DETROIT - Chrysler LLC is burning through how much money per month? Chairman Bob Nardelli told the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Tuesday "Chrysler has billions of dollars in cash payment obligations every month to pay wages, to pay suppliers, to fund health care and pensions, all in the range of $4 billion to $5 billion per month."

While the privately held automaker isn't talking about revenues, or net income, it makes me wonder even more than before, what did General Motors see in Chrysler?


Nardelli told the Senate committee that without "immediate bridge financing support, Chrysler's liquidity could fall below the level necessary to sustain operations in the ordinary course." He didn't say whether Chrysler has more time, or less, than GM. He did say Chrysler's private equity owners, Cerberus, are willing to let the feds take an equity stake in Mopar in exchange for a portion of the proposed $25 billion, and will forego claiming Chrysler profits until the loan is paid off.
 
Nardelli slipped in a couple of references to his 15 months at Chrysler. He's not going to be the scapegoat, obviously: "Immediately on the separating from Daimler in 2007, and being new to the automotive industry, I recognized the need to question and sometimes change the status quo, and seek significant opportunities to improve performance throughout the business."
 
"Thanks a load for bringing all that up," said Rick Wagoner. Well, no, he didn't. That's a joke. After outlining the number of jobs the industry could lose, the GM chairman/CEO, the much more likely scapegoat of all this, said that "many people have a picture of GM that has not kept pace with our progress."
 
He cited a 23-percent/$9-billion cut in annual structural costs in North America since 2005, a cut from $18 billion to $6 billion in U.S. hourly labor costs from 2003 to 2010, the favorable 2007 United Auto Workers contract and huge savings in pension and retiree health care costs.
 
And Wagoner talked product. "On the product side, we're building vehicles that consumers want to buy ... like Cadillac CTS, Motor Trend magazine's 2008 Car of the Year, and Chevy Malibu, the 2008 North American Car of the Year (an award from a group of unaffiliated auto writers).
 
"What exposes us to failure now is the global financial crisis, which has severely restricted credit availability, and reduced industry sales to the lowest per-capita level since World War II."
 
Ford Motor Company CEO Alan Mulally said much the same sort of thing, touting the new Ford Fusion Hybrid making its debut Wednesday at the Los Angeles show, and replacing large SUV production Friday with "fuel-efficient small car production" at its Michigan Truck Plant. Ford has not claimed the type of financial hardship that has plagued GM and Chrysler, but Mulally said his company Tuesday also would submit its application for its share of the loans, which Congress has not yet approved.
 
"As a result of all our actions, we were profitable in the first quarter of this year and well on our way to sustainable profitability before the economic credit crisis hit," Mulally said. "We have taken decisive action to deal with this new reality. We have cut production. We have further reduced employment. We have eliminated raises and bonuses for 2009.
 
"We took these measures while protecting the new vehicles that will secure our future."
 
So near, yet so far, the year 2010.
 
Are these arguments convincing?