shit.” Bob adds “I’m a skeptic, not a denier. Having said that, my
opinion doesn’t matter.” Speaking about the battery-driven Volt, Lutz
said, “I’m motivated more by the desire to replace imported oil than by
the CO2 [argument].” At the lunch Bob also said hybrids like
the Prius make “make no economic sense” and the Volt is exciting for
him because “it’s the last thing anybody expected from GM.”
AutoBlogGreen
As part of their business retooling, Detroit’s big three automakers announced plans to close more plants, shed some lesser performing brands and lay off approximately 50,000 workers.
A spokesman for GM said that their plans to revive what most economists agree are already failed companies, had become considerably more aggressive, while refusing to detail which plants they planned to close and where workers would be laid off.
Meanwhile, industry oracles predict sales of a mere 10.1 million new cars this year, a paltry number number of new car sales that couldn’t pay half of Detroit’s executive’s salaries.
I won’t point out that demand for American cars is at its lowest in 26 years because of the stupidity and hubris of management that ignored the environmental/gas price writing on the wall (see above!) and continued to make big gas guzzlers – this has been done sufficiently by thousands of other writers.
I won’t point out that Chrysler’s CEO is the very same Robert Nardelli who drove Home Depot into the ground and walked away with a $200,000,000 severance for his failure.
I won’t point out that the impact of Detroit’s overarching failure has contributed mightily to the deflationary depression we find ourselves in today.
I won’t point out that there are literally millions of jobs at stake, and the men driving this collossal cluster-guzzler are the same ones who have already driven the companies they purport to be capable of rescuing into the ground.
I did point out in another post about Ken Lewis, chair of Bank of America, that the government resorted to threatening management at BoA with replacement if they wouldn’t play ball where Merrill Lynch was concerned…
So someone please answer this question: why should the government bail out the auto industry, but not require changes in a management rogues gallery that’s clearly culpable and incapable of “fixing” the problems they created in the first place?
These same rogues are back in Washington asking for B$34,000,000,000.
I would like to see Detroit continue to produce cars. To wish their failure would be irrational considering the broader impact failure would have, but there has to be some give back.
lutz and his minions are nit wits, the volt? what the fuck happened to the ev-1?didnt gm go out and grind them all down into metal shavings.just give me 200 billion to fix my railroad system and we”ll be fine.