Commentators criticize GM’s executives for being “out of touch” and “detached from reality.” Nonsense. Reuters reports that GM’s COO (and CEO in waiting) spoke the truth before jobbing journos at the opening of a $200m production plant in Talegon, India.  Yes, after revising its ’08 sales estimates gently downwards– twice– and talking about an “economic recovery” at every possible opportunity,  Fritz Henderson has finally admitted that GM’s biz is on the skids all the way into ’09 [as stated above]. In fact, it’s so bad that he might even stop saying the rest of the world is enough. “The most important thing we can do is to turn around the North American business,” Fritz  pronounced. Unfortunately, old habits die hard. Henderson returned to Ye Olde developing countries Spin. “We see greater consumer resilience in emerging economies. We expect growth in China, India and other emerging markets will continue.” Nick Reilly (another GM executive) rogered that. “We are on track for full-year profit growth in Asia despite the hit we took in Q2.” Characteristically, Mr Reilly didn’t state a time line for this recovery. But GM’s got big plans. Forbes reports GM’s new Indian plant can crank out 140k units a year. With The General’s total regional sales running at about 72k units p.a., they’ve got some work major ahead of them. Either that or a shitload of surplus production capacity.