Well, well, GM CEO Rick Wagoner had a little chin wag with the boys over at Automotive News [AN, sub]. “General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner says GM’s financial distress is so dire that it must line up financial assistance from Washington before President-elect Barack Obama takes office in January. ‘This is an issue that needs to be addressed urgently,’ Wagoner said.” And that’s just for starters. “Now is the time to ‘overshoot, not undershoot; when it comes to assistance for the auto industry,” Wagoner pronounced, revealing that he’d rather be safe than sorry with your money. Makes sense to me, in a “TTAC earns a rep writing Gneneral Motors Death Watches” sort of way. In exchange for the money, Rick’s “willing to offer the government preferred stock, set limits on executive compensation and speed the introduction of fuel-efficient vehicles.” How… beneficent. And last but not least, Wagoner reckons the man who’s steered GM straight into the iceberg is the best guy to, uh, keeping ramming the ice. “Wagoner said he is not prepared to resign in return for government aid. ‘I don’t think it’d be a very smart move,’ he said.'”I think our job is to make sure we have the best management team to run GM. It’s not clear to me what purpose would be served…'” Love the ellipsis guys! Did Rick’s voice really trail off into silence? Nice touch.
Find Reviews by Make:
Read all comments
Un*Be*Liev*Able
Why does the word “dildo” come to mind…..
Or did he mean he won’t resign for “bailout Buicks”?
Wagoner said he is not prepared to resign in return for government aid. “I don’t think it’d be a very smart move,” he said.
This coming from a man with an unbroken string of stupid moves.
abso-FREAKING-lutely clueless!
DweezilSFV:
If I were a dildo, I’d sue you for slander!
Tex
Well, it wouldn’t be a smart move for HIM obviously.
Off topic question: Is is feasible to have GM NA declare bankruptcy or even liquidate and still continue operations in the rest of the world? I figured someone here must know.
Aruba Baby! Look, this worldwide recession is offering some nice opportunities to expand one’s beach front on some very select properties. To resign prematurely might entail being forced to cut back on such plans. Besides which, resigning would impact the availability of unemployment insurance. “Hm, come to think of it, that is a nasty paper cut, and hauling around all these excuses, er, responsibilities, is killing my back. Hey, Shirl, call L&I, stat!”
His own statements prove that he’s living in the ether at the RenCen. The real question is…if you were a private investor (dumb enough) to invest yet-untold billions into GM, would you keep Rick Wagoner as CEO?
WOW, impressive. Even the ruling party has to step down for poor performance; and Wagoner and his minions are “the best management team” at a time GM sales dropped 45% YOY.
GM’s CEO is willing to “set limits on excutive salaries and speed the introduction of fuel efficient vehicles” Of course items they should have done a long time ago, but will promise to do so if they get piles of taxpayer money. This from a guy who has made $100 million dollars in the past six year while his company has lost over $60 billion?
Geez, someone wake me up with reality returns to America.
Picture says it all – these guys are leaders of failing companies. You’d think they wouldn’t have much to smile about. Maybe they’re thinking of new ways to spend the money their hand-picked boards have awarded them for their truly outstanding on the job performance.
http://images.encyclopediadramatica.com/images/f/f9/Epic_Ultimate_Facepalm_of_Epicness_Two.jpg
I wonder if the shareholders can sue Red Ink Rick if/when GM shares are worthless. Can they? Fill me in here.
The captain always goes down with his ship.
I like how he’s going to offer the government shares of preferred stock, so after the government is done pouring money into GM, and they STILL go under, they can be left holding worthless pieces of paper.
Why should Rick resign and give up all his perks, his million dollar remuneration package, his G5. He’s the best guy for the job, backed by a management team with a track record for results, and a pro active board of directors.
After pounding the company into the ground, and pounding the shareholders into the ground, now its the turn of the taxpayers to get pounded.
Hopefully if the government with taxpayers money shows up at the door, part of the conditions for the money is that Rick, his buddies, his board of directors take a very slim and austere package doing like the chickens and Flocking OFF.
A sane board of directors on hearing that statement would promptly dump Rick on the chance that doing so would actually facilitate the arrival of some bailout bucks.
I hope Obama is hearing this.
If that’s Rick’s case then he probably just doomed GM.
Well Rick m’boy, you won’t step down and let a fresh team take over then you can kiss your billions of bail out cash bye bye.
Please, please, please, get the Jaws of Life, a blowtorch, and whatever else it takes, and forcibly remove this contemptible piece of refuse from the company.
It’s as if the only thing that Wagoner cares about is his own job. If that’s the case, then put him to work on a chain gang, and let him devote his energies to turning large rocks into small ones. Absolutely, positively revolting.
willing to offer the government preferred stock, set limits on executive compensation and speed the introduction of fuel-efficient vehicles.
Does that mean no multimillion dollar bonuses or no more paycheck for the execs? How can they be speding up the introduction of these cars no one is going to buy anyway they have practically killed everything except the Volt. Or do they mean we get them when you originally said which is still about 5 years too late. Pathetic weasel.
“Wagoner said he is not prepared to resign in return for government aid. ‘I don’t think it’d be a very smart move,’ he said.’”I think our job is to make sure we have the best management team to run GM. It’s not clear to me what purpose would be served…’”
I want whatever pot this guy was smoking right before he said that because it has got to be some good sh*t that puts you in an alternate universe. The best management team to run GM wouldn’t be in this situation and asking for our tax dollars to save their ass, and only save it for a very little while longer since they are very screwed at this point. He’s not prepared to give up his big pay check and power, this has nothing to do with being a smart move. The smart move would be to toss his ass in prison and let him rot. If you are running a company that is “too big to fail” and can hurt the economy so badly running the company into the ground and American economy along with it should make you criminally responsible. Automatic jail time if you are a f*ckup, and the time should be directly related to the money and damage to the company and economy, something like 10 years would serve Wagoner right.
You want the big payday and to run a company that holds so many people’s lives in the balance put your freedom on the line. He needs to have all his wealth stripped away from him along with the prison time.
Why? Why does Wagoner want to continue to lead GM? After 10 years it can’t be the power. That has to be old hat by now. Surely he isn’t delusional enough to think GM needs him, and he’s already appointed his clone as COO. His legacy is firmly set and a bailout will only affirm it. I’m sure a movie demonizing him is already in the works. He’s already got more money than generations of progeny could ever spend. He’s also getting on in years.
What the hell is it that keeps him there? Either he is completely insane or he truly wants to destroy GM.
What the hell is it that keeps him there? Either he is completely insane or he truly wants to destroy GM.
I can only assume that he is so clueless that he truly doesn’t see the role that he has directly played in the company’s demise.
Surely, he must be in denial over the whole thing. It must be quite overwhelming to look in the mirror every day and see the face of the person who destroyed one of the world’s largest corporations.
Paging Roger Penske…..
Mr Roger Penske please pick up the white courtesty phone…..
Um, you’ve done enough Rick.
Really.
I say we hire the lowliest mail room intern from Honda to take his place.
He has got to be F..ing kidding. It causes me physical pain every day I come into work, check the Holden intranet and find he hasn’t been sacked or resigned.
Well, that does it for me.
I no longer see any reason that the Feds should put one thin dime into GM.
Let ’em go down; the sooner the better.
BTW, if I were the Bush administration I’d say “Fuck them. Their employees never vote Republican anyway; why should we loft a finger for them?”
“I think our job is to make sure we have the best management team to run GM. It’s not clear to me what purpose would be served…”
Perhaps the ellipsis really was Ricky’s voice trailing off, as he finally realized that, when we talk about the need for effective leadership at GM, we’re saying that he hasn’t provided it.
Dark Shadows
Jim Dollinger
Monday, December 12, 2005
WAKE UP
On a sweltering summer day, an old man went down into a cool cellar for some relief. The moment he entered, he was blinded by the darkness. Don’t Worry, said another man in the cellar, it is natural that when you go from light to darkness, you’re unable to see. But soon enough, your eyes will grow accustomed to it, and you will hardly notice that it is dark.
My dear friend, replied the old man, turning to leave, that is exactly what I am afraid of. Darkness is darkness, the danger is convincing your self that it is light.
As I said everyone should wake up as each day goes by Wagoner is piling dirt on the exit from the cellar. I.E. everyone is in they dark, they just think it’s light.
If given the reins of Chryslerbus or GM as I have previously volunteered for, I too, will not resign for bail-out bucks (unless said bucks are copious enough for me and my solid gold parachute to bathe in while cackling maniacally).
The problem with the gov’t insisting on changes to the BOD or in the executive suite is that that would truly be tantamount to nationalizing GM. Loans or even a non-voting equity stake isn’t nationalization, but I think a border is crossed when the gov’t starts exercising control. Perhaps something akin to an appointed receiver or Temporary Special Fiscal Agent who makes personnel decisions would be enough of an arm’s length arrangement but the gov’t directly telling GM execs they have to go would be problematic.
When undergoing a paradigm shift, who do you get to take you across? In other words, back when we went from horses to cars, did you trust charioteers and saddle makers to build your automobile engines?
Rick’s management team is clearly the best they’ve got, and totally unsuited for the task at hand.
Is is feasible to have GM NA declare bankruptcy or even liquidate and still continue operations in the rest of the world?
If I remember correctly, this is what Delphi did. Of course the top GMers have proven their utter inability to plan effectively, but surely they’ve developed a plan for BR; or not.
In any case, the fate of CEOs of bailed out banks etc. has been the stuff of juicy news articles. Here’s a link to a rather brutal write-up on Dick Fuld of Lehman. God how I’d love to see something like this re. Wagoner; but it’d have to be a big book with lots of pages and small print.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aZ1syPZH.RzY&refer=news
“”Now is the time to ‘overshoot, not undershoot; when it comes to assistance for the auto industry,” Wagoner pronounced.”
If Obama reads that, perhaps he can direct his bailout people to neither under or over shoot, but hit the target dead on. Why bother with near misses?
As for all the hand-wringing going on about nationalization: ever heard of adapting your tactics to reality? It’s hardly business as usual out there. Things are falling apart in all areas of the economy.
At the very least, some hard-nosed government accountants need to get in there and look at the real books and fast, before ANY money is handed over. Offering the government preferred shares for bailout money? If I were on that team, I’d pretend to not even hear that. “You think there’s a negotiationgoing on here, Wagoner? You must be shitting me! Go out and get a coffee until we need to talk to you and tell you what we’re willing to do, take it or leave it!”
This is serious shit, and American taxpayers should expect some really tough bargaining from their representatives, not namby-pamby debates about whether this is nationalization, socialism or other perceived diminution of the American way of life. The government guys should give Wagoner all the respect he deserves — none. And get on with the business of maybe saving jobs, if that’s possible given the circumstances.
Wagoner is destined to fall, the sooner the better. That’ll be a sweet day for small time GM investors and for all on this site who know how truly incompetent he is, but even so, that satisfaction will always be tempered by the knowledge that he ruined GM.
Read up on how the US government ran business in WW2. It was dictatorial, and it worked during exceptional circumstances, and nobody complained. I don’t want to be reading here in six months at the beginning of a real depression that the bailout was too lavish and wimpy. The current business model is not working, period. Outsourcing on the one hand, and companies rife with labor whose ideas are firmly welded to the 1950s on the other. It’s shakeout time, folks. Farting around with philosophical ideas does not cut the mustard.
Whatever’s to be, it’s time to get on with it.
“Wagoner said he is not prepared to resign in return for government aid. ‘I don’t think it’d be a very smart move,’ he said.’”I think our job is to make sure we have the best management team to ruin GM. It’s not clear to me what purpose would be served…’”
Fixed that for ya.
Those three guys sitting together is a revulsive picture. WTF are they doing, flirting with each other while everything goes to hell?
If it were funny, I’d make a crack about them using the bailout money to get a room…
But it’s just disgusting, seeing them all jovial and frittering away time and opportunity.