How
 

does a company go from not posting a profit since 2004, getting tons of concessions from workers, and a bailout from the government and then turn a 4.7 BILLION dollar profit in 2011??

gas or mortgage company? :smash:

You talking about GM ?
If so because of the bail out their insane union was broken as should happen to lots of unions in this country, starting with all state employees, police,fire, school teachers ect.......
Add all insane sports unions to that list also, MLB, NFL,NBA, NHL

I took a small paycut.
Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device

I took an 8% cut in FY 2011 and they want another 5% in June for FY 2012.

Isn't that the NEW american business model?
Waste capital on poontang, parties and pipedreams and then tell your employees that THEY have to take a cut because the profits are gone.

Small companies or large, in most cases if you cut out the wasteful spending and nepotistic hiring (you know, uncles, aunts, nephews, second-cousins twice removed.....from a bar) then maybe profits would be disappearing like a fart in the wind?

Can someone confirm this ?
I was told GM has only paid the goverment some interest back of the 50bill given to them in the goverment bail out and not 1 penny of that actual 50 billion

you have to be careful interpreting headlines and what really is happening. Since the economic downturn, the media and pundits are blasting out all kinds of financial headlines. As an Accounting major, I spent 3 yrs in college learning to interpret financial statements and its not as easy as a one line headline. Profit has a definition and needs to be understood. For a simple example - think if you spent every penny you made in 2009 to buy a new business. Your income would be nothing - however, you'd be "worth" more do to your investment.

I don't know what company you are talking about but here is a possible explanation to the question you asked. the company could have been investing - laying out money now, for potential future benefit. This could be new factories, new products, services, etc. So in 2004 they could have been spending tons of cash, thus, low profits. If the market turned around in 2010, they may have reaped the benefits of their investment. For example if this is GM, they could have spent tons of $ on producing cards in 2009 and shown a huge loss. If in 2010 they sold the cars, they could show a profit. This is way more complicated accoutning wise and I am oversimplifying