http://m.detnews.com/news.jsp?key=591444&rc=top

 

score cards, get your score cards, know the players and the rotation.
Seriously you need a flowchart to follow whose in charge of what somedays.

Oh well, glad he's staying I think.
At least that's one more issue out of the way and I can appreciate his shut-up and get it done attitude, although I imagine most higher ups at GM can't.

 

A non-surprise.

Getting jiggy does not help with going public...

 

Fits perfectly with this.

https://www.camaroz28.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=730631

 

The sooner GM extricates itself from government control, the better....

 

I think this is best option until GM gets the loans paid back. Then they can go after and afford to pay a bigger name CEO to drive the company back to health post bailout.

 

This is from the 15th.....I don't think anyone posted it...


http://finance.yahoo.com/news/GM-adv....html?x=0&.v=3

 

If GM is able to make enough money to pay the government back, and the government breaks even when it starts selling off it's share of GM stocks, it's safe to say that GM's turned pretty frigging healthy.


This idea that the government has stepped and is hindering GM and GM needs to get out of government control so some "white knight" can drive GM to success is much of the same ridiculous nonsense that was being posted just over a year ago when GM had been run hopelessly into the ground and about to drag what was left of the US economy with it.

Reality check fellows.

1. It was highly paid auto industry executives that destroyed General Motors.

2. If it wasn't for the government, GM would have been a buried corpse right now, and many of our friends here who depend on GM to support their families and make a life for themselves would be running out of unemployment benefits right about now, and many would be drawing retirement from US taxpayers at a far greater amount of money (many, many times over).

3. The Federal government has basically created liers out of those who saw this as a government takeover that would have mandated electric cars the size of Smarts for everyone.


Facts are:

1. The new crop of Board of Directors including Whitacre have done an amazing job of doing what so-called auto industry executives seemed incompetent of doing: Making GM competitive and making GM relevent.

2. The Feds have stayed out of managing GM. The German government attempted to get the US government to use their ownership force GM to reverse GM's management's decision not to sell Opel and later not to close plants in Germany. The Feds refused. The Feds have also refused to step in and 2nd guess GM's (and Chrysler's) decisions on closing dealers. The arbitration that's going on now were forced by a group of legislators who were proposing laws to force GM and Chrysler to reopen dealers (with compensation for whatever losses they had). The Feds came up with arbitration as a compromise. Chrysler is taking the entire issue to the Supreme Court.

3. The new Z28 is in route. The Zeta is alive again, and is planned for Chevy dealers in police form in about 18 months and for the rest of us in about 2 years. The Alpha is alive, well, and will be around in a couple of years. All of these were killed off under the old GM, and came back to life in the post-bankruptcy, "government controled" General Motors Company.


Should the government remain in control of GM?

Certainly not.

But the idea that the Feds involvement in GM has in any way been bad is completely assinine.... especially since GM would be dead if it wasn't for the Feds.

Fact is that the government is eager to get out of it's investment in GM. The REAL danger is that the government will sell off it's intrest in General Motors too quickly!!!!

1. If pressure develops to sell off it's intrest and it happens too early, the taxpayers will suffer a loss.

2. If the Feds rapidly pull out of GM and flood the market with GM's stocks, GM's value will plunge like a lead balloon and GM will be back at square one.

3. If the Feds pull out before GM is solidly on secure footing, that eliminates the hammer over things such as the UAW and CAW, parts cost cutting that got GM (and Chrysler in all fairness) that label of building cheap quality cars, and general public confidence that GM will stay around longer than the warranty.


The Feds did what they were supposed to do. Supply money (banks stopped lending GM money years ago) and get rid of the management team that ran GM into oblivion. So far, everything has worked out. GM (while still significantly in debt) now has the ability to dig itself out, the public is buying GM's cars (at least the newly introduced ones), and GM is running far more efficiently than at any time in it's history (or at least the past 40 years).

So in light of all that, it's ironic that as we sit here and celebrate the new Camaro and it's sales success on this website that we still are quick not only to forget how this was made possible, but also still can't get over the reality that those fears of last year never materialized.

In fact, save the initial housecleaning of the General Motors Board of Directors and their CEO, the exact opposite has happened.

The Feds are going to sell off their share of GM.

But you DON'T want them to pull out quickly.

And the notion that some knight will save the damsel in distress makes for good fairy tales, but isn't the reality in this case.


Bit of Trivia:
The Studebaker Motor Company filed for bankruptcy in the early 1930s. It emerged for bankruptcy and went on to become successful even before World War 2 by redirecting their focus from catering to the well off (from the 1920s boom) to less expensive cars the public was buying during the Great Depression. Sounds alot like GM and Dodge being caught flat footed basing their entire business model on a single type vehicle (big trucks & SUVs) instead of a broad based portfolio, and seeing the market suddenly shift.

It was also the 1st automobile company out of the box with all new designs once the war was over. It wasn't until 20 years after bankruptcy that Studebaker ran themselves into the ground, despite starting off fat with cash from WW2.

So.... the notion that an American car company has never emerged from bankruptcy and been successful is false.

 

Well now, I could think of at least one chap who might disagree with you.

 

The gov't telling GM to fire Wagoner was like telling a guy his shoe was untied after he'd already fallen flat on his face!

 

Regardless, it was an instance of direct gov't management of General Motors.

 

Of course. Anyone who thinks that there is not any government influence on what GM does, is not fully teathered to reality. Sure, it won't be advertized and people like "Big Ed" won't publicly admit it, but there is strong influence. From which technologies to pursue, to what kind of cars to develop, to who GM can or cannot hire (if for no other reasons than salary caps).

Like I said, the sooner GM goes private again, the better.

 

18 months? They waiting for the refresh or what? I thought it was going to be shown early this year and available later in '10....

 

I agree.

I also ask myself, If a person like Ed Whitacre can run the company for the money he's paid, why can't other people also take the opportunity to run GM and take them to the next level?

Obviously, big Ed isn't scared if government bureaucracy. It sounds like GM is in good hands with Ed steering the ship. GM probably need more outsiders to fill/replace key management positions.