The New York Times introduces 31-year-old Brian Deese, a near graduate of Yale Law School, as President Obama’s pick to re-shape General Motors—and American capitalism along the way. As a special assistant to the president for economic policy, he was pretty much the only full-time member of the Presidential Task Force on Automobiles from November 4 through mid-February. He comes to the job with no automotive experience, or business experience, or much experience at all, if you put his resume up against the insanely vast and critical task before him. Making him perfect for the job. Maybe a real outsider is just what the General needs. Deese seems to have earned the president’s ear with competence. By all reports, he sees the challenges of GM’s tumble holistically, in terms of the effect on the economy in general, Medicaid and unemployment insurances in the specific, and understands the political ramifications of every thing he eats, reads or wears from here on out. No one older than 31 would want this job. And you’d be hard pressed to find anyone younger. So he’s perfect.
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Judge Arthur Gonzalez has approved Chrysler’s asset sale to Fiat, reports CNN Money, moving Chrysler closer to emerging from bankruptcy. Is it a coincidence that we are learning that the ChryCo bankruptcy is going swimmingly on the very day that General Motors files for bankruptcy protection? Probably not. It’s highly likely that everyone involved wants there to be only one automaker in Chapter 11 by the time a fresh batch of congressional hearings on the bailout (that was incidentally inspired by the fear of multiple, cascading auto-sector bankruptcies) roll around on Wednesday. Because nobody likes to look that foolish.
GM was a politburo building cars. GM died for the same reasons that the Soviet Union died: because it killed initiative and proved unable to manage its resources at a pace that matched competing economies. Just as the Soviet politburo promoted the party faithful, demanding adherence to the party line, GM management brooked no discontent, and would get rid of any dissenting voices, banishing them to the corporate equivalent of Siberia: away from RenCen. The Soviet Union destroyed itself because of its unwillingness to accept reality. Spending untold billions on a show military force, it starved all other facets of its economic life. The Soviet leadership also accepted incredible inefficiencies in its production apparatus, and failed to exploit its vast reservoir of natural resources. Ditto GM.
“Today,” writes GM CEO Fritz Henderson at his firm’s Fastlane Blog, “marks a defining moment in the history of General Motors.” And it’s true. GM has literally been skidding towards this day for decades. And though June 1, 2009 should have come years ago, it seems that there’s one possible benefit to its long, expensive delay. In this blog-driven year, GM knows that it can’t expect public largess without giving up some corporate privacy. That, or as a publicly-owned institution, GM is now subject to the Freedom Of Information Act. Either way, our tens of billions of tax dollars have bought American taxpayers an opportunity. An opportunity to webchat. Again.
[Reprinted from Pravda.ru] It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American decent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.
My wife and I are among the few remaining newspaper readers. She peruses the ‘Living’ section, scouring every square inch for coupons. I just look for deals on motor oil. Sometimes my eyes will wander around to cheap tires or the latest headlight cleaning shtick. I despise cheap tires and God knows cleaning Chrysler headlights is far from my list of to-do’s these days. But finding a great deal? That’s what I live for. At least when it comes to eliminating any future purchases. For those of you seeking the frugal nirvana I have two words for ya. Forget retail.
Thanks to our main man, Justin, for providing these documents. History buffs may want to save a copy of this, General Motors’ C11 filing. Beyond that, here’s a list of GM’s assets. Needless to say, after 83 years on the New York Stock Exchange, GM has now been de-listed. “The parlous state of GM has left us with no choice but to remove it from the Dow,” said Robert Thomson, managing editor of the Wall Street Journal and editor-in-chief for all of Dow Jones. “A bankruptcy filing immediately disqualifies a stock regardless of a company’s history or its role as a cultural icon.” Parlous. How quaint. Anyway, Cisco Systems Inc. has replaced the automaker on the Dow 30 Industrial Average, which also punted Citigroup (which will be replaced by former division Travelers).
Stewart writes:
The Jetta sludge issue had me wondering. I hyper-mile my 2003 Jetta TDI 1.9L which, of course, has a turbo. [Side note: if anyone wants to tell me what an idiot I am for mooching along at idle in 5th gear to get 70MPG, feel free to tell me why that’s bad. I am exquisitely sensitive to all the Type A drivers (going 15 MPH over, screeching to a halt at the next red light) and let them go by safely.] I change the oil every 5K miles with the recommended Castrol from the VW dealer. Here’s my question: I make my change just after a run of at least 20 miles and I use a suction pump to get the old oil out, a Pela PL-6000. I’m wondering if, by not draining the oil out the crank case plug, will I have sludge buildup in my Jetta?
Maximum props to TTAC editor Jeff Puthuff for putting this document together. [Click here for pdf] I thank Jeff and all the other TTAC editors and writers for their contributions to our coverage of the U.S. and international automobile industry during the last four years plus. And thanks to all the TTAC commentators who added their two cents to these and other posts, keeping us honest, testing the strength of our intellect. No matter how this auto industry shake-out shakes out, rest assured that TTAC will continue to follow the story with the same no-holds-barred dedication to telling the truth about cars, and those who make them.
How do you write an obituary for an entity that’s been dead for seventeen years? Like that high-school biology frog-leg experiment, GM’s twitching since 1992 was due to externally administered stimuli. Yes, I would have much preferred to write GM’s obit in ‘92. Back then, the guilty party was merely GM’s brain-dead management. It would have been easy just to rag on about all the lame cars they built. But it’s become a lot more complicated and uglier. Now we all have blood (and red ink) on our hands. And it’s not going to wash out easily.
General Motors has filed for federal Chapter 11 protection. Official papers filed in Lower Manhattan court at 7:57 AM list $82.3 billion in assets vs. $172.8 billion in debts. The bankrupt automaker’s largest creditors are the Wilmington Trust Company ($22.8 billion in debts) and the United Auto Workers ($20.6 billion in employee obligations). Judge Robert E. Gerber has been assigned the case. The President of the United States will address General Motors’ insolvency in an official announcement later today. Meanwhile, a Rasmussen poll [via the Detroit Free Press] reveals that only 21 percent of likely voters support government aid to GM. Some 67 percent oppose the Obama administration’s plan to bless the troubled automaker with $50 billion (in total) in exchange for a 70 percent ownership stake in the reconstituted company. “Given a choice between providing government funding for GM or letting it go out of business, most of the respondents (56%) said it would be better to let GM go out of business.”
Here’s a no-no: Michael Moore’s open letter, on this day of GM’s bankrupty, in its entirety, via the Daily Kos.
I write this on the morning of the end of the once-mighty General Motors. By high noon, the President of the United States will have made it official: General Motors, as we know it, has been totaled.
As I sit here in GM’s birthplace, Flint, Michigan, I am surrounded by friends and family who are filled with anxiety about what will happen to them and to the town. Forty percent of the homes and businesses in the city have been abandoned. Imagine what it would be like if you lived in a city where almost every other house is empty. What would be your state of mind?
The companies that operate traffic enforcement cameras scored total victory in the Texas legislature late Saturday as key lawmakers not only ditched a plan to sunset the use of red light cameras and lengthen yellow warning times at intersections, but they also approved a number of brand new opportunities for automated ticketing firms. The ten members of the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) reauthorization conference committee filed the final legislative text for House Bill 300 (click here for excerpts). It cannot now be changed unless either the House or Senate votes to reject the 532-page bill in its entirety. As a result, the proposals will likely become law with the expected signature of Governor Rick Perry (R).
US SecTreas Timothy Geithner quickly got out of DC for the Monday curtain call of the artist now known as Government Motors. Geithner went as far as Beijing to distance himself from the performance. Keeping a distance didn’t mean keeping his mouth shut. From Chrysler and GM, “we want a quick, clean exit as soon as conditions permit,” Geithner told students at Peking University in Beijing. Reuters took notes. “We’re very optimistic these firms will emerge from restructuring without further government assistance.” Strangely, everybody shares his optimism . . .
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