When I’m not busy boning-up on Mustangology on Autoblog (c’mon guys it’s been TWO DAYS!) I sometimes trace-back links to TTAC material. Today’s forensic surfing uncovered this little gem on MarketWatch. It’s a financial results press release from a company called CableOrganizer.com, claiming that they made “$21.2 billion more in profit than General Motors Corporation (GM) for the nine months ending September 30, 2008.” Yup, it’s a joke. “‘We are very pleased about our 2008 profitability and are obviously honored to have beaten GM by such a wide margin,’ said Paul Holstein, senior vice president of CableOrganizer.com, Inc. ‘Obviously we couldn’t match their revenue, but we were able to beat them handily on costs and expenses,’ notes Holstein. ‘For example, we put off buying a fleet of Gulfstream G5 private jets. That, right there, saved us millions of dollars.’ I called the company’s Marketing Coordinator, Juan Ribero. He was kind enough to send me the original press release, before MarketWatch’s editors toned it down.
“Mr. Holstein claims that he has not been contacted by anyone at GM to help them run the company and did not indicate if he would, in fact, take the top position at GM if it were offered to him. However, he hinted, ‘I’m sure I could lose far less than GM in my very first year. In fact, I’m pretty sure my 6 year old daughter could do a better job than GM’s current management.’ He added that she probably wouldn’t ask the Federal Government for a bailout either.”
While I appreciate the humor, this marks a new low for GM. The American company that was once the world’s largest AND most profitable has been reduced to the butt of jokes by the office water cooler. How the mighty have fallen.
I wonder if your last sentence will make GM a symbol of the US as a whole. I sure hope not…are we (or will we) becoming more humble in the world? GM sure hasn’t.
Lord, I’m starting to sound like a Pinkie. I better stop listening to NPR in the AM.
I LIKE that company.
Since the only other alternative to NPR is Fox News, I’ll stick with NPR.
You have to wonder if GM is really that massive a company that just one head of the organization isn’t enough.
Sad, sad, very sad…
That was great. My son is 7 and I’d offer his consulting services for $50k a year. He saves his allowance and doesn’t spend it all on candy and Pokemon cards.
GM has been a joke for a very long time
Funny, but a pretty low blow. I wouldn’t trust this guy as a businessman any more than Rick Wagoner.
A six year-old with a proven track record managing a lemonade stand might be an improvement.
If Wagoner sold lemonade, he’d have a stand on all four corners of one intersection, the attendant would get $75 an hour, five other attendants would get the same pay for not working at the stand, there would be 18 different varieties of lemonade offered that all looked the same, every glass of lemonade would be sold for less than it cost to produce, and the lemonade would be sour.
It’s funny…I was recently watching an old episode of Top Gear (the used Italian Supercar Episode). When they were tallying up the total score, James had -99. Clarkson remarked “…You’d have done better if you hadn’t bought a car.” It seems GM would’ve have done better if they didn’t have a company.
Really, The Big 2.8 talking heads and the UAW failed to realize one thing. If you play chicken and nobody flinches, the result is a head collison. Now, everyone is hoping Congress has got a fire extinguisher and some bandages. Even a child knows a car crash will hurt. But, like impetuous teenagers, everyone thought they were invincible.
While this is a low blow and the grandstanding about private jets is pointless, I think everyone in Detroit needs a little more humility.
@ Cicero: …and warm.
Ha! I imagine you can do this a few times before it gets old, although it would be entertaining to watch GM become the baseline for perceived value (“Save up to 0.05 times the GM net value when you purchase from Acme!”)
Also, you’re right about AB’s obsession with the Mustang. It’s really not that great a car to warrant the attention.
I love Jay Leno’s comment:
“The three big domestic automakers are now saying they are working jointly on a new hybrid car. It runs on a combination of state and federal bailout money.”
(sys ate my prev. comment??? -reposting.)
The 2.8 and their captains need to be the butt of More jokes, not less.
I like the old-timey Illustration-style of Political Cartoon Effigies, such as:
Rockefeller and Teddy
We need more like this for the current crop of idiots. Besides, they’re similar to the Robber-Barons.
-In an Idiot/Savant, standing-on-the-shoulders-of-giants,
-and then taking a big dump on things, kinda way.
Gentlemen, it is very entertaining reading. And we better enjoy ourselves here with jokes, because we will be forced to pay for GM entertaining value (and Chrysler and Ford).
Too much cash changed hands from unions to respected senators, for senators not reach into our pockets and return some favors to their patrons.
That’s pretty funny, but totally inappropriate for a company press release. But I’m sure it got more media coverage by including GM as the butt of a joke.
Sad times for GM, indeed.
Sajeev Mehta: “That’s pretty funny, but totally inappropriate for a company press release.”
Oh, I think what’s inappropriate is when a company pays dividends even when it has no profits. Kind of like a bank that pays you a handsome rate of interest by subtracting it from your CD’s balance. When GM and its ilk began doing that it should have set off fire bells.
50merc, you are so right.
Companies pay dividends in lean years because the market treats eliminating dividends as a VERY big deal. Granted most companies who do that have at least the reasonable expectation that they’ll get profitable again.
Not only is Rick Wagoner making himself look bad, not only is he making GM look bad, frankly he’s making Harvard Business School look bad. Would you trust a Harvard Business School grad? I for one wouldn’t. They’re grades are inflated and so are their egos. One of the only things it seems they’re taught is to believe success is their birthright. After all, they’re in “Harvard Business School” right?
If you think they are joke on the outside you should see what we say on the inside.
And, generally they suspend dividend payments if they are actually losing money. Companies that continue paying dividends in lean years are companies that are still making a profit, just not as great of a profit. Dividends are a stockholders share of the profits and are suspended when a company stops being profitable or sometimes simply when profits drop below a certain level.