I just wish they went chapter 11 about 8 months ago instead of loaning them billion of $$ that was essentially pissed away. The filing was appropriate and needed. What I don't like is the fact that us, all of us, now own 70% of GM. Remember, the government does nothing well, and they definitely will not know how to make a company like GM profitable.
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I had a few hours to spare this morning so as a new GM car owner, I paid close attention to the details of the filing and the "get healthy" plan. I was glad to see the UAW finally step up and realize that they had stepped on the snake's neck for far too long. At the last minute they realized that they were actually placing the livelihoods of about a million people at risk and cooler heads prevailed. I'm okay with Pontiac and Saturn closing, as well as Hummer, Saab, and Opel being sold off, but I'm a little concerned about the spinoff of Opel / Vauxhall when the linchpin of their success strategy is the production and sales of small cars... exactly what Opel in particular specialized in. I would have been happier to see more small car models coming to the US, and for God's sakes can we please get going on a strategy for diesel?!?!
I was also glad to see the Canadian government step up and help.
I was also infuriated by someone calling into NPR's Talk of the Nation, claiming that GM needs to fail and we should have put the $50 billion into rail and public transport. Some people still have no concept that you cannot take what works in European *cities* and apply it to our entire nation. They have countries the size of states over here. It just does not work on our scale, and these people think that just because they can walk from their 4th floor walkup on the Upper East Side to a Starbucks a couple blocks away and surf the web on their iPhone that the whole world should work that way. They have no clue. The caller actually said that we are deranged for thinking that it is okay for each person to have a car.
Sure Chrysler appears to be coming out of bankruptcy at a near-record pace, but lets not lose sight of the fact that GM is far larger and far more complex. I heard on Bloomberg today, that GM has over 400,000 **contracts** open with suppliers. IBM has 400,000 employees. It should be said that the government bought a non-voting majority stake, and no, the President is not the new CEO. The government won't even be participating in decisions such as opening or idling plants. It will be interesting watching the CEO and board of directors of "old GM" operate collaborate with and run in parallel to the CEO and board of the "new GM".
They say the new point of profitability will be the 10 million unit sales mark. I'm sure there will be plenty of talking heads over analyzing the quarterly sales reports, talking about failure of the plan halfway through the first quarter post-filing. I was also intrigued by Ford's move to ramp up production with a ridiculously wide potential range of 400,000 to 10,000,000 units!!?!?
Anyway. It has been a long news day on this front. What's done is done. All we can do now is work to get our money back, by working towards the success of the new company. I will be interested in seeing how much of Fritz's board will come along with him to the new company -- or even if Fritz will survive the move. Either way, I like how he says "hi" to each reporter asking questions at press conferences
I was also glad to see the Canadian government step up and help.
I was also infuriated by someone calling into NPR's Talk of the Nation, claiming that GM needs to fail and we should have put the $50 billion into rail and public transport. Some people still have no concept that you cannot take what works in European *cities* and apply it to our entire nation. They have countries the size of states over here. It just does not work on our scale, and these people think that just because they can walk from their 4th floor walkup on the Upper East Side to a Starbucks a couple blocks away and surf the web on their iPhone that the whole world should work that way. They have no clue. The caller actually said that we are deranged for thinking that it is okay for each person to have a car.
Sure Chrysler appears to be coming out of bankruptcy at a near-record pace, but lets not lose sight of the fact that GM is far larger and far more complex. I heard on Bloomberg today, that GM has over 400,000 **contracts** open with suppliers. IBM has 400,000 employees. It should be said that the government bought a non-voting majority stake, and no, the President is not the new CEO. The government won't even be participating in decisions such as opening or idling plants. It will be interesting watching the CEO and board of directors of "old GM" operate collaborate with and run in parallel to the CEO and board of the "new GM".
They say the new point of profitability will be the 10 million unit sales mark. I'm sure there will be plenty of talking heads over analyzing the quarterly sales reports, talking about failure of the plan halfway through the first quarter post-filing. I was also intrigued by Ford's move to ramp up production with a ridiculously wide potential range of 400,000 to 10,000,000 units!!?!?
Anyway. It has been a long news day on this front. What's done is done. All we can do now is work to get our money back, by working towards the success of the new company. I will be interested in seeing how much of Fritz's board will come along with him to the new company -- or even if Fritz will survive the move. Either way, I like how he says "hi" to each reporter asking questions at press conferences
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