Andy I must have really shook ya up... your post looks horrible. I can hardly cipher it out!
I was tired and didn't proof read. It's also possible I mistakenly thought the /color was a /quote. In either case, I would have assumed that most rational people would realize that the smurfy colored text wasn't mine, given you are the only one that habitually colors his text blue.
Why I would think you would recognize your own text, is an embarrassing case of over estimating you. I shall redouble my effort to lower my expectations.
I am generally for the Unions. Still am! I don't always agree with everything but I see them as important in many instances. I wasn't for breaking the Union and letting everyone on the management side just continue to rake it in as usual. It wasn't the Union making the unwanted cars. They build whatever they are told to build. Americans started going to other brands for one simple reason... they felt they were better. THAT'S FREE MARKET!
So in your world, being the number two highest selling auto company on the planet, and being number one for (what... 80 years or so?) is making cars people didn't want?
There is only two things, as far as I can tell, that GM management has done drastically wrong. First, they signed bad union contracts. I would have shut the place down, sent all the union boys home, and hired anyone who agreed to work for whatever was profitable. They didn't, and they lost.
Second, they asked for, and accepted government money. For that, all the management should lose their jobs, not just Rick Wagoner. Like I said before, I love it when idiots who work with government, get screwed over.
But if a company like GM can survive and be profitable again by cutting repetitive and self competing brand lines it is reasonable that this would entail some downsizing of staff.
There's nothing sinister about that. It's a way to save the lions share of GM jobs and not have GM go completely OUT OF BUSINESS!
Why is GM going out of business so bad to you? Do you understand what is going to happen in a very short time? GM is going to lay off the vast majority of it's workers. The same thing that would happen in bankruptcy court. GM is going to can the legacy costs imposed on them by Unions. The same thing that would happen in Bankruptcy court. GM is going to close a bunch of plants and dealerships. The same thing that would happen in Bankruptcy court.
In short, what you are saying you don't want them to do, is exactly what they are doing. The only difference is, they sucked down billions in government taxes, that your daughters children are going to have to pay back.
Remember Bear Sterns? One of the first bailout banks? $29 Billion given to Bear Sterns. Why? Because we can't have them GO OUT OF BUSINESS! Of course.... THEY WENT OUT OF BUSINESS! Was it so bad? No, most of the profitable parts of the business were simply bought out by JPMorgan Chase. The unprofitable parts were of course dumped. Which would have happened if they had not gone out of business.
GM would have done the same thing. If bankruptcy court put them on the chopping block, they would have sold all the still profitable name plates to someone else, while the dead weight would have been axed. Just like what's happening as we speak. The only difference is, this socialist stupidity is going to make the next generation suffer to massive debt this idiotic policy is going to cost us.
I've always been fine with GM offing their repetitive brands. I thought Hummer was a suckers bet and I never understood their lackadaisical approach with the Saab brand nor did I think it made any sense to start a whole new company calling it "Saturn" and not just build the best Chevy's possible!
Since neither of us are in a position to know the reasons behind their actions, I would assume our opinions are just that. Beside, I wager neither of us own voting stock in GM, and thus have no real reports on the choices being made, and why.
That said, Saturn is doing pretty well. Why they didn't just make better Chevys is a bit irrelevant now. If you want to take the job of CEO of GM, and try and build a better car, by all means. Might give you a new perspective on the hard choices management has to make.
The whole thing in the past was about breaking the Unions and doing nothing about the real reason GM was losing market share and not limiting exorbitant executive pay abuses.
Ah, and in your world, cutting a bunch of name plates, closing dozens of plants, laying off thousands of union workers... is doing something about losing market share?
Given your high marks for Hybrids (while not buying one yourself), GM followed that plan and made a bunch of hybrids. Now that gasoline has dropped in price, hybrid sales have sunk like a rock. Clearly your plan for GM would be a failure.
What President Obama is doing is trying to keep GM from being a distant memory, maintain as many good paying jobs as possible, make sure executive pay is not exorbitant for a company begging for bailout money and hoping to see America build a lot more cutting edge cars again with style, technology, gas mileage etc.
Yeah, we see how well government controls CEOs with Freddie and Fannie.
The Stock holders have stock in BASICALLY NOTHING if President Obama had just let the company fail. If the Government is propping them up then it should have some say on the companies future direction.
Not so. Once again, you don't seem to get the basics of bankruptcy. It is a very rare thing that a company files a Chapter 7. In a chapter 7, the company simply closes down, shuts everything off, and the court liquidates whatever assets there are, and pays off all debts as money permits.
That almost never happens. What's more likely, is a Chapter 11, in which case, the company normally ends up bought out. Bear Sterns didn't file chapter 7, but rather 11. and was bought out by JPMorgan Chase. People who had stock in Bear Sterns, now have stock in JPMorgan Chase.
Same with Enron. People were shocked and amazed that stock prices for Enron started rising after the bankruptcy. Well yeah, they sold out to another company. Those stocks were converted to the new company, and then Enron was dismantled. But the stock holders are just as happy.
No doubt, if GM does go bankrupt, the same will happen with them. Stock holders will simply have their stock in GM converted to whatever company buys them.
I am constantly amazed by how little you know, even while being a business owner. Didn't they teach you anything at OSU?
If not it's just another Bush giving money "NO STRINGS" to Wall Street! That was ridiculous...
Yeah, not at all like Obama releasing the other $400 Billion in TARP money........
It's just a shame you can't see that saving GM so that the majority of Union workers will still have some jobs and can care for their children is the goal here.
When their children are suffering from 50% taxes under the $20 Trillion in debt your government has racked up, I'm sure they will all be simply ecstatic at your noble goal of saving GM.
And by the way, just like how Bailout money didn't help Bear Sterns, GM's new CEO, after the prior one was kicked out by Obama, has openly stated Bankruptcy might still be required. So what has all the bailout money done thus far? Nothing.
