Get in line, bub. Still, it’s nice to see GM’s CEO not get credit where credit’s not deserved. The Wall Street Journal is the bearer of bad tidings for the Wagoner clan, delivering Red Ink Rick’s pink slip in the most public of manners. Yes, “people familiar with the matter” of the GM – Chrysler merger reveal that Cerberus wants some “fresh air at the top.” Anonymous sources are breaking out all over, and it’s an endless row of shot glasses full of not good for GM’s current management. “Cerberus and other investors who pump money in the new entity would want to keep significant equity and have the ability to appoint members to its board and influence its management, these people said. Cerberus’s position suggests GM could be in for a shakeup of the nonconfrontational culture that has developed between its 14-member board and its management team, led by Chairman and Chief Executive Rick Wagoner.” Noconfrontationalsmytuches. How about clinicallyinsane? So who’s going to steer this new ship of fools?
“Options for who would lead the combined company include Mr. Wagoner, GM Chief Operating Officer Fritz Henderson and Chrysler Chief Executive Robert Nardelli,” the WSJ opines, leaving TTAC’s Best and Brightest off the list. TTAC’s Deep Throat reckons current GM COO Fritz gets the CEO job, Wagoner goes away and Nardelli becomes Chairman of the Board. Yeah, that’ll work.
Nobody’s saying Rick W. is the man with the plan, but does Cerebus seriously think they know better? I mean, after all, their company is on a cataclysmic free-fall…
Blind leading the blind indeed.
The choices above as good as current presidential slate: worse and dumber.
This doesn’t make any sense. Isn’t the reason they are doing this merger so GM can keep the heads they have at the top right now. They should just do Ch11 rather than merge the 2 stupids if their not going to be in power either way.
This slow motion train wreck is getting interesting, I wish I had some popcorn and snow caps.
Robert you should get started on a screen play, this is going to to be one hell of a blockbuster hit when Hollywood gets a hold of it.
Wranglin’ in ‘ole Wagoner.
Nardelli? Big ouch.
I actually prefer Wagoner to most alternatives. But at this point his days might truly be numbered.
I hate to agree with Iacocca because he does a lot of grandstanding… but I think he’s right: where have all the leaders gone?
GM et. al. need the equivalent of those nanny-reality shows on tv: someone to come in, make hard decisions, implement some discipline, and get back to the business of making desirable cars at a profit. Nobody that’s currently in the exec ranks of GM or Cerberus seems to be up to that task.
Sadly they’ve waited SOOOOOO long that it is all but moot now.
re: “Robert you should get started on a screen play, this is going to to be one hell of a blockbuster hit when Hollywood gets a hold of it.”
Redbarchetta,
Nice thought, but this cluster is too damn unbelievable to be made into a movie.
Tex
Redbarchetta,
Nice thought, but this cluster is too damn unbelievable to be made into a movie.
Tex
I wouldn’t bet on that, though. I mean, a Wall Street sequel is in the works. How believable is the current state of financial affairs?
Greenspan just admitted that he overestimated the banks’ and markets’ ability to self-regulate. If a psychiatrist said that he “overestimated a drug addict’s ability to self-regulate”, he’d lose his license immediately.
Aaaah, the times we live in.
The choices above as good as current presidential slate: worse and dumber.
Autonut: You are joking, yes? Because despite their faults, the current candidates are some of the strongest we’ve been offered in decades…..
Steve Miller
After his bang up job of successfully taking Delphi through bankruptcy and turning it into a viable, profit-generating, entity, he would make the tough decisions that are requi….what? What’s that? Oh….nevermind.
One week to Hallowe’en. A week and a half to E-day. Where’s GM’s 3rd quarter report; did I miss it?
If this is going to happen – they don’t have much time.
I read the article early in the morning, i was so happy when i read that they would want Wagoner to be out, but as you read it they say that Fritz will most likely replace him. He is one of Wagoners YES men, so GM will not really turn around.
It’s like replacing Bush with Cheyney.
In a equitable world Wagoner would end his days living in an 1800 sq. ft tract home in a Flint suburb on $5,000/month + SS. Better than many GM workers and investors will do.
Capitalism has done more to raise the standard of living for the average man than any other system.
The excesses and mismanagement by inbred executives and Boards of Directors of these last 10 years will do more to cripple capitalism than any competing social system could achieve.
Redbarchetta : Robert you should get started on a screen play, this is going to to be one hell of a blockbuster hit when Hollywood gets a hold of it.
I’m thinking along the lines of “The Smartest Guys in the Room.” The GM clusterf*** makes Enron look like a going out of business sale at a local furniture store.
I’m thinking along the lines of “The Smartest Guys in the Room.” The GM clusterf*** makes Enron look like a going out of business sale at a local furniture store.
Or it could be made into a series like Dynasty. It’s lie a real life soap opera will all of our money. Add some creative license for the sex and murders and people would be hooked. Better than the crap reality shows and rehashed movies recently. Just look how hooked all of us are to this stuff.
Maybe they should file for bankruptcy and offer the top job to the number two man at Honda, offering him half the stock in the company.
Either that or organize a seance and channel Demming’s spirit…
Nardelli? What place does that guy have in the auto industry? What the hell has Chrysler done under his watch. Other than these recent cuts can anyone point to a specific initiative he undertook? Wagoner sucks but he certainly is a much better option than Nardelli, and thats really saying something. Also hiring Fritz would be the same thing as just keeping Wagoner.
What about Wolfgang Bernhard? Its a shame he’s too smart to take that post.
The excesses and mismanagement by inbred executives and Boards of Directors of these last 10 years will do more to cripple capitalism than any competing social system could achieve.
Excesses and mismanagement are what capitalism is all about. The thing is, full, free-market capitalism allows things to get really bad before corrections happen, and the corrections are truly unpleasant.
Rick and his equivalents have been chasing short-term profits for years, and now they’re paying for it. This is the market at work, and it’s a pity that their mistakes are going to steamroll a lot of ordinary folk who have little or no fault other than they draw an income from the auto industry.
Just to clarify: capitalism is an economic system, not a social one. People forget that. The social system you speak of is “democracy”, which can be, but doesn’t have to, hand-in-hand with capitalism.
Thought Rick would be gone in August. Arguably the main issue is finding someone who is both capable, and willing to replace him.
Michael Karesh :
I actually prefer Wagoner to most alternatives…
Then you haven’t been looking hard enough.
I say this with all due respect, of course.
ZOOMZOOM–LOL, i guess 16bil in North America alone Wagoner loses is not enough for Karesh.
Read “Wreck of the Penn Central” by Joseph Daughen and you’ll find out how this one turns out.
Same scenario a weak company and a weaker one merging and then managing to take both of themselves out in the biggest bankruptcy at the time (1970). A really boneheaded idea!
to psarhjinian :
Rick and his equivalents have been chasing short-term profits for years, and now they’re paying for it
No they aren’t. Workers and Investors are paying for it. Rick and his equivalents will do just fine. Might have to downgrade from a G5 to a Cessna Citation but they will make do.
Just to clarify: capitalism is an economic system
You are correct. I just didn’t want to use the S word. IMO, as a reaction to the current excesses, the political process over the next couple of years will result in the US economic system looking a lot more Socialist than Capitalist. The problem with that is as Churchill said “Under socialism misery is shared equally”.
This kind of news makes Ford look like the eventual survivor in Detroit.
At least Ford acknowledged that the talent within was lacking and hired a guy with a track record of turning a broken industrial culture around.
GM/Cerberus? Let’s replace one GM-spec accountant with another and possibly give a guy who nearly screwed up the unscrewable (Home Depot) the keys to the candy store.
Hire someone, anyone with vision and a plan… please!
The problems within GM are bigger than just replacing the CEO. There are many layers of management that have that flaud GM thinking and unaccountablility. Just look at mikey’s comment on the post about turning out the lights.
Unless a really smart and rather ruthless leader replaces Rick and is given the power without question to shitcan anyone and everyone who stands in the way of fixing what needs to be fixed, at the same time doing huge structural changes within the company. Add to that doing it in a declining market, where they need revolutionary products yesterday and they have no money to make those major changes and develop these products and you can see it’s a losing battle for anyone who takes that job. And then they are going to make it 10 times more impossibe by adding Chrysler’s managarial mess and bad culture, and debt, and lack of money, etc.
If Ford can fix their company culture and weather they storm they will be the last man standing, and pretty damn powerful for doing it. I just hope GM’s demise and utter ineptitude doesn’t take $100 billion of our tax dollars to the grave with it.
volvo:
‘The problem with that is as Churchill said “Under socialism misery is shared equally”.’ – The socialism that Churchill was talking about was really Marxist Communism, not the progressive taxation and calculated regulation that is now given that label by people with no knowledge of history or economics, and the politicians attempting to manipulate them.
Here is part of a speech that the modern right would label as socialist class warfare:
“We grudge no man a fortune in civil life if it is honorably obtained and well used. It is not even enough that it should have been gained without doing damage to the community. We should permit it to be gained only so long as the gaining represents benefit to the community. This, I know, implies a policy of a far more active governmental interference with social and economic conditions in this country than we have yet had, but I think we have got to face the fact that such an increase in governmental control is now necessary.
No man should receive a dollar unless that dollar has been fairly earned. Every dollar received should represent a dollar’s worth of service rendered—not gambling in stocks, but service rendered. The really big fortune, the swollen fortune, by the mere fact of its size, acquires qualities which differentiate it in kind as well as in degree from what is possessed by men of relatively small means. Therefore, I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes, and in another tax which is far more easily collected and far more effective—a graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, properly safeguarded against evasion, and increasing rapidly in amount with the size of the estate.”
The speech was given by John McCain’s biggest hero, as stated in the 2nd debate, Republican President Theodore Roosevelt.
Despite all the fear about Chrysler, Reuters reported today that the Dodge Viper division had a number of bids, and that no more are being taken.
So take heart, RWD’ers, what may be the ultimate RWD car may live on for yet another day.
Redbarchetta:
Robert you should get started on a screen play, this is going to to be one hell of a blockbuster hit when Hollywood gets a hold of it.
As a full length film, I have my doubts about it working. However, Trey Parker and Matt Stone might make it work as animated feature.
Or, get HBO and David Simon together. Instead of “The Wire”, they could do “The General”. Or “The Car”. Or “The Waggoner”?