 miles a day. if all those people had volts, you would have 78% of americans basically never using another drop of gasoline. >> everything about the volt, he says, works like a conventional car except there's no noise. >> ther

so it was a company that wasn't competing with general motors or toyota. it was competing with itself. and, obviously, as a lot of people here in the shadow of ford world headquarters knows, it was accompanied by the middle of the 2000s was really headed down the tubes. and one of the things that i discovered working on this book was just how serious the situation had become. by the summer of 2006, the board was actively looking at bankruptcy. they were looking at parting at the cover. there were private equity firms circling around dearborn like vultures tried to pick off parts of ford. the family looked at taking it private at one point. and nothing seemed to be working. bill ford had really tried to turn things around but he just couldn't cut through this culture that was so entrenched in dearborn. and so, in july of 2006, there's a pivotal board meeting in which bill of greed to step aside and make room for someone else to take over, and as he said, which i talk about in the book, this is really a moving statement. he said i have a lot invested in this

in just a few days ago, we told you about general motors pulling its ads from facebook. now it is leaving the super bowl . it says it simply cannot justify the cost. this year the company spent more than $3 million for a 30 second commercial and the price is going up for the next game. >> it is interesting right? >> you wonner how many -- wonder how many will follow its lead. >> i'm going to see who is in charge of the advertising budget for gm. it makes me wonder if there has been a change there. >> right not standard operating procedure as before. >>> and congratulations to mr. zuckerberg. he is married. he is probably not worried about what happened with the stock. >> probably not. he had a big weekend. >>> a warning about children being poisoned with laundry soap. >> plus your weather first, when we come back. >>> good morning, 4:44. if you are just waking up, i was in st. michael's maryland, gorgeous, ran a half marathon there and bumped into a family that just switched to watching us in the morning and we are really thankful for that and we wanted to say good morni

compare general motor to ford.ting the ball out of the park and developing the great cars like the focus. that's all you need. definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different resultings. you have a uaw dominated company you will not get different resultings. >> what we expect here. the bail out a company, that company is no longer in the business of profit. they are serving political masters that don't care and something like the chevy volt. and the tragedy of the bail out and if gm was allowed to go bankrupt it doesn't disappear but they have a clue about how on run the car company. bailouts never work. >> chrysler is now a foreign car company . we gave fiat 40 percent of it and now they own 60 percent. it is not a u.s. car company more. >> you would have found them willing to buy pieces of gm. they have good facilities . thing of saving jobs, whose jobs? the autoworkers put out of the business and this is pure politicings, some say for political reason. >> and rick unger the government is p

general motors and viacom reporting results before the opening bell. close, we'll hear from aig, kraft, as well as linked in oig. and also u.s. retailers reporting april same store sales today, expected to slow down mostly due to the early easter holiday which pushed holiday sales in to march. and that's pretty much it for today's show. want to thank our guest host for joining us. i' jackie deanxious husband deanxious husband in the united states and ask >>> global markets focused on europe. ecb set to make a policy announcement. yields jump in spanish bond auctions. a high profile ipo falling a little bit flat. carlisle prices below expected range. and the talker of the morning, a painting fetches a record $120 million at auction. the scream. it's thursday, may 3rd, 2012. "squawk box" begins right now. >>> good morning and welcome to "squawk box" here

body blow to facebook by general motors.s start trading on the nasdaq, gm dropping its ad initiative, facebook announcing it is boosting the number of shares by 25%, valuing the offering at 16 billion dollars the second largest ipo in u.s. history just ahead of general motors. more possible help for struggling homeowners. reuters says bofa offering to pay up to 30,000 in moving costs to customers who sell in short sales before they are foreclosed on. >>> bay area student is among seven california school children now suing state in an effort to get rid of bad teachers. the lawsuit is aimed at doing away with seniorityy-based system for teachers. karen -- karen martinez and her daughter suing. >> if you are starting to lose your passion for why you to school, if i don't -- if i go to work and i don't do my job, i lose my job. why should it be any different? >> the district says it has seen reading and math scores go up 57 points in the past three years. also named in the suit the los angeles unified school district. >>> a repo

there was never a decision made by the general motors board or the senior management of general motors where they pulled everybody around and said, you know, ladies and gentlemen let's implement a plan for driving this corporation into bankruptcy. they never decided that. and yet that's exactly what they did. and in the same way, in our family, we have the same bias on short-term versus long-term investments and so my family pays off in the long term. on a day to day basis the children misbehave everyday and it's really not until 20 or 25 years into it... >> rose: that you can see the impact. >> that's right. but on the day to day basis it's our careers that provide that most tangible evidence that you've achieved something. you ship a product, finish a product, get promoted, get paid. and so when we want to achieve... you have a sense of achievement it's our careers that provide the evidence of achievement. so the reason why corporations have such a short-term orientation is it's run by people like you and me. >> rose: this book is called "how will you measure your life?" clayton m. c

but i can imagine general motors as a big, big corporation.ne someone in market organize pr sort of putting this out routinely, and not honestly thinking it through. my guess is this didn't go all the way to the ceo or the board. so it could have been one of those unfortunate coincidences. frankly, from both general motors and facebook's point of view. because what i think that announcement did was start a whole conversation about, well, why is ford different? why does ford feel good about its advertising? the truth is this could say as much about general motors as it does about facebook's advertising. >> i got one more question for you, carly. but first let's go to julia boorstin, outside facebook's headquarters with more on this development on general motors, right? >> yeah. i would say that the timing was probably inadvertent. we have to remember we're in up-front sales ad week. this is the time of the year when big marketers like gm figure out where they're going to be allocating their money. the $10 million that they were spending on actu

got general motors, you have visa. you compare it to anything we have seen in silicon valley and it is going to be multiple bigger than google. again, more shares available this morning. at the same time this morning, general motors says that it will discontinue advertising on facebook saying it is infective which is absolutely the most biting criticism you could bring against facebook and bizarre timing. gm knows that facebook is now hours away from an ipo and kind of like saying something nasty about the bride on the way to the church. i don't know exactly why they chose today to do this but they know that it hurts facebook. >> nothing about the bride on the way to the church. >> so you look lovely. gorgeous. glowing. >> yes, please. >>> glowing forecast. we will find out. checking in with meteorologist christina loren. here you are, laura. >> here you are. we have a bit of a glow to the lights here. pervis built obstructed by fog that's now settling in. golden gate bridge, coming off the pacific ocean, comfortable d

the 103-year history of general motors.overnor romney earlier and some of the comments that he's made recently. specifically about you sort of allude to taking some credit. let's listen to governor romney. >> i've pushed the idea of a managed bankruptcy and finally when that was done, and help was given, the companies got back on their feet. so i'll take a lot of credit for the fact that this industry's come back. >> you touched on this a little bit. how do you feel about those comments from governor romney? is he accurate in saying he can take a little bit of credit? >> well, like i say, failure has no father, success has many. i think the really salient point is, whenever there's a structured bankruptcy there are multiple paths to an end. this was a difficult decision that was made, again by two separate administration, two radically different points of view from a political perspective and it worked. and jobs were saved. people could send their children to college. unemployment was reduced. this is all good for america.

right now facebook is in the mix with general motors, aig and visa for the top ranking title. the new shares offered will let existing investors sell more than they had previously disclosed. facebook's earliest investor, peter thiel quadrupling what he plans to sell. jim brier and russian billionaire cutting his stake as well. big shareholders selling out of a deal could be a big red flag, tyler. we'll walk you through the other risks and challenges in a facebook webinar. >> i'll be there. facebook ads causing a big controversy in the auto world as gm says we're out of here. the ads aren't paying off. phil lebeau live in atlanta for us. phil. >> and, tyler, it's important to point out that general motors has caught a lot of flak over the last 24 hours about pulling out of facebook. but it's standing by its decision it's not going to run direct ads. $10 million general motors decided it's no longer believing those ads are effective in terms of pulling in customers. we regularly review our media spends. this happens as a regular course of business and not unusual for us to move

phil. >> tyler, this is all about general motors saying it wants the best bang for its buck when it comeso advertising. today we talked to the man who made the decision behind general motors pulling its direct ads from facebook. and he says it's simply a case where the ads weren't working. >> what we hear from our consumers and our fan -- and we research the heck out of this, they say it's a little bit distracting. they say your ads popping up there or your things coming in here, they have to be very, very relevant. and we have to find better ways to make those ads they pop onto or on their wall, very relevant. but the ads themselves, they said we don't like them or we don't click on them. >> as you take a look at shares of general motors, it's important to point out the company says it's still going to be spending millions of dollars on facebook, but only on the brand pages and that at some point in the future it may return to direct advertising once it figures out how to be more effective at it on facebook. >> phil, thank you very much. now onto morgan stanley's reputational risk amid t

. >>> on the "cbs moneywatch," general motors is fueled by big profits, and the king of pop meets sodaashley morrison is here in new york with that and more. good morning, ashley. >> good morning to you. stocks overseas dipped this morning. hong kong's hang seng lost more than 0.5%. soet korea's index was down more than 0.25%. >>> stocks sank on news of weak corporate earnings. dow was down nearly 62 points while the nasdaq fell 35. >>> facebook already has 900 million users but the social networking site may end up with even more friends in just a few weeks. according to the price range of the company's initial public offering of stocks, facebook is worth up to $95 billion. in a regulatory filing, facebook said its shares will cost $28 to $35. "the wall street journal" has reported facebook's ipo could happen on may 18th. >>> general motors posted a billion dollar profit for the first quarter. the automaker continues to seek strong sales in north america and china, but it's not all good news for gm. despite making a profit, its earnings were down 69% from a year ago. >>> and pepsi is

and we had profits that exceeded any year in general motors' history in the 103-year history of generalought up governor romney earlier and some of the comments he's made recently. specifically about you alluded to taking credit. >> i pushed the idea of a managed bankruptcy. finally, when that was done and help was given, the companies got back on their feet. i'll take a lot of credit for the fact this industry has come bac. >> you touched on this a little bit. how do you feel about those comments from governor romney? is he accurate in saying he can take a little credit? >> like i say, failure has no father, success has many. i think the really important point is, whef there's a restructuring or bankruptcy, there are multiple paths to a successful end. this was a difficult decision that was made, again, by two separate administrations, two radically different point of view from a political perspective. and it worked. and jobs were saved. people could send their children to college. unemployment was reduced. this is all good for america. and i don't really have the luxury of opining on

but the red flags are there, general motors pulling out today was a big red flag.ave it to you to spoil 9 party. thank you, sandra. say it ain't so, joe, taking credit for ohio's improving economy. the state republican governor is saying i don't think so, joe. his name is john. as in governor john kasich. next. [ male announcer ] this is the land of giants. ♪ home of the brave. ♪ it's where fear goes unwelcomed... ♪ and certain men... find a way to rise above. this is the land of giants. ♪ guts. glory. ram. >> as you have seen not valley, things really are starting to come back. there are signs of life and hope in the heartland. >>neil: is it time for joe to go slow? talking up the president's policy as unemployment in ohio going down. and a lot. but who is really to thank for that? in the past year and a half the jobless rate has slipped from 9 percent and around 7.5 percent. governor, republican governor, john kasich. we have chatted about this before. i know you say, look, if the president benefits from it, so be it, i want the people from ohio to benefit it, bu