Who would have thunk it?
March 30, 2009 9 Comments
General Motors, once the symbol of America’s corporate might, reduced to struggling to survive.
Got a letter from Ed Ramirez — it will be in the paper later this week — suggesting that the Obama Administration was declaring war on corporate America. The reference was to the replacing of the CEO of GM. I did not see his logic; If a company seeks and gets billions from the feds, the feds certainly have a right to pass judgment on how the company is run.
About fsnowflack
Morris County Politics 
It’s called strings attached. Sort of like a relative lending you money!
Why waste taxpayer dollars resusitating corpses? Let them go Chapter 11, re-organize while shedding the obligations that they stupidly entered into, and come back either independently or as a subsidiary of Toyota.
This bailout stuff is crazy. We let banks and businesses fail in the late 80’s and created the Resolution Trust Company to sell off the assets. Investors bought them, fixed them up, and turned them around.
Why not do the same thing today?
The president is showing GM that money talks, and the CEO is the one who is walking…right out the door.
I don’t see anyone declaring war on corporations. In 2005, when auto sales were breaking records, GM lost 10 billion dollars. What happened? So-called conservatives blame it on big government, Barney Frank, neo-socialist conspiracies, over-regulation, and look to everything else to blame except where it really belongs. Smart investors take a dim view of incompetence, they replace non-performers, and put stipulations on where their money goes. Taxpayer-investors, and that’s what we all are now, should expect the same.
The letter was amusing in today’s paper. Poor Mr. Oppressed Rick Wagoner. Only thing I can figure is that either Ed was pulling an April Fool joke, or the paper was. Else, how on Earth is the CEO of GM on a par with the original victims of the Nazis in Martin Niemöller’s poem?
This is all about propping up the Unions and Obama will not let them fail. He does not want to put the survival of the UAW in the hands of a bankruptcy court judge. All of you may not see the problems with the government running a company but this is an organization that collects money from everyone and they do it under duress, but they still cannot make it work. Yopu want them deciding who and what type of cars to make.
I see the problems with it which is why I am against bailing them out.
Darwin was doing his natural business and Obama stepped in to reward GM’s incompetence.
Let GM fail, let the pieces get bought up, and let someone new, with their own money in the game, get a fresh start.
Gm is a mess.They could have just gone without the bailout. But if thet did 1000’s of people would be out of work.
The trade off is GM can’t do business as they have in the past. If they are to survive they must change.
The GM CEO, got a $20 billion dollar payout ,so why shed any tears for him?
The American people to want to buy US made goods,but please make them better then the others do! Not too much to ask fo.Right?
Sorry folks ,the GM CEO got a $20 million dollar pay off( not $20 billion).It is easy to get confused with all of the billions and trillions that are being handed out in 2009!!