Dan Neil’s April 2005 review of the Pontiac G6 ended by calling for fresh blood at the top of GM. His comments triggered the GM advertising boycott that inspired TTAC’s General Motors Death Watch. As you might expect, the Pulitzer-prize winning carmudgeon has a few things to say about GM’s bankruptcy. But I bet you wouldn’t have guessed that GM’s most famous (and talented) nemesis would mark the occasion by suggesting that failing to fully support Al Gore’s bid for the U.S. presidency was the company’s ultimate undoing. No really. Writing in the LA Times, Neil claims that “by backing Gore, who had the support of organized labor, GM would have gained enormous goodwill with the United Auto Workers, goodwill it desperately needed as it attempted to downsize in the new century. Gore also argued for universal healthcare, a program that, had it become reality, might have relieved GM and the other domestic carmakers of that burden . . .
A Gore administration also would have raised fuel economy standards for carmakers and instituted a significant tax on gasoline; either move would probably have blunted GM’s continuing and foredoomed reliance on the full-size truck and SUV market. As it was, the board’s pro-business patricians actively opposed the Gore candidacy. The irony is that the Big Government Democrat might have saved GM from the eventual ignominy of bankruptcy and government ownership.
Ironic indeed, in the traditional sense of marking the discrepancy between expectation and anything remotely resembling reality. Equally lamentable Neil is one with the GM company line that it was well on its way to a product-led turnaround when cruel fate intervened.
In the midst of turning the ship around, GM hit not one but three icebergs: the sudden collapse of the U.S. auto market, the sharp spike in gas prices and the crisis in credit.
Luckily, Neil then sails back into better charted waters—exploring the effects of GM’s bureaucracy on its ability to do, well, anything. And then he really runs aground.
Neil believes, as many do, that GM will emerge from the bankruptcy process “smaller, leaner, smarter and hungrier.” But where is the evidence for that assertion? Common sense? “Bankruptcy’s purifying fire will burn away debt and, as important, a legacy of comfortable arrogance.”
Listening to Fritz Henderson speak today, talking about how “natural attrition” will do all the necessary executive housecleaning, I call bullshit.
The only thing that’s going to get rid of GM’s arrogance is a complete dismantling of the management and the ejection of the UAW. Bankruptcy is only going to serve the purpose of removing and restructuring of some of the debt. When the smoke clears, I feel like it’s still going to be business as usual at GM. That doesn’t really spell success for me.
You think there were auto experts before… just wait, now everybody now knows how to fix the problem. But there is not better solution then the current administration’s policy, keep throwing billions and billions and billions and billions :) at the problem, that will show them!
They’d rather die than surrender their arrogance. So I don’t see the arrogance going away as long as GM is around.
It is not a lack of a government funded national health care for retirees or current workers that is the problem. Medicare is available for retirees and Toyota pays for the health care of its US employees too. The problem is the health care of GM’s retirees, which is back breaking, far exceeds the readily available free health care which is medicare. The retirees simply don’t want medicare. They want their gold plated private heath plan. A universal US government sponsored free (paid by taxes) national health care system will do nothing to change this.
GM will emerge from bankruptcy “hungrier”… for more tax dollars to subsidize its foolishness, most notably the Aveo II and the Volt.
“Burn away debt” = burning a hole in the taxpayers’ wallets. Wish it were so simple, Dan.
“GM hit not one but three icebergs: the sudden collapse of the U.S. auto market, the sharp spike in gas prices and the crisis in credit.” Funny how no other automaker experienced those ‘icebergs’. I guess GM is just a hapless victim.
Anything remotely supportive of Al Gore and his policies is insane. Period.
Wow! That is one crazy guy. Algore defeated man-bear-pig, so I guess he could take care of GM, cereally.
I agree with the first part and dang it was so crazy it might work. Prez Gore.
The last part about GM emerging better and the bureaucracy being humbled, no effing way.
“The job of the bureaucracy is to perpetuate the bureaucracy.” – Dr. Peter
Dan’s right about the products, though. Why does everyone have such a problem with the idea that GM can (and does) build decent cars? They aren’t all Hondas, mind you, but the CTS, CTS-V, Traverse, Enclave, Vue, Malibu, Corvette, Cobalt SS are surprisingly good vehicles. — Aaron
It might be a good time to review GM’s Mission Statement. Check out the last part.
“G.M. is a multinational corporation engaged in socially responsible operations, worldwide. It is dedicated to provide products and services of such quality that our customers will receive superior value while our employees and business partners will share in our success and our stock-holders will receive a sustained superior return on their investment.”
GM is toast. If you have a government job; you know why. Lots of standing around cause “someone else will take care of it”.
GM only has one vehicle on the drawing board: The Volt.
GM only has what they currently make and at the current(high) prices.
Somehow, in someway sales are just magically going to double and triple? People are running out of their houses to buy a new GM vehicle?
Nothing new, just new management. Same people, same products, same culture. Waste endless dollars shooting bullets and wasting fuel in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now spend money keeping the doors open and lights on at GM for how long?
If those troops in Iraq/Afghan come home this year, next year, 5 years, or ten years from now; The point is: they will come home. Now or later? Trillions later or now to save money. Oh yeah; the government doesn’t care one bit at this point about saving ANY money. They just print it as they need it.
I love Dan Neil. He is my current all-time favorite automotive writer. He is witty, smart and insightful about a host of automotive topics and hat’s off to him for actually writing what he thinks about the G6(and is probably true) and the LA Times for the balls to stand up to some advertisers, for awhile anyway.
Now that the the fawning is over, I think he’s dead nuts wrong on this issue. Since when did taxing gasoline to help justify overpriced eco-weenie shitboxes solve anything. I do agree that only Fritz has lost his arrogance at GM, the culture wont change and the business plan wont work. The only people with more arrogance these days is Uncle Sam.
I’d like to respectfully disagree with Dan Neil that electing Al Gore would have been better for GM, because Dan Neil is batshit crazy.
Every elitist is an expert on telling companies what to build, but more importantly, making sure “other people” only are allowed to spend their money on products elitists consider appropriate.
We are entering a very dark time for American business – another decade of misery brought on by bureaucrats that think themselves arbiters of how others should spend their money.
Well, Dan sure liked the Corvette. Maybe that blinded him. No, seriously.
He is inspired. I have professional envy. I don’t have time right now to read the piece you are alluding to, so it’s hard for me to judge. At the same time, it’s hard for me to imagine the General doing anything right except for the Corvette. So, I have to wonder what’s eating Dan. But I’ve been disappointed by H. sapiens before. Almost all of them are flawed. If it weren’t so, ancient Greek theater and modern literature would be pretty boring. But I think I’m digressing.
Let’s just conduct a simple thought experiment, shall we?
How much more fucked could the UnitedSuckingstates be with a guy who perhaps didn’t invent the internet but was right there at its commercial beginnings?
Al Gore is a visionary and that’s why he is a laughing stock in the country of dwarfs, imbeciles, midgets and morons who cannot find their freaking capital on the map. In fact many of them don’t even know it’s Washington D.C.
America’s image is not worth shit in the world. The only thing that keeps the country afloat is the irrational belief of the world’s investors that Americans are not as stupid and reckles as they have repeatedly demostrated for the past 40 years. Yes, Americans you can still rejoice, you’re not the most stupid group of people on Earth; international investors can best you any time of the day by a mile or more. But how much of a consolation is it?
ra_pro:
Just for the record, Gore never said he invented the Internet. That has been extensively documented as a politically motivated smear.
But I agree he is a visionary. While he may go over the top and appear sanctimonious at times, he also:
• spearheaded Congressional funding of the original Internet,
• rallied the country around climate change,
• courageously was the first major politician to say publicly what others in both parties were too dumb or afraid to say: that after we “won” the Iraq war, we’d be stuck with an irredeemable mess; and
• took the lead in getting his party into the 21st century in mass communications by setting up Air America as a counterpoint to right-wing talk radio (a deft political move, whatever your politics — even if it didn’t make money, it hatched Rachel Maddow and other star spokesmen for his viewpoint).
I have no problem at all believing Neil’s comment that a Gore presidency would have saved the future of GM… the same way it would have saved thousands of soldiers’ lives, our civil liberties and our nation’s economy.
Hope this doesn’t get banned as a “partisan” post. I’m not the one who brought politics into this thread; just providing counterpoint.
Like many of us Dan probably softened his cynicism when he became a Daddy.
GM stopped fully funding its pension obligations years ago. Gold-plated or not, this had the effect of increasing their obligations and eventually forced them to pay for current and future obligations simultaneously. Stupid.
Moving to universal healthcare would have enabled GM to limit future pension obligations, thus reducing legacy costs. This would have been a valid issue worth negotiating with the UAW.
Neil is right if (very big if) Gore would have been able to get universal healthcare passed and cafe standards addressed early in his first administration, say by 2002. Otherwise it would have been too little, too late.