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“These are incredibly unusual times,” GM Chief Executive Officer Rick Wagoner said today at the 100th anniversary celebration of Harvard Business School in Boston. “All the sudden, somebody blows the whistle and credit stops flowing. It really requires you to say, `Let’s think about this business one more time.'” Oh, go on then…
18 Comments on “Quote of the Day: How Unusual Are They? Edition...”
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All the sudden? Seriously? We can’t say “suddenly”?
RF,
“Blood or crip, you decide.” Where do I send the bill for my new keyboard now that I’ve spit coffee all over this one?
Tex
Well, even if credit stops flowing, I am sure that enough cash will be found for Wagoner’s multi-million dollar bonus. Gotta give credit where credit is due!
It’s a truely remarkable time in the auto industry. Some of the old boys around here say it’s somewhat like the early 80’s.
What this market has done however is to amplify the domestics problems(documented faithfully on this site). The imports are having problems too, big sales decreases and such, but they have the cash reserves to drop big incentives on the market. I don’t view Toyota as trying to bankrupt a domestic merely as trying to maintain their level of volume. Nothing would hurt more than manufacturing 9 million cars and only selling 8 million.
From the outside looking in at GM one wonders how they can continue. One wonders what the incentive is to hang on to the way things are/were before deciding something radical has to be done.
Isn’t it “all of a sudden”?
Where have all the GM Death Watches gone? “All the sudden” they have stopped. Is GM officially dead or are the news stories their own Death Watch? Where are the great editorials that drew me to this site a couple of years ago?
Peace Out, Ricky
LOL, if Rick followed the Death Watch more closely, he wouldn’t be surprised. I mean, 200+ Death Watch articles didn’t pop up all of a sudden.
T-O-O-L
He’s not as dumb as he would want us to believe. Makes him an even better poster child for bringing back tar and feathering.
“The imports are having problems too, big sales decreases and such, but they have the cash reserves to drop big incentives on the market. I don’t view Toyota as trying to bankrupt a domestic merely as trying to maintain their level of volume. Nothing would hurt more than manufacturing 9 million cars and only selling 8 million.”
Toyota got stung on the big pickups. They have responded by shitcanning everybody responsible for the debacle. That said, they still make astounding profits, just not as astounding as they did last year. Toyota also did not give up on having an entire line from 1.5 litre up. GM didn’t even play in that market because it was never interested in making cars with such low profits anyway. Toyota and Honda, on the other hand, have always been interested in working on market share, something they have been astoundingly successful at.
Toyota and Honda work on the “pull model” and Detroit on the “push model.” In the former’s cases, the dealers order the cars and the factories build them. Detroit decides how many cars it will build and the forces them on the dealers. When they don’t move, the panic starts and the discounting begins. This is why there are rarely large numbers of leftovers at import dealerships.
Why, oh why, would Harvard Business School invite Rick Wagoner to speak at their 100th anniversary? Hasn’t he presided over a 90% drop in GM’s stock price in 12 months, and brought the company to imminent bankruptcy?
For that matter, how many Harvard MBAs are running Wall Street these days?
Are you kidding me?
“To lead” is being intrinsic for a leader. That means to know where you are going, in what direction, and at least some knowledge of what lays ahead. This crisis did not come “all of a sudden”. Markets fluctuate, there are are high’s and low’s, oil prices fluctuates, and so on. We have been in a high for the last eight years, and Detroit has been churning out SUV:s like there was no tomorrow. The anti-gas guzzling backlash could be seen as early as 2005, or yet before, but wasn’t taken seriously. Even back then, people asked: “For how long could this go on?”.
And those who couldn’t predict this present situation should not lead. They have lost all credibility in leadership. Toyota may experience a 40% sales drop, but they are still in the black. GM wasn’t in the black even to begin with. I don’t believe that Rick Wagoner is stupid, he just didn’t give a shit. They were making hay and didn’t care about tomorrow, because the sun was shining all day long…
“Even back then, people asked: “For how long could this go on?”
I was working for Chrysler at the time. We did not have a competitive entry level product. Instead we got the Humongous Durango with Hemi Power. I don’t think we sold more than a couple. By the time the Caliber was introduced, the dealership was closed.
They should have presented Rick with a T-shirt saying…. “I’m not totally worthless, I can always serve as a bad example”.
Usta Bee: He could wear that “29%” lapel pin, that would actually be hilarious…
By the time the Caliber was introduced, the dealership was closed.
I drove a Caliber as a rental last summer in Minnesota (it spent most of it’s time parked while I canoed over the border in Canada, but still…). I thought it was OK. I didn’t like the restricted visibility in the rear…in particular the vertically-restricted visibility, but that was my only major complaint from the rental. It felt solid at real highway speeds, which is often not the case with “fleet queens”.
I’m not saying I’d buy it…without AWD CalTrans would require tire chains in the Sierra snow, while they wave me past as soon as the see the Subie logo. But it’s decent enough.
Getting back to the subject of Robert’s post…any port, I mean excuse, in a storm…
Can anyone confirm Canucknucklehead’s claim of “push vs pull” (D3 vs Transplants)?
I was not aware of this…but it does seem to make sense, based on how the D3 discounts cars every day of the year, and the transplants don’t.
I like the Caliber with the right wheels. Haven’t driven one and b/c I buy cars at 100K miles I won’t consider a Chrysler product. Don’t know many that last much longer.
Can’t slam them too hard though b/c the Chrysler owners I’ve known were mere mortal consumers and not necessarily the type to really care for their vehicles. Not a comment about Chrysler customers, just a comment about the ones that I know.
Who knows how long they would last given a good owner.
Oh Really? Tell me more…