If there's one group of people within the GM universe who elicits less sympathy than the current management team, it's the legions of loud-talking, loudly-dressed GM dealers. Despite the media's fixation on the corporate mothership, the survival of the world's largest automaker depends just as much on its dealer network's success as any new initiative coming from GM's RenCen HQ. All the flailing and failing in Detroit shows you that all is not well on the sharp end. In fact, GM's dealer network mirrors the automaker's ancient, costly production process: a fundamentally flawed institution in need of radical restructuring. Ah, but who will bell the cat?

Actually, euthanasia would be a better option. It's a little known fact The General's dealer network is roughly the same size as it was forty years ago. Back in the day – when GM owned the US car market lock, stock and double-barreled carbs – The General's network provided a significant advantage to both franchisees and the corporation. (Potential customers were never more than a twenty-minute ride away from their local GM dealer.) Now that GM buyers are increasingly thin on the ground, dealers must squander precious resources warding off "poaching". (Disgruntled customers are never more than a twenty minute ride away from a rival GM dealer.) Internecine warfare for conquest sales is even more damaging, forcing each store to engage in cut-throat pricing and blanket advertising. And that's without considering competition from rival brands, some of which may be closer than they appear…

GM single-line dealers have traditionally relied on solid sales within the lower end of the luxury market. Sales at this price point tend to flow outwards, towards other models sharing the same badge. (Dad buys a nice big sedan; Mom gets an SUV, Junior settles into something a bit smaller and sportier.) As competition has grown fiercer and niches multiplied, GM has launched a wide variety of rebadgineered vehicles to help dealers keep customers within a given brand's fold. The 'everything for everyone' strategy has unintended consequences. It's all well and good for The General if a customer buys a Chevrolet Equinox instead of a Buick Rendezvous, but it's a catastrophe for a Buick-only dealer. At the same time, GM's epic multi-branded line extensions have made the automaker slow, lazy and inefficient. Instead of hitting target markets dead-on with killer products, it's strictly spray and pray.

In short, the size of its dealer network forces GM to make too many (crap) products, which leads to (crap products and) too many incentives. There's only one way to untie this Gordian knot: cut it into pieces and throw away the excess bits. In other words, hundreds of GM dealerships must bite the dust. Terminating a third to a half of GM's existing single-line dealers would be a win-win situation for GM and any dealers that remain. There'd be less internal competition, less feeble product, less confusion in the marketplace, less incentives and less bureaucracy. Oh, and more profit.

Eliminating whole product lines would be the best way to make the necessary change. Of course, killing brands is hardly an "easy" option. Contract law– originally written to stop GM from pushing dealers out of profitable territories– guarantees that the cost of the cuts would be stupendously expensive. Killing more than two thousand Olds dealers cost GM billions. Axing Buick would be at least as expensive; Pontiac even more so. And if both of those brands are killed, GMC may as well go as well. Unfortunately, now that the situation calls for desperate measures, GM probably doesn't have the cash to make it happen.

If and when The General files for bankruptcy, dealercide would be relatively easy. Federal bankruptcy court would offer The General the legal protection it needs to do the deed. Unfortunately, surveys have shown that Americans aren't all that excited about the idea of buying a car built by a bankrupt automaker; a nation of boarded-up GM dealers could make the perception problem insurmountable. No, the only way to trim the dealer fat is to do it now, take the hit and move on. And why– aside from cash considerations– not?

The dealers. No GM dealer wants to be the first store eliminated, or, if GM starts throwing around real money, the last. Give these battle-hardened entrepreneurs credit: they know a thing or two about business. If GM does [somehow] make a comeback, the value of their dealerships will be a significantly greater than the sell-out price. They're hardly likely to "take one for the team". Remember: self-interest built this powerful dealer network. Only self-interest can dismantle it. But time is running out. Unless GM can "bell" this cat before it devours the remaining mice, both the manufacturer and its dealer network face imminent extinction.

I once showed-up for a job interview in the adult film industry. (It was an honest mistake.) Before I bailed, I complimented Mr. Triple X on the spectacular view over the Hudson River. He closed the blinds. "I'm agoraphobic.' When I asked the pornographer why someone afraid of open spaces would chose an office overlooking a large part New Jersey, he said "It's not enough to have a million dollars. People have to KNOW you have a million dollars." The obverse is also true. Losing $8.6b is bad, but it's worse if people KNOW you lost $8.6b. Just ask GM.

While GM's prospects have been on the wrong side of dire for the last three financial quarters, both analysts and the general public generally believed The General would limp back to port to make the necessary repairs. After yesterday's announcement, nobody's kicking ice around the deck anymore, waiting for the engines to restart. GM's financial report evoked the unmistakable sound of exploding boilers. Everyone on board now knows that the world's largest automaker is destined for a watery grave. GM CEO Rabid Rick Wagoner's pathetic bleatings about an [eventual] $6b reduction in GM's materials and labor costs sound about as convincing as "this ship is unsinkable."

Truth be told, GM's financials are far worse than yesterday's official report revealed. For example, GM took $3.6b in charges against earnings to cover Delphi's pension liabilities. Yes, well, GM currently reckons the final tab for the parts workers' pensions will be somewhere between the stated $3.6b and… $12b. GM also took a $2b charge against earnings for its much-publicized production cutbacks. Although most of this figure is earmarked for employee costs, those costs continue: the idled workers go straight into the UAW "jobs bank' (where they're paid full whack not to build cars). By the same token, the charge doesn't include the cost of buying-out a large percentage of these idled UAW workers' contracts. Plant write-down accounts for the remaining charge, but the amount stated won't cover the cost of writing down ALL the plants GM intends to close– or will be forced to close.

And none of this includes the damage from Rabid Rick's forthcoming billion dollar (plus) payoff to the UAW to maintain Delphi's union peace. Remember: the cash outflow from these events is out there… waiting. If GM had to pay these charges today, the company's bank account would be perilously close to its minimum operating cash level ($10b). In short, Rabid Rick's erstwhile turnaround strategy relies heavily on underwater bilge pumps. If GM continues to lose market share, if it doesn't create some financial buoyancy, Rabid Rick's crew will have bought no more than a six month reprieve before GM begins its descent into Davey Jones' locker.

File all of the preceding information under "Iceberg, Tip Of." Meanwhile, Wagoner's music-facing ceremony also failed to include any mention of the lifeboat: GMAC. Due to the looming prospect of bankruptcy, only magic bean salesmen appear to be interested in GM's loan arranging cash cow. (If GM goes belly-up, creditors would pig pile on GMAC.) And Rabid Rick didn't make any mention of GM's dividend payments, which show a bizarre, Rasputin-like ability to avoid necessary execution. Oh, and what of the ongoing SEC probe into GM's accounting practices? You can bet there are a lot of crossed fingers on THAT score…

As bad as GM's financial situation is, as bad as it's going to get, the bottom line is more about psychology than numbers. The entire world now knows The General is in deep shit. (When the President of the United States says he ain't gonna bail GM's ass out, a lot more consumers suddenly know GM's ass needs bailing.) An ever-increasing number of current and potential GM buyers are suddenly realizing that they could be left with worthless trade-ins, questionable warranty protection, limited parts availability and problematic service. At some tipping point, they'll simply stop buying GM products. The General's hull will fracture, and the ship will slip between the waves in triple-quick time. Ironically enough, fleet sales will be the first to go…

There's only one thing that could bridge the death accelerating perception gap between GM's potential/inevitable slide into bankruptcy and the [slim] chance that everything will [someday] be all right: GM CEO Rabid Rick Wagoner. THIS is the time for Rabid Rick to publicly announce a bold, clear, inclusive and unequivocal course to a financial safe haven. But no. Rabid Rick's refusal to say (guess? predict? estimate?) when GM will be profitable again is a PR obscenity. Hey Rick; news flash. If you say you don't know when, you're also saying you don't know how, and if you're saying you don't know how, it's time to jump in your golden lifeboat and go. It's not good enough to BE the captain; you have to ACT like one.

If I hear that "you can't cut your way to prosperity" line one more time, I swear I'm going to post a forty-eight page article about surgical cancer treatment. Listen up. General Motors sells a vast range of crap automobiles for less than they cost to make. The General has only one hope for survival: cut itself into pieces, jettison ALL the cancerous bits (products, brands, management, committees, supervisors, labor contracts, buildings, factories, suppliers, dealers, Gulfstream jets, the lot) and get on with the business of making the world's best vehicles at… wait for it… a profit.

It's increasingly obvious that this necessary (not to say inevitable) "restructuring" will have to wait until GM goes under. The General's generals made that clear when they reacted to Turnaround King Jerry York's suggestion that GM should deep-six or sell their Saab and Hummer brands. GM execs dismissed the idea with the PR equivalent of a derisive snort. Marketing Maven Monster Mark LaNeve, a man whose comments about GM's pricing strategy sound a lot like a snake-handler speaking in tongues, assured the press that "all GM's brands will eventually be profitable." Bet your bottom dollar? Done. GM has mortgaged its future on baseless brand optimism.

You wouldn't expect anything less from Rabid Rick Wagoner's "Iceberg? What iceberg? Oh THAT iceberg" administration. But what's up with ascot-clad industry doyen Jerry Flint? Forbes magazine's Main Man reacted to York's call for brand assassination with thinly-veiled scorn and happy-clappy cheerleading. In an anti-cull diatribe published by The Car Connection, Flint was contemptuous of Wall Street analysts in general and Kirk Kerkorian's proxy in particular. He excoriated them all with characteristic bluntality: "Well, they are just wrong."

Flint says GM will save Saab by federalizing German Opels, slapping on a Saab sticker and sending them stateside. He predicts that THIS plan will deliver the goods (as opposed to the previous brainstorm involving rebadged Subarus and touched-up Trailblazers). Yes, well, as the writer himself pointed-out back in '93, "For $1.5 billion, GM got a money-losing operation that needs a 30 percent sales increase to break even and maybe a 50 percent increase to be seriously profitable. For that money, it could have built a new line for Cadillac to make it a global contender in the luxury field. Instead, it has Saab." Which still hasn't made a dime for GM; ending '05 down $300m on increased sales.

Flint also sneers at York's proposed Hummericide. He lauds the new H3's sales and trumpets the fact that it's built on the Chevy Colorado platform, sharing its asthmatic five-cylinder engine. Why kill a brand that's on its uppers– you know, other than the fact that it's not profitable? On one hand, you gotta love a GM brand– ANY GM brand– with such a tightly-focused product portfolio. On the other hand, even casual observers might suggest that the whole Hummer shtick is a great landing in the wrong decade. Cliff diving sales figures for Hummer's ludicrous H1 and laughable H2 are only one indication that the brand may not have the brightest of futures. Gas prices are the other.

Flint's Hummeraphilia reflects his faith in GM's overarching strategy of platform sharing (a.k.a. badge engineering). The rest of his article defends Buick, Pontiac and Chevrolet against the executioner's blade on the basis that they sell a Hell of a lot of stuff, and that much of that stuff comes from the same assembly line. "If you eliminated the Pontiac Torrent, for example, there would be less volume for the factory that makes the Equinox and the Torrent. Kill Buick and you starve the factory making the Cadillac DTS and the Lucerne. The trick is to make distinctive models off the same platforms."

For a lesson on how it should be done, Flint points to the factory cranking-out the [sisters under the skin] Chrysler 300, Dodge Charger and Dodge Magnum. On the face of it, DCX' cost savings reaffirm Flint's case for cranking-out as much shit as humanly possible. But the strategy holds a hidden danger: homogeneity. The Dodge Charger may be relatively cheap to build, but the NASCAR Dad's sedan is hardly a "distinctive" departure from the Chrysler 300– or, for that matter, a solid sales success. Lincoln Mercury's disastrous dependence on tarted-up Fords is teaching The Blue Oval Boys that platform sharing and genre-killing brand-specific products are mutually exclusive.

Corner-cutting kills cars. And brands. And companies. Longtime pundits like Flint, who look at the ever-changing roster of products slated for GM's various divisions and conclude "The way up is to grow, not to kill", are just wrong. GM is clinically obese and chronically slow. Platform sharing just makes The General fatter and lazier. Yes, killing brands– and models– would be enormously expensive. But General Motors is diseased. One way or another, sooner or later, the surgeon's knife will swing down and do what must be done.

'We didn't plan it this way. But Delphi has become a metaphor for nearly every economic and social issue gripping America.' Jesus, I hope not. Before I explain my concerns, let's review. The speaker is Robert "Call Me Steve" Miller, president of bankrupt auto parts supplier Delphi. Miller made his remarks to a bunch of industry wonks at Automotive News' grandiosely-named World Congress. Now, strip out the hyperbole (Delphi's plight isn't a metaphor for the impact of rap music on African Americans) and Miller's saying 'as goeth Delphi, so goeth American manufacturing.' Like I said, scary stuff.

Back in the fall of '05 (no pun intended), Miller was the tough-talking turnaround expert who'd taken the reins at GM's former subsidiary. Miller was all about cutting the United Auto Workers (UAW) down to size: wages, pension, health care, vacations, job classifications, the lot. Words were not minced. If the UAW didn't agree to a 60% cut to its hourly workers' wages, Miller vowed to have their Delphi contract thrown out by a federal bankruptcy judge. Analysts hailed Miller's "we can't afford this shit anymore" stance as the automobile industry's long-awaited, much-needed wakeup call. Supposedly, Miller's realism was both a preview and template for GM's survival.

It's hard to believe that the man who dared take the UAW to task for unionizing his company's lawn care would cave so quickly and completely to organized labor. But then, the stakes couldn't have been any higher. If Miller made good on his threat to deep-six Delphi's UAW contract– an accord that the parts maker's bankruptcy had conclusively revealed as untenable– the UAW would have nuked Delphi's production lines. Starved of parts, General Motors would have rolled over and died. In fact, the entire US auto industry would have been thrown into chaos, as edge-living subcontractors followed the mother ship straight into the impact crater.

How the UAW turned "Call Me Steve" Miller into The Joker is anybody's guess, but you don't have to 'fall' into a vat of toxic waste to know that a trillion dollar status quo does not go quietly into that long good night. Ultimately, The Joker's mission to deflate Delphi's union's bloated costs was waylaid by GM CEO Rick Wagoner, a man whose UAW dealings are distinctly cephalopodan. Faced with Delphi's doomsday scenario, unwilling to use a UAW strike at Delphi to put his house in order, Rabid Rick bellied-up to the bar. The ensuing multi-billion dollar damage to GM's tab will be both epic and ongoing– but nobody does epic and ongoing like GM.

GM's forthcoming bailout will defuse the possibility of a UAW confrontation at Delphi. No surprise, then, that man once considered the Dr. Death of old school American unionism is now talking about "soft landings." In other words, Delphi's GM-funded UAW agreement will maintain its union members in the style to which they've become accustomed while pledging/pretending to make future "adjustments" to the company's labor costs… Eventually. In other other words, once again, US automakers are putting off until tomorrow what can't be put off forever: a fundamental restructuring of administration, production and sales.

Thankfully, Delphi's plight is NOT symbolic of American industry's ability to compete with foreign rivals. For one thing, you'd be hard-pressed to find another multi-national conglomerate that can simply transfer its profit-killing labor costs to its largest customer (the word "blackmail" should probably be in there somewhere). For another, most US manufacturers have already solved the problem of sky-high labor costs and restrictive union practices. They've gone bust, forced their unions to face reality or transferred manufacturing operations to non-union locations (either here or abroad). What, exactly, is Delphi and GM waiting for?

The Joker, of all people, should know the drill; this is the man who personally dragged Bethlehem Steel and United Airlines kicking and screaming into the 21st century. Delphi's situation is simply more of the same: a huge, outdated company displaying a pathological inability to change. Detroit laughed at small Japanese cars in the 60's, sniggered at German luxury cars in the 70's, ridiculed hybrids in the 90's, and so on. By the time they "got it", they'd lost it. What's different about GM and Delphi's approach to their manufacturing costs, now that Delphi is an "independent" company? Nothing.

Readers of this series will not be surprised by Rabid Rick's readiness to pay the UAW the blood money needed to keep The General on life support. But few insiders had figured The Joker for a fool. Obviously, personally, he isn't. Come what may, Robert S. Miller will emerge from this slow motion debacle with considerable wealth. The same cannot be said of Delphi or GM.

On Tuesday, the elephant in GM's boardroom removed its cloaking device. In the heart of GM's corporate HQ, in the middle of the Detroit auto show, Jerome P. York told GM's management to fall on their swords. More specifically, the man behind The Man Who Would Be King told The General's generals to prune their salaries, big style. Sure, Kirk Kerkorian's proxy also recommended killing brands, halving dividends, eliminating production capacity and a bunch of other turnaround type stuff. But his call for deep cuts in executive compensation was the exec's most chilling suggestion– at least to the people pulling the strings at the world's largest automaker. RenCen shuddered in horror.

Characteristically, the West Point grad was happy to put some hard numbers to his personal attack. According to York, GM's Board of Bystanders should work for "significantly less" than $200k per year. The company's top five officers should take a "significant" hit to their $7m per year salary. Management further down the "pyramid" should suck up double digit reductions, until "you got to the lowest levels in the plants and offices, where the percentage would hopefully be only a single digit number." In short, Mr. York seems Hell bent on turning on the lights and sending GM's lifelong party-goers home to their parents.

And why not? Obviously, Kirk "Mr. Las Vegas" Kerkorian doesn't have the juice to whack GM CEO Rabid Rick Wagoner and his Board of Bystanders and replace them with made men like York. Captain Kirk knows if he leaves it too long, it'll be too late: they'll be nothing left to plunder. So Kirk decided to kick 'em where it hurts. You know, wake 'em up a little. And just in case GM's fat cats were too stupid to feel the pain, York pointed to the time bomb ticking in the corner: "…the current cash burn rate of $24m per day would keep GM going for another thousand days or… roughly three years." Whew! "But of course that's if conditions remain the same as they were in the first nine months of 2005." Stop it Jer; you're killing me!

York's speech gave three reasons why GM's thousand day march to bankruptcy might take a bit longer (The General's new SUV's, the Chevy Malibu "renewal" and the Saturn Aura), and a more complete and plausible list of reasons why the gig could be up by next Friday (a weakening US economy, the cost of Delphi's union peace and downsizing production, the loss of GMAC income and market share). As far as veiled threats go, this one arrived buck naked on a white charger, and I don't mean the sexy new Dodge. In fact, it was so compelling it probably scared GM's top dogs for a full ten minutes.

Despite York's ability to spell-out GM's clear and present danger, his speech lacked sufficient animus to light a sustained fire under GM's corporate butt. It was couched as "tough love", suffused with compliments and reassurances. "We're not waiting to feast on GM's dismembered body," York as-good-as declared. "We're here because we want to see GM restored to its former glory– well, OK, profitability." Call it the Home Depot approach: You can do it. We can help. To which GM's Car Czar Maximum Bob Lutz immediately and publicly replied: I can do it and you can piss off. And leave your hands off my salary, Bub.

If only York hadn't pulled his punches. As TTAC's Deep Throat points out, York's estimation of GM's cash stockpile included money that isn't there: gains from the sale of GMAC, Saab, Hummer and anything else that isn't nailed down. Also, GM would be forced to declare bankruptcy well before it runs out of cash. Analysts say The General needs at least $10b on hand just to run the business (York uses $5b as an acceptable minimum). My Go-To Guy says GM currently can get its mitts on about $5b (above the $10b bankruptcy threshold), plus an equal amount from its VEBA fund (Volunteer Employees' Benefits Association, whose use is restricted). So, at $24m a day, GM's nest egg will be gone in 400 days.

That's IF things stay on an even course. York's doomsday scenario was bleak, but it didn't include the fact that a new pension funding rule could wipe out GM's entire hoard. Or the cataclysmic effect of recent price cuts and incentive reductions on GM loyalists, who are already so far backwards on their loans they can't afford a new car. Or what happens if fleet buyers– 25% of GM's business– smell bankruptcy. Or what's going on with the SEC probe. Or, let's face it, any number of nasty things currently hidden and vaguely hinted at in York's "aside" calling for greater transparency. When you think about it, York's audience may not know the half of it– literally. Clearly, they should.

If you're visiting the Detroit auto show, do me a favor. Go to the GM stand, find the new Chevrolet Tahoe Dual-Mode Hybrid SUV and ask the moto-bouncer to pop the hood. See if the thing's got a hybrid engine. (Ignore the engine cover; a few months ago, GM put a fake plastic cover over a pushrod powereplant to convince AutoWeek they were driving a hybrid prototype.) If The Man refuses to accommodate your request, try to decide if he's hiding something. Either way, let me know. 'Cause I'm beginning to think that Buickman is on to something…

If you don't know Buickman (a.k.a. Jim Dollinger), it's not for lack of trying. Since '94, the Michigan car salesman has dedicated his life to promoting his "Return to Greatness" recovery plan. He's brought his campaign to salesmen, customers, stockholders, board members, union members, dealers, the press, the web (www.generalwatch.com); anyone and everyone who'll give him the time of day. Now that GM faces the final curtain, Buickman has pretty much given-up on his quixotic quest and transformed himself into a whistle blower, or, if you prefer, a professional thorn in the side of GM's masters. Less charitably, Buickman is now a full-blown GM conspiracy theorist.

Buickman believes a cabal of international financiers is driving GM into bankruptcy so they can buy it up for "cents on the dollar". If I tell you that Buickman identifies the main culprits as the Rothschilds, a favorite villain for folks suspecting the secret implementation of a non-democratic "New World Order", your mind may turn away from the details of his allegations. As would mine– if it weren't for that damn engine cover. Even though I don't buy into that whole "World Bank as KAOS" shtick, I keep wondering what kind of company would create a hybrid head fake. Whose idea was it? Who knew about it? More to the point, if GM's willing to lie about the availability of hybrid engines, what else are they up to?

On the face of it, Buickman's allegation of corporate suicide don't square with counterfeit hybridism; if Rabid Rick Wagoner wants to jam GM's yoke forwards, why pretend The General's got the magic engine elixir? Of course, whenever you enter Conspiracy World, every objection has an equal and opposite explanation. In this case, Buickman maintains that Wagoner wants the world to think he's trying to save GM, even though he isn't. Plausible deniability. And then Buickman brain dumps a mountain of innuendo, from Wagoner's bankruptcy-proof pension to the company's $4b FIATsco.

And that's where it starts to get weird, because Buickman ain't just whistling Dixie. Why would GM's Board of Bystanders let Wagoner create a bankruptcy-proof pension if, as he claims, "we don't have a plan for bankruptcy"? Why did Merrill Lynch immediately buy GM's abandoned FIAT stock, given that Merrill's CEO also serves on GM's Board? Furtive Jewish bargain hunting bankers or no, Buickman's right: there are a lot of dubious goings-on over at RenCen involving the disposal of GM's assets.

And then there's the union health care 'giveback.' When we first heard of the deal, we were surprised to learn it established a $3b health care fund for the United Auto Workers (UAW). Aside from the obvious duplicity involved (when is a giveback not a giveback?) and the devious timing (Wagoner made the announcement on the day GM revealed its third quarter losses), why did GM fork over a lump sum to the UAW? Why not just pay out for increased health care coverage from The General's corporate coffers? Buickman points out that the UAW receives a 20% "administration fee". If true (neither GM nor the UAW will confirm the report), that's a $600m 'tip'. That's… scary.

And then Buickman says that the UAW and GM have agreed to stage a union strike later this year to destroy the company, so that the nefarious forces responsible can live happily ever after. As Buickman can't provide any evidence for his GM-killing, nest-feathering conspiracies, sorting fact from fantasy is nearasdammit impossible. Applying Occam's razor (the simplest explanation is most likely to be correct) doesn't help when you're forced to explain GM's endless F-ups by choosing between gross incompetence and Enron-style shenanigans.

The best I can do is reference Martha Mitchell. Mrs. Mitchell's husband John was the US Attorney General under Richard Nixon. Mrs. M would call Washington reporters in the middle of the night with bizarre tales of illegal activities: a secret enemies list, South American assassinations, break-ins, wiretaps, the FBI Director wearing a dress and more. By the time these reporters realized Mitchell wasn't a crazy drunk, her husband was in jail for conspiracy, obstruction of justice and perjury. In other words, while it's easy to dismiss Buickman's rants as the sour fruit of a man scorned by GM's Boy's Club, being bitter doesn't make a man a fool. Or, come to think of it, wrong.

UPDATE: The Chevy Tahoe hybrid has been removed from the floor of the Detroit Auto Show for 60 Minutes spinnery. We await confirmation of its powerplant…

Regrets? GM's Vice President of North American Vehicle Sales has had a few. Then again, too few to mention. When quizzed about the wisdom of last summer's Fire Sale for Everyone, Monster Mark LaNeve said "Hindsight being 20/20, I probably wouldn't have done it." Probably? The campaign annihilated The General's fall and winter business and sealed GM's rep as America's largest discount car company. Which LaNeve now vows to fix by ignoring the connection between guilt and change and reanimating the company's short-lived "Total Value Promise" program.

Which is what, exactly? Although LaNeve's past rhetoric qualifies him for a job as the fifth Wiggle, and the specifics of the latest version of the Total Value Promise (TVP) await a Detroit unveiling, Monster Mark's been dropping hints. At the LA car confab, the slightly confessional marketing maven revealed the basics: lower sticker prices and a clear focus on comparative excellence. "We'll say, 'Best product, here's why," LaNeve said. "'Best price on an MSRP basis.'" What's more, "With every new product we bring to market, we'd like to price it very aggressively."

Not to coin a phrase, but the spin-out starts here. First of all, GM doesn't make the best products. While The General's camp followers will cry foul and cite various measurements placing GM vehicles head and fenders above the competition, the Chevrolet Corvette is the company's only undisputed class leader– and the $65k sports car division isn't exactly what you'd call crowded. Sure, GM's refreshed SUV's may turn out to be the business, but the majority of GM's products are also-rans. After all, if GM vehicles WERE the best of the best, the world's largest automaker wouldn't have to discount the damn things.

As for GM's plan to reduce advertised prices, well, we've been here before. In the brief period between Fire and Toe Tag sales, GM launched (pre-launched?) the TVP. Then as now, Monster Mark declared that GM's window stickers would be "closer" to the actual bottom line. The fact that this less-than-iron-clad "promise" was quickly and completely deep-sixed for yet another nationwide incentive campaign removed any chance consumers would believe GM's latest pledge. And why should they? You don't have to be a Keynesian economist to know that The General's inability to limit its supply guarantees a glut, which assures an eventual price cut. Lesson learned? Wait and prices will fall.

In fact, the whole concept of MSRP (Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price) has been thoroughly discredited. Thanks to a seemingly endless succession of nationally-advertised discount campaigns, consumers now operate on the basis that a vehicle's MSRP is only an inflated starting point, or, if you prefer, meaningless. No one pays sticker. No one. How do consumers compare vehicle prices when they're subject to an ever-changing farrago of incentives and finance offers? The savvy ones go to independent websites like www.kbb.com, press a few buttons and sort it out. Given the confusion, volatility and newfound transparency of car prices, GM might as well lose the sticker and simply direct consumers to an appropriate website.

Obviously, legally, they can't do that. Equally obvious, strict TVP adherence is highly unlikely, veering towards impossible. Think of it this way: if one of GM's competitors reduces their prices with an incentive campaign, a TVP-faithful GM could only respond by lowering their advertised sticker price. That's not a strategy bound to please recent owners or dealers, whose livelihood depends on trying to maintain as much of the inflated MSRP as possible. It also flies in the face of common sense: what's built must be sold. If discounts are what American consumers need to get the iron off the lot, discounts is what they're gonna get.

The biggest problem with TVP is that GM is, as always, hedging its bets. Note LaNeve's use of MSRP as a measure of relative price; GM is not promising to have the best price relative to the competition in absolute terms. By the same token, LaNeve said he would "like" to price new vehicles aggressively, not that he 'will.' In truth, there's only one alternative to the current rebate-driven set-up: the no-dicker sticker. If GM really wants to eliminate incentives, they have to say 'this is the price for this vehicle.' Period.

You could certainly posit that much of the Fire Sale for Everyone's success was due to the [perceived] lack of price negotiation. You could also credibly maintain that non-negotiable prices assured the Saturn brand's initial survival. But you'd have a hard time arguing that GM's management has the stones to weather the inevitable fall-out from a no-haggle pricing policy, as dealers scream bloody murder and duff vehicles pile-up in their thousands. Bottom line: expect GM's TVP to fade into obscurity for the second time, replaced by yet another round of rebates. And once again, Monster Mark LaNeve will be left without regrets.

When historians analyze GM's collapse, searching for the precise moment when The General jumped the shark, it will be like trying to pinpoint the onset of Alzheimer's. The world's largest automaker has been screwing things up so spectacularly for so long that even a $2b payoff to FIAT for signing the wrong bit of paper seems like a bump on the road to oblivion. What's more, GM's management is still busy making monumental mistakes. The Board of Bystanders' decision not to admit Kirk Kirkorian's proxy into their midst is only the latest and greatest example.

Unfortunately, I don't have any inside info on the failed negotiations between GM's largest private investor and The Powers That Be. I only know that last Tuesday, after GM's Board rebuffed Captain Kirk's nominee Jerry York, the billionaire investor sold 12m GM shares. The move cut his stake from to 9.9 to 7.8 percent and sent GM's stock into freefall (down to an 18-year low). Some financial experts see it a tax dodge. Others look at Kirk's on-again, off-again romance with MGM and predict his return. TTAC's Deep Throat figures this is it: Kirk's outta here. In any event, Kirk has sent both GM's board and the markets a clear message about GM's future, or lack thereof…

When Kirkorian began his buying binge, GM Car Czar Maximum Bob Lutz displayed his usual penchant for mindless optimism: "He smells a turnaround." Meanwhile, the octogenarian investor was, sensibly enough, plotting to wrest control from Lutz and the other corporate officers who'd mishandled GM's mighty engines, limiting the ship's maneuverability, condemning it to a Toyota encounter of the iceberg kind. Equally obvious, a seat on the Board was the only way Captain Kirk could oust Rabid Rick Wagoner from the bridge, and maybe, just maybe, save the ship from a watery grave. (For those of you keeping metaphorical score, the Titanic had an antiquated rudder.)

And why not? You don't have watch all 357 Dallas episodes to know that a company's future depends on the character of the people running it– or that some people will do anything to maintain control. Wagoner's "I'm going to bring Bobby down if I have to destroy Ewing oil to do it" response to Kirkorian's play was predictable enough, but the Board of Bystander's negative reaction was surprisingly [Cliff] Barnesian. Clearly, they excluded Mr. York to protect Wagoner's mob– which is a bit like backing a flyweight boxer and his fawning entourage over a highly decorated lieutenant commanding a heavily armed, battle-scarred SWAT team.

Now how did THAT happen? You'd be forgiven for thinking that the simple fact that GM's stock price has dropped $20 (and counting) since last January would have motivated The General's Board of Bystanders to activate Rabid Rick's bankruptcy-proof retirement package, STAT. Again, we may never get a clear picture of Rabid Rick's anti-York maneuvering (never mind view the incriminating negatives). But at least we can get a little insight into the Board's myopia, thanks to Slate's Daniel Gross.

Gross recently reported that GM's Board has two gold-standard retired CEO's: Sara Lee's John Bryan and Northrop Grumman's Kent Kresa. And then… Philip Laskawy ran scandal-plagued accountants Ernst & Young. George M.C. Fisher, former chairman and CEO of Eastman Kodak, failed to reverse his company's declining market share. Former Compaq CEO Eckhard Pfeiffer did so well during his tenure that company founder Ben Rosen bought a full-page New York Times ad to diss him. And former ABB head Percy Barnevik was recently forced to return 60% of his $88m pension.

GM's board also includes five active execs: Armando Codina (Republican fixer, Board of Directors-aholic, Florida real-estate maven), Erskine Bowles (ex-Clinton Chief of Staff, twice failed senatorial candidate, President of the University of North Carolina), Ellen Kullman (safety minded DuPont Veep), Karen Katen (Pfizer Drug Lord) and Stan O'Neal (Merrill Lynch's cost-cutting 'Mr. Ruthless'). Other than Rabid Rick Wagoner, Stan the Man is the only CEO in the bunch who's run a publicly held company. He's also the only GM Board member to have revived a publicly held company. And, one surmises, he's the only board member with an ounce of common sense.

After all, this is the motley crew who believe it's a good idea to keep Rabid Rick Wagoner in the Gulfstream G5 style to which he's become accustomed. More to the point, these are the same group of misadventuring misfits who can't recognize a good man when they see one. Well, OK, maybe York's not a "good man" in a Grosse Point golf club kinda way. But he's a devastatingly effective corporate leader: a West Point grad that kicked IBM and Chrysler's ass into shape by paring waste, reorganizing resources and asking questions no one else dared ask. Turning down York's guidance to thwart Kirkorian's ambitions and protect Wagoner's ass was a– if not "the"– seminal moment in GM's long, sad saga. One the company will not live to regret.

For those of you who've just joined us from Wall Street, welcome. We've been waiting for you for a while– long enough to wonder if GM's stock price got lost in hyperspace. I guess you guys needed some kind of sign to find your bearings. Something like Toyota's announcement that they're gonna Avis The General in '06, ending GM's 70-year run as the world's largest automaker. Or Rabid Rick Wagoner's post horse departure barn door closing homily: "I'm not conceding anything to anybody." No matter. Now that you're here, let me tell you a story…

I was scanning Wardsauto.com the other day when I came across a "good news" piece: "Crucial GM Fullsize Truck Program Launches Early". Well, OK, it MIGHT be a good news piece, you know, if The General's SUV cavalry racks-up the sales GM needs to die another day. Obviously, it's a bit of a long shot, what with SUV's being a dead genre guzzling. But hey; it is what it was. Anyway, mid-way through Ms. Priddle's puff piece, a thought occurred to me: is it really a good idea to rush the GMT900 vehicles (Tahoe, Yukon, Escalade, Suburban, Silverado, Sierra, etc.) to market? What if they're not ready?

It's not inconceivable. The Pontiac Solstice was due to hit the forecourts in June, promised for November, still isn't widely available and already appears on bulletin boards with a laundry list of complaints. Let's face it: GM has a bit of a history manufacturing, dare I say it, crap. Oh wait; Ward's says the "new" trucks will use 60% of the old trucks' components. And according to Gary White, GM's Fullsize Truck Vehicle Line Executive, the GMT900's are "entering the world with higher quality than the ones they replace." Now THERE'S a reassuring thought.

But let's get to the point. Check the article's last paragraph: "'No one's going to ride a 1-trick pony today,' White says, noting GM could have spent an extra $2 billion for marginal additional improvement to the GMT900 lineup, but recognized the money is better spent elsewhere for a balanced product portfolio." Now ask yourself a question: what the Hell does THAT mean?

The first part of White's quote seems straightforward enough. White's saying his handiwork's got to be safe, reliable, comfortable, attractive and frugalesque. (By implication, yesterday's 'one-trick' SUV's were, um, affordable.) But what's that second bit about the extra $2b GM DIDN'T spend on "marginal additional improvement"? Is White seriously suggesting that a couple of bil only buys you a bit of soft touch plastic here, a nicer steering wheel there? I'm no bean counter, but I would have thought that 2000 million dollars can do a great deal to improve a vehicle.

I emailed Ms. Priddle to see if White had specified these missing marginalities. (GM stopped returning my calls sometime back in April.) No joy there. It then occurred to me that no matter what White's mob left out of the GMT900's, his remarks typify GM's product mentality. The company's lineup is stuffed with ¾ vehicles: cars, trucks, SUV's and minivans that are just about as good as the competition, but not quite. For example, the Pontiac G6 seems a suitable alternative to a Nissan Altima. But if you look closely (as customers do), the G6 isn't up to snuff on almost every level: interior quality, engine refinement, reliability, etc. Even the class-killing Chevrolet Corvette features some of the nastiest plastic known to mankind. In general, The General signs-off its vehicles when they're still a few furlongs from the finish line.

An Audi engineer once told me that the final millimeter of a materials gap eats up a third of the item's production budget. Even though an Audi buyer might not see or feel the resulting precision, the automaker makes the effort and pays the freight. That's just the way they do things. It's already clear from the GMT900's 60% parts carry-over (much of which is due to the SOS timetable) and pre-production shots of the vehicles themselves that White's got it exactly backwards. The huge amount of money GM spent on these vehicles delivered nothing BUT marginal improvements.

White's comments highlighted the trade-off that created the $2b compromise: "marginal improvement" vs. "a balanced product portfolio". In other words, rather than get one vehicle– I mean, a host of similar vehicles– absolutely perfect, GM prefers to build [yet] another product. It's a shotgun approach in a rifle shot world. By manufacturing a complete range of not quite products across eight brands, GM condemns itself to perpetual mediocrity, and guarantees its also-ran status relative to the tightly focused folks at Toyota. The General's generals fail to realize that people don't buy GM's balanced product portfolio. They buy a single GM product. Or, increasingly, not.

According to Rabid Rick Wagoner, terminating his employment would only slow down GM's recovery: 'When you bring in a lot of new people, you bring in a lot of change and people just sort of sit there and try to figure out what to do.' As opposed to what? Keeping the same old people and making no changes so that people can sort of sit there and watch the world's largest automaker go bankrupt? Rick's comment appeared in AutoWeek immediately after Standard & Poor's rating service downgraded GM's credit rating to "B", some five steps below investment grade, with a negative outlook. Clearly, Wagoner is to leadership what penguins are to civil engineering.

Like any clueless corporate alpha, Rabid Rick wants us to believe that everything's under control. Indeed, he's instructed PR flack Gina Proia to tell the world that GM has "an aggressive and well thought-out strategy to turn around our North American business." Apparently, this comprehensive plan comes complete with quantifiable goals, implementation dates and, well, everything Rick's mob needs to save GM from a Valentine's Day Massacre. Only AutoWeek reports that Rabid Rick "prefers to keep it private." In fact, GM's would-be savior "declined to predict whether GM's North American automotive operations could break even next year." [NB: "could" not "would."]

"Other people may or may not have time frames, but it's not what I'm worried about,' Wagoner told AutoWeek. 'I'm focused on the fact that we need to fix the business, and that's really what is driving me.' Why do I keep seeing images of Rabid Rick in a pinafore, wandering through a vast wonderland of unsold GM product? In what alternative universe is it OK for the head of the world's largest automaker to stare financial oblivion in the face and say "trust me, don't rush me"? Lewis Carroll himself would be proud of Wagoner's strange rhetoric, which blithely suggests that timetables are antithetical to corporate repair.

Anyway, it's not as if GM's rivals are about to steal Rabid Rick's master plan, so that they can counter The General's new product launches and/or drive their company into the ground. UNLESS… Rabid Rick's briefcase actually contains the codes for the nuclear option. Sure! Rick's mob have a secret plan to leave Delphi twisting in the wind and let the United Auto Workers (UAW) strike. GM would then fall into bankruptcy accidentally on purpose, so it could jettison its UAW contract, close factories, cut brand deadwood, realign the product portfolio and…

Yeah right. Back here in the real world, Rabid Rick is fighting for his company's survival by strolling down the path of least resistance. Rather than make a stand against the UAW, Rabid Rick's ready to pay the blood money needed to forestall a Delphi strike– even though "we certainly didn't budget for stuff like that." Rather than kill-off Buick, Saab and Saturn, Rick's content to let their salesmen hit the forecourt like members of Robert Scott's ill-fated Antarctica expedition (i.e. "I may be some time".) Rather than slash GM's model range across the board and concentrate on building the world's best cars, Rick's happy to manufacture dozens of mediocre examples of the sorts of vehicles people may want to buy by the time GM finally gets around to building them.

Rabid Rick's timidity makes me wonder if he's even trying. When asked about the SUV slump in Automotive News, Wagoner claimed the company was powerless to respond. 'We just couldn't react,' he admitted. 'It really highlighted that the underpinnings of our business are too fragile… if we lose mix or volume, we cannot get costs down as fast as (sales) volume comes down.' Does Rabid Rick really think that GM's ability to turn tail and run is the key to its success? Wouldn't building hybrid SUV's, killer crossovers or awesome sedans have been the better option?

As the Italians say, the fish stinks from the head down. If GM couldn't detect and react to a change in market conditions quickly enough to avoid losing its proverbial shirt, that's because its CEO couldn't perform with sufficient insight, speed or decisiveness. If the UAW is tying Wagoner's hands, preventing him from doing what needs to be done, it's his job to sever those bonds, once and for all. It's one thing to admit you made a mistake, it's another to have the courage and wisdom to make sure it never happens again. Isn't that why Wagoner gets paid so much money?

News reports recently revealed that The General's CEO has negotiated a deal with GM's Board of Bystanders that makes his multi-million dollar pension fund bankruptcy-proof. Not only is that a boneheaded move relative to GM's negotiations with the UAW (which include pension liabilities and contributions), but it betrays Rabid Rick's stunning lack of confidence in his own talents. It's an opinion that's increasingly easy to share.

Forget GM's Toe Tag sale, which failed to extinguish the automaker's low sales idiot light and sealed their reputation as the K Mart of cars. Ignore GM's eternal promise of new and better products. Disregard Rabid Rick's pathetic bleating to the Wall Street Journal that lawsuits, fate and the federal government are responsible for GM's $4.8b black hole. The General's immediate future depends entirely on whether or not the United Auto Workers' (UAW) calls a strike against bankrupt GM parts supplier Delphi.

This January, the UAW's leadership may tell Delphi Prez CallMeSteve Miller to shred his salary and benefit-reducing proposal and flush it down the toilet of his Gulfstream Challenger. Miller will then ask a federal bankruptcy judge to terminate the UAW's contract. The UAW will retaliate with a strike that will starve GM of parts. GM's assembly lines will close. Should the UAW strike last more than a couple of months, The General will burn through its multi-billion dollar cash reserves. The world's largest automaker will be forced to file the world's largest Chapter 11.

Conventional wisdom says it ain't gonna happen. Most GM watchers think the UAW will do whatever it takes to keep Delphi/GM afloat. Supporters of this "acting in their own best interest" theory posit that UAW President Big Ron Gettelfinger is smart enough to understand that the nuclear option would terminate his employer's future, and thus, the union's. Yaysayers dismiss yesterday's comment by UAW Veep Richard Shoemaker that a strike appears "more likely than not" as posturing. Why would the UAW initiate a chain of events that would lead to its destruction?

Simple: they don't see it that way. The UAW knows that the fallout from a Delphi disruption would increase arithmetically; with each passing day, it gets harder and harder (and more and more expensive) for GM to restart its assembly lines. In that sense, the prospect of The General lurching towards strike-related bankruptcy is a good thing; GM's glimpse into the abyss ensures that The General, and thus Delphi, surrender to the union's demands. In other words, the union works on the principle that they can pay us now (GM subsidizes Delphi's UAW contract), or they can pay us later (GM subsidizes Delphi's UAW contract), but either way, they're gonna pay.

In fact, the UAW is spoiling for a fight. Big Ron's stated goal in all this is to forestall the 'dismantling of America's middle class". But his real agenda is, and always will be, the preservation of union power. A successful strike would reassert the UAW's hold over its membership, Delphi, GM and any other automaker or supplier stupid enough to ask UAW workers to surrender one dollar of their salary or a single solitary benefit. While Rabid Rick has proven himself pathologically incapable of drawing a line in the sand (on any issue, ever), Big Ron and his boys are in the sand scribbling business. Anyone who thinks that the union's going to let their adversaries step over the line without retribution faces a rude awakening.

In any case, the UAW doesn't really care what anyone thinks about the virtue of their arguments. They believe (with no small amount of justification) that epic mismanagement caused Delphi and GM's perilous finances. Union members consider the idea that they should take a major hit to compensate for these blunders, helping corporate fat cats and their shareholding paymasters to prosper from their mistakes, beyond preposterous. It's insulting, veering towards evil. The UAW rank and file can just about imagine participating in a plan that would spread the pain equally– trimming corporate salaries, eliminating bonuses, cutting dividends, etc.– but not quite. Just fork over the dough you overpaid bastards, and let's get on with it.

What UAW members CAN conceive, and the analysts can't, is a scenario in which Delphi and GM disappear. The threat of losing everything– salary, benefits, pension, the works– is not the foolproof anti-strike palliative that white collar pundits believe it to be. In fact, the possibility of a cataclysmic GM failure holds a certain Alamo-esque romantic allure– especially for people who see themselves as working class heroes. Or, as one autoworker told the Detroit news: "If we're going down, we're all going down together."

Think it can't happen? Then you don't live in Worcester, Pittsburgh, Fall River or a dozen other rust belt cities and towns where unions drove up the cost and complexity of doing business, and watched it leave. Obviously, it's not unionism per se that caused these economic catastrophes. It was a combination of management arrogance, greed and stupidity; and union arrogance, greed and stupidity. There's only one way to untie this Gordian knot: the UAW must assume greater responsibility for Delphi– and GM's– destiny. They should have a seat on their boards and a large slice of equity. Profit sharing didn't save American Motors, but it just might save GM. Anyway, it's worth a shot.

Yesterday, GM announced it will release former subsidiary Delphi from an agreement trimming big bucks from The General's parts bill. This despite the fact that GM CEO Rabid Rick Wagoner has consistently used the discount to casually suggest that Delphi's bankruptcy was good for General Motors. Never mind. Delphi responded to GM's generosity by extending its contract deadline with the United Auto Workers (UAW) to January 20th. The quid pro quo means GM avoids a cataclysmic loss of parts– until that date. It's all part of Rabid Rick's masterplan for dodging Delphi's strike-related bankruptcy bullet…

Rabid Rick's tendered the 'get out of free competition free' card to provide Delphi with the funds it needs to subsidize the unthinkable: the difference between what Delphi wants to pay its UAW workers ($10 an hour) and what they currently earn ($27 an hour). What's more, TTAC's Deep Throat reckons GM will also reach into its back pocket to mop-up other UAW claims against Delphi's cash. The General will pay Delphi's superfluous union workers not to work, underwrite the union's benefit guarantees and assume Delphi's $10.8b pension liability. In short, Rabid Rick's recently stated desire for all sides to figure out "what we really need to do here" actually means delivering huge sacks of GM blood money to the UAW.

Should this scenario play out, Wagoner will claim victory for avoiding a company-killing strike, Delphi President Miller will claim victory for delivering Delphi from bankruptcy (at GM's expense) and union boss Big Ron Gettelfinger will claim victory for maintaining his members' compensation. Meanwhile, Wagoner's craven capitulation will cost The General a mountain of money. Back of the envelope estimates place the figure at around a half billion dollars per quarter, all in. That would put the price tag for Delphi's union peace at $2b, PLUS the lost discount (which could be worth up to a billion dollars), PLUS the $10.8b pension top-up, PLUS whatever other clever little caveats the union demands and receives.

Excuse me for saying so, but this is turning-out to be a Hell of a year for the UAW. The "historic health care giveback" that saved Rabid Rick's butt in the fall (and made the union look magnanimous in the process) will dump an extra $2b into their bank account and leave health care benefits intact. The plant closures that painted union workers as blameless victims of management incompetence will not injure a single union member financially (thanks to retirement buyouts and the infamous jobs bank). And now Delphi's "Last Stand" promises to make the union bosses look like heroes, as The Man behind the Man caves like a professional spelunker.

Rabid Rick's timidity on the union front is stunning. While it's often said GM can't blame the UAW for its troubles– GM agreed to the union demands that helped create those troubles– the argument avoids the real issue: drawing a line in the sand. No matter what GM granted the union in the past, consenting to it in the present sacrifices the company's future. While you can (and should) blame Rabid Rick's mob for its bone-headed product/brand/discount/investment binges, GM's cost structure remains unsustainable. And though nothing much has been said about the union's inflexibility on the factory floor, that cancer also remains unchecked. Rabid Rick has not even paid lip service to solving these issues.

CallmeSteve Miller is no better. The tough-talking Delphi Prez said right from the start that GM should bail his company's ass out of bankruptcy. In other words, he's happy to sacrifice his anti-union rhetoric on the point of Rabid Rick's check-writing pen. In fact, there's only one resolute player in this entire epic: Big Ron Gettelfinger. The union boss has maintained his hold on both his members and GM's coffers, while winning the PR war without uttering more than a word or two at the appropriate moment. And that's why this thing is bound to blow-up.

While Wagoner and Miller play footsie, Big Ron knows it's Last Man Standing. He doesn't need an expensive independent audit to realize that GM is doomed. Nor does he particularly care. Big Ron's job, the UAW's job, is to extract as much milk as possible from the GM tit for as long as possible. When GM collapses, even if it's his union's intransigence that precipitates the event, even if it means the complete dissolution of the UAW's contract with GM, Gettelfinger will look back with satisfaction and say "I always did my best for my members".

How do you negotiate labor/legacy reductions with a man with that mentality? You don't. You can't. The truth is, GM doesn't really want to. Rabid Rick is willing to pay-off Delphi's UAW now to buy enough time to sell enough SUV's, crossovers, something, anything that will revive the company's fortunes and allow it to once again avoid a UAW confrontation. Yeah right. If Rabid Rick manages to forestall a Delphi strike, GM only lives to die another day. History will describe Wagoner's escapology as a Pyrrhic victory; one that protected his own future at the expense of his employer's.

I used to think that spin meant arranging facts to conceal their meaning. After watching Rabid Rick Wagoner's responses to the pre-shocks signaling GM's impending implosion, I now see spin as the art of distraction combined with the sin of omission. Back in October, on the day Rabid Rick revealed a $1.6b quarterly shortfall, Wagoner also announced a $1b health care "giveback" by his unionized employees. Only later did we learn that GM is paying the union $2b to cushion the impact. Yesterday, Wagoner announced he was slicing 30k jobs and closing nine production plants by '08. So Rick, how much will THAT cost GM?

Wagoner publicly conceded that The General will take a "sizable charge against earnings" to cover the plant closures– and then point blank refused to provide any details. It's entirely unlikely that Wagoner made the downsizing decision without knowing its exact impact on GM's bottom line. His reluctance can only mean one thing: red ink, and lots of it. Merrill Lynch analyst John Casesa estimates that shuttering the nine plants will cost The General between $1b and $2b. Mr. Casesa was unavailable for comment; it's not exactly clear what expenses his figures encompass. Of this we can be certain: the closures will cost a bundle and do sweet FA to relieve GM's sky-high labor costs, either now or in the future.

As we mentioned the last time Wagoner proclaimed job cuts, The General is hoping that the majority of the unneeded workers will either retire or be coerced into retirement (i.e. be paid off or be paid off). The rest will collect unemployment benefits at the taxpayer's expense. That said, GM is contractually obliged to make up the difference between the "idled" workers' government checks and 90% of their GM base pay AND continue to pay their health care benefits. When their jobless benefits expire, GM will place the workers into its infamous "Jobs Bank". They will then receive a full paycheck for doing nothing, until they retire to collect their pensions and use their GM-financed health care benefits.

With that kind of downside, it's no wonder GM has continued to build cars and sell them at a loss rather than the bite the [exploding] bullet. It's also clear to anyone who even glances at the details of Rabid Rick's mini-restructuring plan that the plant closures are too little, too late. Unlike the health care give-back scam, industry analysts and the mainstream automotive media are all over this one. The Detroit News, Free Press, San Francisco Chronicle, JP Morgan, Merrill Lynch, Sanford & Bernstein, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs– it's pig pile on Ricky. And rightly so. The closures are a tacit admission of GM's failures both in the domestic marketplace and on the factory floor. They do nothing to rectify the fundamental problems bedeviling The General's potential profitability.

Wagoner's spin on this development is the old "tough medicine" routine. In case you missed the implied corollary– I'm the Doc courageous enough to administer the diabolical dose– Rabid Rick dismissed those who would dismiss him: "I wasn't brought up to run and hide when things get tough." Yes, well, the ramifications of his retreat from the field of battle are many– and none holds forth the prospect of a corporate turnaround. As the offical UAW response to the closures pointed out, GM under Wagoner has proven itself incapable of designing cars, trucks and SUV's people want to buy. Predictably enough, Wagoner says the killer products– once new SUV's, now crossovers– are just around the corner. Again. Still.

In any case, when all is said and done, a great deal will have been said about The General's plant closures and job cuts, and nothing will be done to steer GM away from the troubles ahead. With a Delphi-shaped iceberg about to strike GM's hull, you could even argue that GM's production plants should be cranking up to provide inventory, not winding down to bolster Wagoner's flagging rep on Wall Street. Meanwhile, GM's Board of Bystanders– I mean Directors– should be publicly flogged for allowing Wagoner to dance with wolves when he should be busy re-creating GM as a leaner, meaner and more creative organization; making fewer models for fewer brands at a greater profit. It is hard to understand what Board members do to deserve their paychecks, or how they can possibly justify paying dividends at this time of crisis.

Rest assured, there will be a moral to this story: you can spin anything, but lies and half-truths only provide a brief respite from reality. The only way Rick Wagoner can help GM is to be the instrument of its destruction. Whether he knows it or not, the rough beast that will replace the world's largest automaker is already on its way.

'I'd just like to set the record straight here and now,' Rabid Rick Wagoner wrote in an email circulated yesterday on GM's intranet. 'There is absolutely no plan, strategy or intention for GM to file for bankruptcy." Obviously, the growing suspicion that GM is heading for a cataclysmic financial failure prompted Wagoner tell the world that The Man in Charge isn't playing kissy-kissy with a bankruptcy judge behind the bike shed. At the precise moment when Wagoner should have been rallying his troops with a bold survival strategy, he chose to declare the fact that he's not [currently] negotiating surrender. Wrong answer.

If you still believe that Rabid Rick and his cronies can save GM, I suggest you surrender that opinion now and join the industry analysts wise to Wagoner's wicked ways. Every time there's trouble at the mill– an occurrence whose increasing frequency is only matched by its escalating intensity– Rick announces Something Is Being Done. The scandalous manipulation surrounding last quarter's financial statement, when Rick revealed the bogus United Auto Workers (UAW) health care "giveback" on the same day GM lost $1.6b, is a perfect example of Wagoner's MO. It's got the point where any executive assertion of corrective action signals yet another financial disaster.

So when The Detroit News (DTN) duly reports that "Ailing GM speeds up fix-it plan", it's a sure sign that The General is closer than ever to flat lining. As part of this nominal plan, whose bullet-pointed description is only marginally better than "lower costs, increase sales", Wagoner vows to cut 25k hourly employees by '08. Only GM's contract with the UAW prohibits plant closures until September 2007. And that means Wagoner actually intends to "idle" the excess workers, or try to lure them into early retirement. Either way, the employees will be almost as big a drain on GM's resources as if they were building cars no one wants.

Meanwhile, back in Wagoner's email, The General's general went to great pains to show he understands the gravity of the situation he's put the company in, and the need to sort it all out, you know, soon. Rabid Rick acknowledged that GM's North American meltdown created losses which are "unsustainable, for sure, and require a comprehensive strategy… that must be implemented promptly and effectively.' In case you haven't guessed it by now, Rabid Rick is saving this meta plan for next quarter's financial statement, when the latest red ink report reveals the full extent of GM's arterial spray.

Hey, if Rabid Rick Wagoner's got a cure-all to keep GM from the corporate crash cart, how come the North America's Vice President of Vehicle Sales, Service and Marketing doesn't know about it? DTN reporter Brett Clanton recently got some face time with Monster Mark LaNeve, and asked LaNeve to outline Wagoner's plan to revitalize GM's sales and marketing. Here's what he got:

"What he means by that is doing a much better job of delivering eight distinct brands to the marketplace that all have unique target customer groups. He's talking about focusing the brands. He's talking about my plan, which is to go to market with value orientation rather than incentive orientation. Do better in the key markets such as the coasts where we've lost a lot of ground in recent years. And then, have a world-class dealer base."

While we're glad to see LaNeve wrest ownership for GM's recently abandoned "Total Value Promise" from his boss, Monster Mark's remarks indicate that Wagoner has yet to hit refresh on his turnaround browser. Even if you accept LaNeve's spinvaguery, there's no evidence whatsoever that Wagoner's crew are doing anything to conquer the coasts or implement brand differentiation. In fact, the recent revelation that GM is preparing 14 crossover vehicles for its eight brands indicates the exact opposite. And if GM's front end is in such disarray, what hope is there for sorting things out in the back?

None. All GM's management maneuvering brings to mind the connection between an ancient Roman conflagration and Emperor Nero's musical abilities. Big Ron Gettelfinger's belligerent remarks regarding the UAW's negotiations with parts maker Delphi reaffirms our contention that Delphi will be crippled by a strike in December, which will cripple GM roughly five minutes after that. Did I say cripple? Perhaps I should have used the word "kill".

Buried inside the DTN story on Wagoner's bankruptcy denial is a startling revelation; a factoid that obviates any move GM's brass could make to save the company's ass. "A Delphi-related shutdown at GM would force the automaker to tap into the $19 billion in cash it has on hand. The investment firm UBS Securities estimates that GM would run through its cash hoard in 10 weeks." In other words, our GM Death Watch is heading for its inevitable conclusion. For sure.

If it wasn't so funny, it would be sad. GM loses billions in ill-advised overseas 'investments', produces an over-abundance of vehicles that are two model cycles behind the competition, can't build a single hybrid, completely cocks-up production of its Solsticial one hit wonder, cedes US market dominance to Toyota, plays "Let's Pretend to Make a Deal" with its union, announces its intention to sell-off majority interest in the only profitable part of the company, refuses to outline its turnaround plan, and the stock market yawns. The federal Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) discovers GM's accountants have lost four hundred million dollars behind the couch and the stock tanks. What's that all about?

Before the SEC probe, like many other industry watchers, I was laboring under the impression that GM's stunning incompetence and epic lethargy reflected management myopia. In other words, The General's G5 corporate culture had insulated Rabid Rick Wagoner and his well-paid minions from what you and I would call reality. They honestly believe their own hype. Now, I'm not to sure. Although the $400m was "misreported" rather than "lost", there are ominous rumblings that GM's mea culpa is the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Lest we forget, the SEC's main focus was/is GM's multi-billion dollar pension and benefit schemes (vis-a-vis bankrupt auto parts supplier Delphi). Yesterday, the federal Pension Guaranty Corporation reported that Delphi's pensions are underfunded by $10.8b.

If GM's been cooking the books, people will soon wonder if Rabid Rick's secretly hired Dorian Grey's portrait painter. After all, GM maintains an entire ledger of accountants to ensure that The General's financial statements are on the up-and-up. The audit committee in charge of these pusillanimous pencil pushers reports directly to Rabid Rick. So, if the SEC finds that GM's increasingly obvious use of "aggressive accounting" tipped into pension and benefit-related GBH, the chances that the shell game was a devious plot concocted by a rogue element with The General's ranks are minimal. The discovery will reflect Rabid Rick's willingness to encourage– or at the very least tolerate– corporate duplicity.

This would put us back in charted waters: in Enron territory, watching arrogant execs manipulating the public trust for personal greed and glory. And that sucks. Because it would mean that GM is deeply, fundamentally corrupt. That all the garbage we've been interpreting as corporate "spin"– our cars are terrific, our new SUV's are high mileage heroes, we're sorting the brands, badge engineering is dead, discounts are dead, crossovers are coming, hybrids are coming, fuel cells are coming, etc.– is actually a deliberate cover-up of executive malfeasance. It's a slippery slope from PR to lies to cutting corners to criminal conduct. The SEC probe could reveal that Rick's riding a Flexible Flyer.

Sadly, it makes perfect sense. Perhaps Rabid Rick can't turn GM around because he's lost in Nixonian paranoia, struggling to maintain his administration's hold on executive privilege at all costs. Wagoner is, after all, a straight-from-biz-school boffin without any work experience outside of GM. Rabid Rick's moral and ethical compass was handed to him by GM's heavy hitters. His managerial mindset was forged by the plots and plans of The General's inept dictators. Personal power could well be his primary goal– rather than the greater good of the company, its customers, employees, suppliers and stockholders. If you want evidence of this perspective, drive a GM product and ask yourself a simple question: why isn't it better?

I know: it's a deeply cynical portrait. But GM is a deeply cynical company. After launching and vigorously defending its post-fire sale "value pricing" strategy, after going to all the trouble to retrain its front line salesman to switch from deal-making to product pushing (at a cost of millions), The General has just announced a year-end "Red Tag" sale to once-again clear its bloated inventories. At the same time, they're taking credit for building-up their inventories [supposedly] in preparation for the inevitable Delphi strike and resulting production shutdown. Is this first-class crisis management, gross incompetence or a reflection of something darker, something rotten in the heart of RenCen? I'm beginning to lean towards the third option, and so is Wall Street.

Financial analysts like Banc of America's Ron Tadross haven't suddenly "woken-up" to The General's fundamental flaws and looming troubles. They've simply begun to see that The General's generals don't have a viable plan for winning the battles– never mind the war. And like Kirk Kerkorian, they can smell imminent exsanguinations from a mile away. Each day, the likelihood grows that Captain Kirk or another similarly voracious corporate raider will swoop down and buy Rabid Rick's alma mater, sell off the entire GMAC finance unit, pocket the profits and flog the unprofitable automaking side of the business for chicken feed. Either that or just close the factory gates and walk away.