In his selfless campaign to save Detroit from, uh, Detroit, Senator Christopher Dodd launched a failure-seeking missile at GM. Needless to say, it had GM CEO Rick Wagoner’s name on it. “You’ve got to consider new leadership,” Dodd told “Face the Nation,” referring to GM not CBS (one presumes). Dodd said Red Ink Rick “has to move on.” Now get this: “GM spokesman Steve Harris said he didn’t interpret Dodd’s comments as making Wagoner’s exit a condition for aid, adding that the company management, employees and dealers ‘all feel like Rick is the right guy to lead us at difficult time.'” Is “difficult time” the opposite of “playtime?” And how else would you interpret Dodd’s remark? When the Senator said, “piss off Wagoner” he actually meant “please continue running GM into the ground so we can blow $15b+ of our taxpayers’ money on this doomed enterprise?” And if Harris really didn’t get the message– a completely fantastic proposition, but there you go– President elect Barack Obama offered NBC dark hints about Wagoner’s curtain call…
“Asked on ‘Meet the Press’ (hihowareya?) whether the management of the [bailout begging] automaker should be allowed to stay, [Obama] said ‘it may not be the same for all the companies.'” What’s the bet none of the CEOs involved are imitating donkey’s response to Shrek’s request for volunteers to confront Lord Farquar (i.e Oh! Pick me! Pick me!)? And just in case Obama’s comment was too straighforward for the electorate, Obama added the appropriate qualifiers at a Chicago press conference.
“Obama said that if the management team “that’s currently in place doesn’t understand the urgency of the situation and is not willing to make the tough choices and adapt to these new circumstances, then they should go. If, on the other hand, they are willing, able and show themselves committed to making those important changes, then that raises a different situation.”
Oh for NSFW’s sake. Has this guy ever met a fence he doesn’t like to sit on? Meanwhile, Dodd said sayonara to the smallest of the Big 2.8. “Chrysler, is, I think, basically gone, probably ought to be merged.” Meanwhile… “The last thing I want to see is the auto industry disappear,” Obama said. Translation: not fade away. You know, entirely. Yet.
“You’ve got to consider new leadership,” Dodd said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” Wagoner, he said, “has to move on.”
Right. And now if the voters of Connecticut would just apply that principle to their own exemplar of rectitude…
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/congress_autos
You have to love the response from GM
In response, GM spokesman Steve Harris said the company appreciates Dodd’s support for the loans, but added, “GM employees, dealers, suppliers and the GM board of directors feel strongly that Rick is the right guy to lead GM through this incredibly difficult and challenging time.”
Why Why? is this a pyramid scheme with Rick the keystone that keeps it from collapse? IE we lose our jobs so support him till we die.
In the ocean of the privileged and ignorant, it is fun to watch the old maxim of there always being a bigger fish.
In the case, of GM, he is right. Wagoner has presided over the destruction of so much market share and shareholder wealth, it’s obvious he doesn’t have what it takes to fix the mess.
The gods are angry. The ritual of human sacrifice must be enacted.
there was a study done which showed that 68% of people who are incompetent don’t know that – i guess Rick would be proof
The clown that heads the Senate Banking Committee is calling for new leadership, classic! Was he looking in the mirror when he said this?
I’m no fan of Rick Wagoner but this is the epitome of pot calling the kettle black. These elected fool’s do more damage in a day than the the boy’s in Detroit could ever do in 100 years of trying.
Dodd is right — Wagoner has to go. I don’t get why some of the commentators are taking pot shots at Dodd for taking a stand. Clearly GM hasn’t been listening to anyone in the business world, so perhaps it will succumb to pressure from the political realm.
In presidential-speak, Obama has shown his cards. If GM doesn’t get the hint then it’s pretty darn stupid.
I still don’t get why the GM board has rallied around Wagoner so unwaveringly. It’s almost like a religious cult. More Koolaid, anyone?
I’d also give Dodd credit for acknowledging that Chrysler is dead. That shows more perceptiveness than Automotive News’ editorial page. Speaking of that bastion of the auto industry, if it had been doing its journalistic job for the last decade The Collapsed Three wouldn’t be in such bad shape. Automotive News has enabled an awful lot of really bad industry management.
Too bad the wave of bankruptcies hitting the news media haven’t apparently reached niche outfits like Crain (yet).
The current situation is actually the best scenario that could happen for Wagner personally.
Huh? Why you say that? Think about it.
If the economy continued strong and robust… GM would still be in a – albeit slightly slower – death spiral augering in towards total ruin.
It’d take longer… maybe 6 months, maybe 12, perhaps a year and a half, but they’d still end up right where they are now… peering into the abyss of total ruin.
Except there’ be no excuses…. Wagner’s (and BOD’s) collective incompetence would be exposed for all to see in a strong economy.
Wagner will (willingly or unwillingly) fall on his sword shortly, parachute to Boca, blame it on the economy, and have lots of severence bucks and a decent amount of sympathy among the mainstream for being such a noble “team player” and for “taking one for the team”.
….ain’t gonna get no better ‘n that for the Rickster.
If Senator Dodd is El Jefe, and Rick Wagoner is Alfredo Garcia, who will be Bennie (Warren Oates’ character)? The holder of the office of the President Elect? We all know what happened to Bennie.
Fact is, Rick Wagoner is everything we think he is, namely a boorish, xenophobic, disconnected patrician with a grating personality in public. Kinda like Nixon, but without the blue collar chip-on-the-shoulder.
Politicians, being expert on exploiting other people, detect this about the guy. Its why someone like Carl Levin keeps his relationship with the Wags on the down-low but politico folks outside of Michigan like tearing into him for a photo-opp; Wagoner’s easy meat.
Note that the Senators couldn’t score easy hits on the petro-CEO’s when they were getting McCarthy’ed over the “outrageous profits” of those halcyon $3 a gallon days way back in….June. I know this because there is no poster-boy of Evil Oil in the Zeitgeist. Most people have no idea who runs XOM. That’s probably because the CEO’s of the big petroleums are competent, articulate people who really know the oil business and can articulate that in a public forum, even under criticism from political hacks. This leads to no easy sound-bites for either the Senator to make, or a verbal caricature of the CEO making a mockery of himself in the public record. No fun for Dodd there.
Wagoner though, that’s easy money.
I hate to sound like a moron, but WTF does NSFW mean? I am seeing it in article after article and I still haven’t been able to determine what it means based on context.