Obama fires GM CEO!!!!

BPSCG said:
Let me see if I got this right:

Bush signed off on a Detroit bailout in December - what was it, $84 billion? - that was supposed to tide them over until March, when they'd have recovery plans ready for his successor to approve. Because in December, we all knew that Detroit bankruptcy would be disasterous.

Today, government controls GM and Chrysler, and it looks like they're going to go bankrupt anyway.

So instead of letting them go bankrupt in December, for free, we're letting them go bankrupt in April, for $84 billion. I'm glad my tax dollars were spent so carefully.

Is that an accurate assessment?
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No. Had we let them go bankrupt in December, it would not have been "for free". Every automotive assembly plant in America would have shut down, including Toyota, Honda, BMW, etc. That would not have been "free" to the US taxpayer.

I don't know how long it would have taken to get them started up again, whether it would have been weeks or months, but they would have shut down.
 
Puppycow said:
Wagoner could have declined and let the company declare bankruptcy instead (he would have been out then anyway).
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Would he have been out? He was Chairman of the Board. Who would have fired him?

Of course, if the company had been liquidated, as was possible, he would be out of a job, but so would the rest of the company. He and the other execs could still have cleaned out the cash register before shutting off the lights.

By any measure, his tenure has been a complete disaster for General Motors. If performance were an issue, he would already have been gone.
 
Meadmaker said:
By any measure, his tenure has been a complete disaster for General Motors. If performance were an issue, he would already have been gone.
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A lot of industry people disagree with this assessment.

http://money.cnn.com/2009/03/29/news/companies/motor_world.fortune/index.htm

But, if Wagoner had retired on January 1, 2008 instead of March 29, 2009, he might have been remembered as one of GM's greatest leaders.

Without fanfare, he negotiated an historic agreement with the United Auto Workers to reduce the burden of pension and health care costs and to make its hourly labor costs more competitive.

He was also in the final stages of the consolidation of GM's North American operations after a century of balkanization. At last, what was then the world largest auto company would be able to leverage its global scale to become cost- and efficiency-competitive.

None of this was accomplished easily, or without the shedding of thousands of blue- and white-collar workers. But through it all, Wagoner retained the respect and loyalty of the vast majority of GM's enormous workforces.
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He spent years trying to clean up the messes of those who went before him.
 
Puppycow said:
Hey, I actually remember that episode. :)
IIRC, it was top heavy and rolled over too easily (never owned one myself).
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Nothing to do about being top heavy, the CJ5 short wheelbase (tight turning radius) and high ground clearance made it ideal for off-road, yet "60 Minutes" and "20/20" turned these assets into liabilities by showing their test drivers making idiotic maneuvers on the street to get the vehicle to roll. NHTSA ruled CJ5's were not defective. But the damage from these shows caused the demise of the CJ5 that was a popular seller for three decades. Jeep Cj5's had roll bars since the 1970's and the current Jeep TJ's and YJ's have them.
 
Upchurch said:
You don't got this right.
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Please point out the wrong parts. Seriously. 'Cuz this isn't very helpful. When the president of the United States can order the president of GM to quit, why is that not controlling GM?

Meadmaker said:
No. Had we let them go bankrupt in December, it would not have been "for free". Every automotive assembly plant in America would have shut down, including Toyota, Honda, BMW, etc. That would not have been "free" to the US taxpayer.

I don't know how long it would have taken to get them started up again, whether it would have been weeks or months, but they would have shut down.
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Based on your earlier post on this subject, I believe you would say the same thing if they were to go bankrupt today. So a bankruptcy in December wouldn't have cost any more than one today, in terms of the ripple effect (and you made a compelling case for that, BTW), and it would have cost a lot less in terms of how much taxpayer money got shovelled into the furnace.

In any case, bankruptcy doesn't necessarily mean cessation of operations. Bankruptcy does not always mean liquidation.
 
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BPSCG said:
Please point out the wrong parts. Seriously. 'Cuz this isn't very helpful. When the president of the United States can order the president of GM to quit, why is that not controlling GM?
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Sure. In fact, I enjoy being helpful so much that I'll go back in time and highlight the wrong parts in my previous post when I wrote it.

**straining with effort**

Whew. There ya go.

To be proactive, I'll go ahead and highlight the word you got wrong this time, too.
 
Upchurch said:
Sure. In fact, I enjoy being helpful so much that I'll go back in time and highlight the wrong parts in my previous post when I wrote it.

**straining with effort**

Whew. There ya go.

To be proactive, I'll go ahead and highlight the word you got wrong this time, too.
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Thanks for the correction. I understand better now. Now I know the stockholders and the board of directors of GM control the company's fate.

</sarcasm>

ETA: Why don't you use the "strike" function to correct the sentence?
 
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Just to be extra super helpful, I used my Wayback machine to grab a pertinent piece of information from the early days of this thread. It may seem archaic from today's standards, but maybe it will help you understand how you don't got this right.
applecorped said:
The Obama administration asked Rick Wagoner, the chairman and CEO of General Motors, to step down and he agreed, a White House official said.
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I know Democrats are always wrong in BPSCGland, but see if you can spot the subtle difference between what you wrote Obama did and what applecorped wrote Obama did.
 
Upchurch said:
Just to be extra super helpful, I used my Wayback machine to grab a pertinent piece of information from the early days of this thread. It may seem archaic from today's standards, but maybe it will help you understand how you don't got this right.

applecorped said:
The Obama administration asked Rick Wagoner, the chairman and CEO of General Motors, to step down and he agreed, a White House official said.
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I know Democrats are always wrong in BPSCGland, but see if you can spot the subtle difference between what you wrote Obama did and what applecorped wrote Obama did.
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You understand that the "asking" was in the same vein as Vito Corleone making someone "an offer he can't refuse," don't you?

"Resign or you can kiss off all hope of GM's getting any more Obama Luckybucks."
 
BPSCG said:
You understand that the "asking" was in the same vein as Vito Corleone making someone "an offer he can't refuse," don't you?
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:rolleyes:


BPSCG said:
"Resign or you can kiss off all hope of GM's getting any more Obama Luckybucks."
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You missed a few steps, like how the original bailout money was conditional on GM getting its act together or how GM didn't get its act together.

But, by all means, paint Obama as a mob boss and erode your credibility even further. You've already demonstrated that your principles will change on a dime depending on which party is in power (and then disappear when called on it). Will you also prove to be deliberately obtuse by oversimplifying a complex situation just because a Democrat is involved?


I'm none too hip on Wagoner stepping down, but these paranoid fantasies of Don Obama are just silly and counterproductive.
 
BPSCG said:
You understand that the "asking" was in the same vein as Vito Corleone making someone "an offer he can't refuse," don't you?

"Resign or you can kiss off all hope of GM's getting any more Obama Luckybucks."
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So, if someone asks you for a business loan and you demand a business plan from him, you are oppressing him?

No wonder our industrial base is in the toilet, if this mindset is typical of American capitalists.
 
leftysergeant said:
So, if someone asks you for a business loan and you demand a business plan from him, you are oppressing him?

No wonder our industrial base is in the toilet, if this mindset is typical of American capitalists.
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Come on Lefty, this is corporate welfare at its finest. Do you really support corporate welfare??? I'm sure if I look into the wayback machine I can find a post of yours to the opposite.



PS When GM goes under 2.00 per share I'm buying a few thousnd shares. Just because. Just because what? Just because that's too cheap to pass up. They are not going to let GM die.
 
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Upchurch said:
:rolleyes:



You missed a few steps, like how the original bailout money was conditional on GM getting its act together or how GM didn't get its act together.

But, by all means, paint Obama as a mob boss and erode your credibility even further. You've already demonstrated that your principles will change on a dime depending on which party is in power (and then disappear when called on it). Will you also prove to be deliberately obtuse by oversimplifying a complex situation just because a Democrat is involved?


I'm none too hip on Wagoner stepping down, but these paranoid fantasies of Don Obama are just silly and counterproductive.
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Which all brings us back to my original point. Instead of giving GM billions of dollars back in December, which everyone knew would not save the company, the Bush administration should have told them it would help them work through an orderly bankruptcy that would allow the company to continue operating and re-emerge stronger and better able to compete. Instead, they were given a candy-coated poison pill to swallow, and four months later, we're in exactly the same position we were in December, only $84 billion poorer.

Wagoner's record, as best I can understand, was something of a mixed bag. It doesn't seem to me he deserved firing; he managed to make substantial cuts in GM's costs, got the UAW to give up a lot of its benefits. He was probably perfectly competent to see the company through bankruptcy, something is successor, Henderson, is going to do anyway. Once you file for bankruptcy, your fate is pretty much in the hands of the bankruptcy judge. What was Obama's point in firing him?
 
The Painter said:
PS When GM goes under 2.00 per share I'm buying a few thousnd shares. Just because. Just because what? Just because that's too cheap to pass up. They are not going to let GM die.
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No, wait until they file for bankruptcy. Seriously. While they're in bankruptcy, buy on bad news out of the bankruptcy court,, sell on good.
 
BPSCG said:
It doesn't seem to me he deserved firing; he managed to make substantial cuts in GM's costs, got the UAW to give up a lot of its benefits. He was probably perfectly competent to see the company through bankruptcy, something is successor, Henderson, is going to do anyway. Once you file for bankruptcy, your fate is pretty much in the hands of the bankruptcy judge. What was Obama's point in firing him?
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Right, he screwed the workers and did nothing to end the absurdity of severance packages for maggots of his ilk. Which means that the surviving work force is no longer able to as greatly stimulate the local ecconomy in Detroit as the fat cats are to stimulate the ecconomy in Cabo San Lucas.

Brilliant. A real patriot.

Hope he chokes on his retirement.
 
leftysergeant said:
Right, he screwed the workers and did nothing to end the absurdity of severance packages for maggots of his ilk. Which means that the surviving work force is no longer able to as greatly stimulate the local ecconomy in Detroit as the fat cats are to stimulate the ecconomy in Cabo San Lucas.
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Yeah...what will all those Union workers do with their 70/hour wages and their 20 year retirement programs. :rolleyes:
 
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