Surprised not posted already:

http://detnews.com/article/20100812/...medium=twitter

http://www.gminsidenews.com/forums/f...ber-1st-94610/

 

Not good

 

I'll split duties with you.

 

This shouldnt be shocking at all . Whitacre said from the get go , he's out as soon as he felt comfortable GM is on the right path . He didnt want the job in the first place .

 

I'm sure that there's an intriguing back story here which we are not aware of.

 

Well, this will only add fuel to the "Government Motors" fire.

 

meh, and? just buy and drive what you want at this point. ive learned noone is willing to listen to intelligence.

guy did his job, he's out, when's the public sale of gm happening?

 

DeLorenzo will be happy. I think Whitcre did the best job possible considering the situation.

 

I heard this a day or two ago from some friends at GM.

I'm betting there's a background story. I've heard that he was just the same as the old crew "good ol' boys" club at GM that perpetuated the old culture that drove GM to near-failure.

 

Probably has something to do with Carlyle...

 

Whitacre said from the start that he has no intention of being at GM permanently, so I'm surprised (or perhaps shouldn't be considering a lot of the conspiracy sentiment here at everything related to government) at the notion that there's some sinister back story here.

The Feds picked Whitacre because GM had a ferociously entrenched culture of fifedoms whose main purpose of existing was to protect itself insted of doing what was best for the company and make the best product possible. Mr Whitacre has a track record of ripping cultures like that to shreds and getting them to work. He's also a mean SOB as far as expanding companies, to the point of being called before congress to appease fears of creating monopolies. He also seems to love these types of challenges (read his bio... it's pretty telling).

Although GM still has a lot of the same problems it has (read some of the mainstream articles: GM still can't keep track of it's money, and although both GM & Ford are grossing about the same amount of money in sales right now, Ford's making TWICE the profit that GM is making on almost the same revenue.... troubling!), GM is at least headed on the right road. It's right about now that Ed would start looking at ways to take over other automotive companies or start buying up suppliers..... which of course he can't do, and therefore probably feels his work's done.

As far as Akerson goes, lets follow the logic instead of the conspiracy theroies.

1. He was placed as a board member to watch after the taxpayers money and make sure it wasn't frittered away.

2. GM is going to start selling off it's government shares as stocks so the government (that means you & I the taxpayer) starts recovering our money.

3. The guy who was placed there to make sure taxpayer money didn't disappear down any black holes is now going to run the company as taxpayers begin to get their money back.

4. Ed Whitacre, through trial and error (or just plain old experimentation) has placed a pretty strong and enthusiastic team in key positions in vehicle development, marketing, and finance, so the manage ment team is set and is capable of running day-to-day-operations, leaving the new CEO free to focus on the government sell-off of it's stake in GM.

5. The Board of Directors (the same people that signed off on the Z28, unlocked development on the next Corvette, and moved forward on many new vehicles that the old GM shelved and killed off) is staying the same, and therefore no real change is taking place at the top and therefore, GM will continue on the track it's started.


Of course, these points aren't as intertaining, intresting, or as much of a conversation starter than talking about (yet again) some government conspiracy to take over GM and foce us all into electric golf carts. Or some intrigue that forced Ed Whitacre to quit and hand the reigns over to a Fed (who isn't part of the Federal Government, and has his eyes on a private sector job in the future).

However, the truth is rarely as entertaining as the imagination of some.... so let er rip.