Readers will already know that I'm no big fan of General Motors or its cars, but you've got to hand it to Kirk Kerkorian for seeing great value in a company that many of us believe could not be jump-started with a nitro methane enema. Kerkorian has offered a very substantial premium to buy up to 28 million shares of the automaker's stock, notwithstanding the fact that Wall Street has treated them like plutonium since around January. It's no secret that the only place the firm makes money is in its GMAC finance division. To most of us that sounds like a pretty good trick, considering that GMAC has resorted to 0% loans to move big Chevvies off the lots. Perhaps, as the old joke goes, their strategy is to lose only a small sum on each loan but to make it up with volume. Whatever the case, it's likely that Kerkorian sees GMAC as an asset that can be sold to cover at least part of the $1.5 billion he would have at risk. He already owns about $680 million worth of GM stock and was once Chrysler's biggest individual shareholder, so the guy is not exactly a babe in the woods as far as the auto business goes. At 87, Kerkorian would seem less remarkable flying off a cornice at Squaw Valley than he does trying to wrest operational control of the world's largest auto manufacturer. He undoubtedly has a sufficient grasp of the numbers to be confident that he's going to come away with a profit. But one wonders whether Kerkorian-style cost cutting alone can turn GM around. The company has been offering incentives of up to $9,000 just to cajole buyers into choosing a Suburban over a Toyota Sequoia, but even this huge price differential is barely doing
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