One thing about this economy is that the stories are more interesting to read...and people care quite a bit less about Hollywood. I lived near Hollywood most of my life, and let me tell you, it's so much less interesting that it's made to be in media. Anyhow, I digress...
Here's the article.
Here's my favorite quote:
"GM research continues to show that customers would shy away from buying vehicles from companies in bankruptcy."
First-GM had to do research to figure this out? Did that research also conclude that people won't buy a car when the economy [and their job] is unpredictable? How much money did they spend on this research to reach this common sense conclusion?
Second-Is this the same company that determined that building the Pontiac Aztek would be a good idea? Or the company that decided to build the SS-R but then put a POS 6 cylinder engine in it and charge $50k for it? Or the company that thought Hummer was the road to riches? Or the company that, next to Chrysler, builds the worst quality vehicles on the road? [I don't particularly like Ford's vehicles but they did cash in on both trucks and small cars, while toying around with the Mustang and GT without asking for a handout. Ford, by its own estimates, will make it through 2009 without asking for welfare.] The Cavalier was a piece of junk every single year it was manufactured-ask just about anyone who's owned one-I have and the concensus is that they'd have better spent their money on a wheelbarrow. Look at quality ratings, life span, repair costs, etc.
GM is a company strangled by its own bean counters-great concept cars/prototypes, horrible cars in reality...the vehicles that work are duplicated three or four times with different sheet metal and dilute the very market they hope to control. Not smart...not complicated...this is "Marketing 101". In the scramble for market share, they dilute their own product line?
GM is making proposals to the government about how to restructure...okay...here's a question: If they saw this coming (and they did...I work for a tooling company that supplies tools to the Big 3 and we all saw it coming), why didn't they do something early last year...? It's easier to expect a bailout and let the taxpayer buffer the incompetance of one of the largest corporations in the world. Infuckingcredible. GM is in no place to make proposals. It's time for new management-a group that will allow the design department actually do something with their ideas. Shelves are for collecting dust, not profit. Hell, spin the company off into two groups and let them focus on their core competancies (whatever they may be...?) and if one dies...well, they probably deserved their demise.
If a company produces a product that customers will not buy due to price-lower the price. If customers won't buy a product because it's not functional or the perceived value isn't there-change the design and conduct more effective market research before sending the product to market...or just throw in the fucking towel and knock on my door and ask for money. Someone would get muff punched with a typewriter...
Where is Chrysler in all of this barking? Rather silent...watching GM make mistake after mistake (destroying Saab, riding Hummer into the ground, turning Pontiac into a life-size toy car company) and then create proposals to the government about how they should restructure when there is so little remaining.
It is true that failure teaches far more than success...but is now the time to let GM decide its fate when they don't appear to know which side is up?
I read an article a while ago about all of the cost cutbacks that Chrysler is making at their Auburn Hills corporate office (the second largest in terms of sq feet in the country)-not plowing the top level of the parking garage, taking down all of the clocks in the buildings (so they wouldn't have to change the time on five or six hundred clocks twice a year), etc. Is this all they have left? No other costs to cut, huh? I doubt it. I work in operations, there's always more that can be cut when times are tight...we've cut costs greater than the clock stunt at Chrysler with two phone calls. Our main office is probably smaller than their executive washroom-we don't have space we don't absolutely need to operate. That's the trouble with eating good for so long...you forget how to make Top Ramen.
Sometimes, Top Ramen is the key to getting ahead when the shit hits the fan.
Maybe I'll have our office in Michigan send them a fan.
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One major issue when you have downsizing is that corporate liabilities don't decrease just because the size of the corporation decreased. You might close 20 auto plants, but you still have last year's tax bill to pay on those mofos, and you're still paying on the loans for the tooling that's in those plants, and you're still paying on the mortgages for those plants. As for Auburn Hills, Auburn Hills was built by Lee Iacocca, not by anybody currently working for Chrysler, and is not currently owned by Chrysler (it was one of the assets stripped by Daimler when they gutted Chrysler) and Chrysler can't get out of their 10 year lease agreement on the building without declaring bankruptcy.
The big difference between Ford, GM, and Chrysler:
Ford is a family-owned business and thus looks long-term as well as short-term.
GM is legally obligated thanks to U.S. shareholder lawsuits against public corporations to look short-term *only* (and btw sells their cars for several thousand dollars less than Japanese competitors -- there's a reason why GM cars are built cheap, they ARE cheap).
And Chrysler was utterly, utterly gutted by Daimler, Daimler took $40 BILLION dollars that Chrysler was going to use to develop new small cars and killed the successor to the Dodge Neon small car because "Americans can't build small cars", delayed *all* new product development at Chrysler for *two years* in order to re-design all Chrysler vehicles to use as many horrifically expensive Mercedes-Benz parts as possible, and then when they were finished extracting every last bit of value from Chrysler, paid Cerberus Capital to take the empty husk off their hands.
If you are going to blame people:
Current management of Ford: *NOT* the same people who got Ford into trouble. They changed management in 2006.
Current management of Chrysler: *NOT* the same people who got Chrysler into trouble. They changed management in 2007.
Current management of General Motors: GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY. Their CEO needs to be put out to pasture ASAP.
And that's why you hear so much about GM, and not so much about Ford and Chrysler. Folks recognize that the current management of Ford and Chrysler are not the ones that got those car companies into trouble, but GM has no such excuse. Their current CEO and complete top management team should be shitcanned *immediately* and replaced with interim leaders who aren't tarnished with the reek of the bad decisions that led GM into trouble. Otherwise GM simply isn't going to catch a break, regardless of the justifiability (or not) of some of the criticisms of GM here and elsewhere.
_Badtux the Auto Penguin
Hey-look! Your wish came true!
Ford, like 'em or not, has always been able to focus (no pun intended) on more than one product at a time, while insuring the long-term survival of the company.
Chrysler's problems are their own. Nardelli isn't going to save them-he didn't do it with Home Depot and, let's face it, retail is far more simple than manufacturing. Chrysler got raped by Daimler, that much is true...but Daimler didn't push them to manufacture shitty cars. Chrysler has been doing that for years (even before Daimler). Hyundai started with shitty cars and now builds some decent cars. Chrysler has had just as much time and still builds junk.
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