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Automotive News & Views What if you were in charge of GM?
874 messages, Last post on Oct 28, 2009 at 10:20 AM
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Replying to: bpizzuti (Jun 27, 2009 4:05 am) Thats a lot of Pizza Sauce, sorry could not resist the joke L:OL!!! |
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Replying to: TIMGT5 (Jun 27, 2009 1:29 am) If the opposite of pro is con, what is the opposite of progress? |
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Replying to: fintail (Jun 27, 2009 7:39 am) But when planned economy is mentioned, we don't evoke Norway or Finland or prosperous Switzerland or Sweden---or the truly mind-boggling amount of treasure stolen by thieves in American business---we evoke North Korea and the horrors of Stalin. It's a strawman argument, and not a particularly sound one IMO. As for GM, they were shielded from destruction by conservative US administrations, not by socialists by any means. Protectionism guaranteed the D3 a slow death, that's all it did. GM could NOT PAY any of its workers, ever again, and it still wouldn't make any money. How much lamer a performance could a nationalized GM put in than that?
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Replying to: fintail (Jun 27, 2009 7:39 am) As for globalization, that was inevitable. Our economy is entering what Alvin and Hedi Toffler called "The Third Wave" the first was agriculture, the second was industrial and the third is information. Each transition caused a lot of turmoil. When in the early stages of industry there those who predicted we would starve because we were losing our "farming" base (sound familiar?) Food relative to income is cheaper and more diverse than it has ever been. The transition to the third wave will not be "clean" and simple and there will be a lot pain in the short run, it is up to us as individuals to lean all we can and advance ourselves because one thing about this third wave, it is going to be up to us, and us alone to make it work. |
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Replying to: Mr_Shiftright (Jun 27, 2009 8:03 am) Apparantly I am going to have to start teaching economics on this forum. The Scandanavian countries of Europe are not "planned" economies and not socialist countries either as both the left and right in the US media have inacurately portrayed them. Ok a little Econ 101: The US, Europe, Japan and Australia are all "Welfare States" to varying degrees. The definition of such being countries in which the economy is largely free market but proceeds are culled by the central government (taxes) to fund state sponsored social benefits and projects. Socialism is a system of economics in which all enterprise is owned and operated by the State, all proceeds go to the state's coffer's and the state hands out the income as it sees fit, which describes Cuba, N. Korea, and former USSR Communism is a system whereby all property and people belong to the state and the state can dispose of either as it sees fit. In Marx's vision people do not exist as individuals at all but merely instruments of the collective. No nation has ever actually implemented this in its entirety. The best actual example would be Borg from Star Trek. Capitalism in its purest form has never exisited on a large scale and probably never will as there will be some need for state management of people. Hong Kong, pre-chinese control came the closest to your so-called "American" Model in modern times. I am not going to try to convince you here, you have your beliefs and understandings and I have mine, now lets get back to talking about how to fix GM and just agree to disagree and leave it that.
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Replying to: TIMGT5 (Jun 27, 2009 8:33 am)  You're not describing the European system, which is correctly called "democratic socialism". You're still evoking Stalinist horrors. But YEAH OKAY, back to GM, you're right...we are straying some here. |
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Wow! The last couple of days of posts on this board are fantastic. Much better than how to grind some functionally illiterate 35K per year car salesman out of the last $50 on the invoice. But back to leadership for a second. GM had a much heralded product development czar, who may even have been a Vice Chairman. The guy made good copy: he was well dressed, silver hair, great watch collection (he was even profiled in Watch Times), a couple of ex wives, big estate, etc. He was a handsome, former marine (I don't dare say, "ex" marine) fighter pilot who would commute to work in his personal helicopter. He also maintained a stable of vintage fighter jets and landed one at least once without putting his landing gear down. The guy got a lot of press ink and even had his own blog for a while. Lets see, what did this former BMW exec exactly accomplish? SAAB is gone. They were using Opel platforms and a four cylinder engine developed back in the 60's to compete with the German Big 3. Saturn? Gone. The Corvette? OK, a certain kind of upper blue collar guy likes them but no one ever cross shops a Porsche or a BMW against a 'vette. Pontiac/Buick/Oldsmobile?? Who?? While dealer development wasn't in his portfolio, did the GM dealer body get any better while he was on board? This is important because I don't think anyone is going to bring the upper middle class back to GM until the dealers adopt more contemporary standards towards consumers. You buy a Volvo and you know that you stand a fair chance of being treated decently. Buy a GM and you probably wouldn't even get a thank you note from the dealer principal. You get the idea. It was largely smoke and mirrors with zero accountability. |
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Do any of you think it's possible for a company to actually fossilize itself into a "culture of mediocrity" that can't be changed merely by switching CEOs? In other words, if you look at Car Company A as a pyramid, and if the HABIT of mediocrity invests the entire space, from top to bottom, how does changing either the very top or the very bottom get you anywhere?
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Replying to: Mr_Shiftright (Jun 27, 2009 9:57 am)
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