Saving the US Auto Industry

[tw]

Originally Posted by classicman

I for one am curious. Are there cliff notes available?

That was the Cliff note. A very easy read. Actual story is much longer, more involved, and even more damning.

Post 188 - a short quote from a 14 page 2002 article in The Economist - tells the story that TheMercenary's Boortz video forgot to include. Long before 2002, Japanese and European auto makers had already been doing what is hyped as revolutionary in that Boortz video. Revolutionary? Hardly. Just another example of American MBAs finally permitting what was world standard 10 and 20 years ago.

That is an example of lessons taught even by W E Deming in the 1950s. Deming taught why production was so inefficient and what is necessary to be productive. He even cited a Quality Control inspector as a symptom of no quality. Post 188 is simply another example of a philosophy that is so difficult for MBAs to comprehend.

How many foolishly entered this discusson believing that popular myths that blamed the unions? GM is exactly what happens when MBAs - people without dirt under their fingernails - become corporate leaders. The auto industry repeatedly demonstrated what is necessary to make an auto company productive. Very first task every time - replaced bean counters with car guys. Only then can innovation begin.

[classicman]

You missed the sarcasm there, again. I wasn't saying that I disagreed with you entirely, but I do think that you are oversimplifying the issue to just one thing/group/problem. I think this is a multifaceted issue with many problems/causes. It just doesn't have that simple an answer.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by classicman

We need a poll to see how many people actually read post #188. I for one am curious. Are there cliff notes available?

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by classicman

You missed the sarcasm there, again. I wasn't saying that I disagreed with you entirely, but I do think that you are oversimplifying the issue to just one thing/group/problem. I think this is a multifaceted issue with many problems/causes. It just doesn't have that simple an answer.

Nope, it's YOUR fault... it's all YOUR fault.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Nope, it's YOUR fault... it's all YOUR fault.

He must be top level management.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Nope, it's YOUR fault... it's all YOUR fault.

...as usual.

[tw]

From the NY Times of 5 Dec 2008:

At G.M., Innovation Sacrificed to Profits
General Motors did not apologize for anything in its first trip to Congress more than two weeks ago to plead for a federal rescue. The company’s only problem, it insisted, was the current financial crisis.

“What exposes us to failure now is not our product lineup, or our business plan, or our long-term strategy,” Rick Wagoner, G.M.’s chief executive, said in his testimony.

Just another in a list of maybe 100 posted examples of why GM's greatest enemy is Rick Wagoner and his cadre of MBAs. He lies to himself - as well as to Congress.

Time and again over the last 30 years, G.M. has spent billions of dollars on innovative ideas like its Saturn small-car company in the 1980s and the EV1 electric vehicle in the 1990s, only to then deprive those projects of further financing because money was needed elsewhere or because they were not delivering enough profit.

That will not change until a car guy replaces Wagoner.

The failure is frustrating to those who remember the high value placed on innovation by legendary company leaders like Alfred P. Sloan Jr. and Charles E. Wilson, who felt G.M. could sell cars to the masses by demonstrating it was out in front.

“Until the 1960s, innovation was part of G.M.’s DNA,” said John Casesa, a veteran industry analyst with the Casesa Shapiro Group. “Now, it’s a matter of trying to play catch-up.”

One such area is hybrid technology, an area where G.M. might be leading if it had encouraged the engineers who led its hybrid development as long ago as the 1970s, and continued building on expertise it gained with the EV1.

While Toyota has sold more than 600,000 Prius hybrids in the United States since 2000, General Motors will not start selling its Volt plug-in hybrid until 2010, when it hopes to sell 10,000 of them in the first year.

How widespread is denial? Another was so brainwashed by GM rhetoric as to tell me the Volt is not a hybrid; it is a plug-in car. How widespread is this "I love George Jr" disease?

Only now, in its second plea to Congress, did [GM] acknowledge what just about every industry analyst has said for years: that G.M. has too many brands, now that its market share has fallen by nearly two-thirds from its peak in 1960 to just 22 percent today.

G.M. said last week that it would focus on just four core brands — Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac — and sell or play down Saturn, Pontiac, Saab and Hummer.

The goal, it said in its new plan, is “to focus available resources and growth strategies on the company’s profitable operations.”

Duh. Too little too late. It needs to eliminate those other divisions - not just 'play them down'. GM employee jobs are that much at risk.

Restructuring was not even considered two weeks ago when Rick Wagoner told Congress that GM only needed a few tens of $billions and everything would be fine. How many times need this be posted before it even becomes obvious to George Jr and the brain of Terri Schiavo.

Mr. Casesa said that pattern stemmed from the fact that so many of the company’s top executives had a background in finance, not in engineering and designing cars and trucks.

Duh. Anyone with enough sense to not be a wacko extremist would have known that.

If a newspaper publishes an article this honest, then GM would have taken revenge as GM did to the LA Times in April 2005. Now it is safe to be honest. Rick Wagoner has done more to destroy America than Saddam Hussein. That too is not even debatable.

G.M.’s failure to press forward with its own hybrids was a deep disappointment to Robert C. Stempel, the former chief executive who gave the go-ahead to the EV1 program during his brief tenure in the early 1990s.

“I’m furious,” Mr. Stempel said in a 2003 interview. “G.M. had the technology. The lead was there. I know it.”

Just excerpts from that article. Bottom line - Rick Wagoner will not even admit GM has a problem. The only problem, he says, is the economy! Yes, one must can be as dumb as George Jr to be GM's CEO.

[classicman]

Don't blame Bush - he is refusing to use the money already earmarked for the financial industry. Look at and blame some of the democrats who want to bail these idiots out. Pre-structure a bankruptcy and renegotiate with the unions. Get these three more in line with that which some other auto companies are doing and move on. I really do not see any other alternative.
Oh, and fire 85% of the management!

[tw]

Originally Posted by classicman

Don't blame Bush - he is refusing to use the money already earmarked for the financial industry.

Obviously George Jr is not blamed. George Jr and Terri Schiavo are simply benchmarks for the intelligence in GM corporate management and business school graduates.

Don't fool yourself. George Jr is doing nothing. He is not withholding aid. George Jr is demonstrating the same decision making powers of Teri Schiavo. Even with an MBA degree, he is smart enough to know he has zero economics knowledge - even of the economics taught in high school.

John Snow recently made that obvious in a backhanded praise of an economist. Snow said this economist was the only one who ever tried to explain something to the president by using an equation. y=mx+b or something like that. John Snow was a George Jr Sec of the Treasury. Who needs enemies when one has friends?

Numerous Secretary of the Treasury have noted how economically dumb George Jr is. NY Times demonstrates that Rick Wagoner is just as dumb. Rick Wagoner says GM's problems are only due to the economy. He says GM's products and structure are just fine. Denial we have not seen since some fools in the Cellar voted for George Jr.

Rick Wagoner is also an MBA - just like George Jr - which says so much about his intelligence and why Rick Wagoner has done more to destroy America than Saddam Hussein. Read the Michelle Maynard article in the NY Times. Only Ayn Rand's 'anti-free market' corporate bosses were this dumb. It's really hard to believe people that dumb exist and remains so much in denial in a real world. Being as dumb as George Jr; they do exist.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by tw

George Jr.....George Jr......George Jr.....George Jr.....George Jr ....George Jr.....George Jr....George Jr.....Saddam Hussein....George Jr....

Obsess much?

[Undertoad]

Originally Posted by tw

Snow said this economist was the only one who ever tried to explain something to the president by using an equation. y=mx+b or something like that.

The classic Keynesian figuring.

C+I+G+X-M=Y

Consumption + Investment + Government Spending + Exports - Imports = Gross Domestic Product

Keynes figured that if C and I are down you should increase G to smooth out the bad times. It doesn't really fly if you increase G all the time and run deficits though.

[classicman]

ok tw, lets try this then - aside from your mistaken belief that you are the only one reading The Economist and simply regurgitating what they say. What are your plans going forward? What ideas, thoughts and/or opinions do you have in an effort to rectify that which is wrong? Instead of your typical George jr mental midget big dic, GM bean counters.... ad nauseum... What else have you got?

[Bullitt]

Looks like they might get $15 bill, enough to float them till Obama is up to bat and then see what he does from there.

[tw]

Originally Posted by classicman

ok tw, ... What are your plans going forward?

Since you claim to read before you reply, then you know solutions were posted repeatedly. Please. Show us that you do more than post wisecracks. Show us that you actually comprehended what you replied to. Since solutions were posted repeatedly, and since classicman claims to understand what he reads, then classicman can repeat those previous solutions.

Anyone can read The Economist and numerous other publications. Not all readers bother to grasp facts. Many readers simply seek facts that agree with their political agenda – ignore everything else. classicman - this is where you demonstrate which kind of reader you are. Those solutions have been posted repeatedly. Your question was answered previously if you read for knowledge. Show us that you read to understand; not read to simply reinforce a political agenda. You can answer your own question IF you comprehended what contradicts political bias.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

C+I+G+X-M=Y

Consumption + Investment + Government Spending + Exports - Imports = Gross Domestic Product.

Equation reportedly presented to George Jr had only four vectors. The joke was that everyone knew to not confuse George Jr with facts and numbers.

George Jr is doing exactly what he does with any crisis. "A second plane has just struck the World Trade Center. America is under attack." So he sat for 15 minutes in a child's chair waiting for someone to tell him what to do. Seven years later, and still some don't get it. Even his own people subtly joke about how dumb George Jr really is. Some voters still don't get it.