Just my thoughts. If I am right we will probably see a new CEO within two weeks.

We’ll see.

now looking for a super star CEO.

which means a super sized salary too.

but won’t mean better results.

GM’s biggest problem was allowing the accountants to run a company that is based on products sold to consumers. that means make products consumers will buy for a reasonable price, not make products as cheaply as possible, which leads to lack luster products, and having to ‘buy’ sales using incentives (not that the auto industry hasn’t taught the customer to look for this. or that customers haven’t always bought on price in some cases). but consider Toyota. they have some of the same issues too. but they have that quality thing down pat (and have lots of public perception capital of that too to boot)

and consider that if you bought a German or Japanese car made in Germany or Japan, the odds are about 99+% that it was made by a union worker. And that German auto worker is the highest paid in the world by far.

What GM needs is to broom out a lot of bad/inept/incompetent management, flatted the corporate org chart and quit pissing money down ratholes., such as electric cars. Get rid of the distractions of “brand loyalty” BS from the 50′s, cut the branding BS in advertising and start making good, functional cars that meet actual needs of the consumer.

But as it is, very little of that will actually happen, and GM is merely marking time before they exceed the tolerance of all but a few wingnut liberal UAW-supported Congressclowns. At that time, they’ll be defunded by Uncle Sugar, broken up and sold off to various other auto companies, much as Chrysler has been.

The unions have no fault in this mess? Managment runs the company?

Both Union and Management bear responsibility for the travails of the auto industry and any other where this adversarial relationship basically tell the stockholders to stick it.

That’s as kindly as I can put it without personal attacks on your sense of who’s to blame.

carleric @ 11:31 pretty much sums it up for me. Look at Roger Smith and Murphy before him. They were only interested in profits. They couldn’t / wouldn’t compete on the car side, and instead gave us SUVs and pickup trucks. (It was all consumer demand, don’t ya know — yeah, right.) They were amply aided by a congress that froze mileage requirements year after year. And sorry, I don’t buy the unions are at fault. Management runs the company, sets the agenda, tone and direction of the company.