📰 Auto News BREAKING: GM CEO Wagoner out at Obama's request

[James]

My g/f and I were talking about the situation with Rick Wagoner and she brought up a good point. All the US gov't did was inject cash into the company, they didn't buy shares or anything else so why is the gov't acting like they own and run GM?

Easy. When you as a company need to keep begging the government for billions of taxpayer dollars just to stay on life support.....and after the fourth multi-billion payment, the fifth multi-billion payment, the sixth multi-billion payment, and they finally they tell you NO MORE...then that shit is on you and nobody else. But of course it's the governments fault that GM came begging for money, right?

The board of directors are the ones who make the decisions on what happens with their company and they are acting like a pawn. No one on the board has the balls to step up and say fuck off, this is our company and we will do as we see fit to run everything.

How do they run the company as they see fit with no money?
Here's the answer- they don't. Because they don't have a company anymore to run.
The CEO or board of directors aren't really in a position to say FUCK OFF, lol.
And they want to keep their jobs.

I think something happened behind closed doors that no one will discuss (unless we hear about it in a book that is published after their death)

There is no conspiracy, the answer is very simple.
CEO's and Directors are big holders of/compensated with stock options. You know what happens when a company goes bankrupt? The stock is WORTHLESS. It is in these guys' best interest to keep the company running.

because when the President of the United States asks you to do something, you have two choices, do as you are voluntold or say no at your own peril. I think the best option for GM is to go bankrupt so it will release them from the contracts that are bleeding them dry (i.e. UAW) and they can start all over again and run the company without fear from unions or the government. This is a free country and WE give the power to the government, not the other way around.

Free country has nothing to do with this- this is business. And government is somehow the bad guy in all of this? Why shouldn't the government ask GM to get rid of the boss and do some SERIOUS restructuring OR ELSE you won't get any more billions....GM is luckily being given a choice AND a chance.

Start over and run the company without FEAR from the government?! Gimme a break.

 

[sickmint79]

No one can predict what is going to happen. But this economy sure as hell won't fix itself. It's better to do something than "just enough" (whatever the hell that is) it isn't going to cut it.

why not? i guarantee you that the economy would fix itself. the question is as to how much time it would take and how the pain through the transition was distributed. it could certainly fix itself without the government getting its hands in it. i would note also that many of the people who saw it coming blame the government for creating it!! quite hard to look to them as saviors for anyone that shares this belief.

 

[sickmint79]

The majority of this country wants the government to take care of them (I really don't know how this idea got into their heads) but the situation we are in makes for a perfect setup to achieve a democrats wet dream.

i most certainly agree with this one. we'll see in 10 years if people are still agreeing with it. definitely not a belief this country was founded on!

 

[sickmint79]

My g/f and I were talking about the situation with Rick Wagoner and she brought up a good point. All the US gov't did was inject cash into the company, they didn't buy shares or anything else so why is the gov't acting like they own and run GM? The board of directors are the ones who make the decisions on what happens with their company and they are acting like a pawn. No one on the board has the balls to step up and say fuck off, this is our company and we will do as we see fit to run everything. I think something happened behind closed doors that no one will discuss (unless we hear about it in a book that is published after their death) because when the President of the United States asks you to do something, you have two choices, do as you are voluntold or say no at your own peril. I think the best option for GM is to go bankrupt so it will release them from the contracts that are bleeding them dry (i.e. UAW) and they can start all over again and run the company without fear from unions or the government. This is a free country and WE give the power to the government, not the other way around.

the government loaned GM 30 *BILLION* dollars when nobody else would. know why? nobody else is that STUPID. to think that the shareholders can throw their weight around and dictate terms to a lender of this size is just absurd. GM is a dead company. they should go bankrupt. if we were really in a free market we'd let them go bankrupt. if we actually listened to the constitution we would let them go bankrupt. know how much their common stock is really worth? zero dollars. GM is uncle sam's bitch. those guys would have no place telling obama hey! we are a private enterprise! you have no right telling us what to do government! stop meddling with us! while accepting 30 fricken billion taxpayer dollars. the free market lets people fail. you can't cry when you fucked up and it's your turn to fail, ask for a bailout, and then believe that you are still 100% a private enterprise. not while the market clearly says you have failed. to believe that would be completely hypocritical.

the whole idea of bailouts is absurd and a total moral hazard, we shouldn't even have these stupid debates about what the gov can do while bailing out a company. there should be no bailouts.

 

[sickmint79]

What countries, Brittian did a 1 trillion dollar bailout when we did a 700 billion one a little over a year ago, I forgot which, but one other country said their bailout was unlimited....... Everyone is doing it, right or wrong

you are confusing 700 bil tarp with the 800 bil stimulus. we've put a lot more guarantees and other bullshit out there to, something like 13.2 total available and we've actually spent/given out like 2.4? anyway a lot of europe appears to be opposed to spendulus, at least healthy smarter economies. spain is whining for one while germany is saying fawk no bitches

and gordon brown/uk are bitches to the US

 

[Spicy McHaggiz]

the government loaned GM 30 *BILLION* dollars when nobody else would. know why? nobody else is that STUPID. to think that the shareholders can throw their weight around and dictate terms to a lender of this size is just absurd. GM is a dead company. they should go bankrupt. if we were really in a free market we'd let them go bankrupt. if we actually listened to the constitution we would let them go bankrupt. know how much their common stock is really worth? zero dollars. GM is uncle sam's bitch. those guys would have no place telling obama hey! we are a private enterprise! you have no right telling us what to do government! stop meddling with us! while accepting 30 fricken billion taxpayer dollars. the free market lets people fail. you can't cry when you fucked up and it's your turn to fail, ask for a bailout, and then believe that you are still 100% a private enterprise. not while the market clearly says you have failed. to believe that would be completely hypocritical.

the whole idea of bailouts is absurd and a total moral hazard, we shouldn't even have these stupid debates about what the gov can do while bailing out a company. there should be no bailouts.

Yea but Obama is president and McCain/Conservative's are not so you'll just have to deal with it you loser. Isn't it nice that's all the argument a dumbass lefty can come up with? I love it.

James, I wasn't speaking English, I was typing it. (Though funny enough the President can't make a speach without 100 uses of the word UH or UM) And even so you can tell the difference in your and you're. It doesn't take a rocket scientist and the grammar police can fuck off. Maybe once you get around the whole "Obama won deal with it" shit you'll see how completely fucking retarded this guy is. He never did ANYTHING in Congress but vote "Present" and now he's over turning shit left and right. Lets close Gitmo in my first day then realize "oh shit, we have no where to put these people on Trial, lets use civilian courts: Lets also not realize that the majority of Gitmo prisoners released have gone on to commit terroristic acts in Iraq. Yay! Lets also blame the U.S. for the drug war in Mexico by saying American's are giving Mexican's full auto assualt weapons! (dumbasses)

Yup, what a great....uhhhhh....ummm......uhhhh.... President we elected. I can't wait till people get fed up with his ass.

 

[sickmint79]

Yea but Obama is president and McCain/Conservative's are not so you'll just have to deal with it you loser.

i take this as a comment to my last note about bailouts at all - but other than ron paul who else would be denying the bailout anyway? i'm 100% sure mccain would still be bailing out GM.

at least with obama government intervention and big government are expected. when mccain or bush do it they are just completely hypocritical. this is part of the reason the GOP has lost respect (and members).

 

[James]

Yea but Obama is president and McCain/Conservative's are not so you'll just have to deal with it you loser. Isn't it nice that's all the argument a dumbass lefty can come up with? I love it.

James, I wasn't speaking English, I was typing it. (Though funny enough the President can't make a speach without 100 uses of the word UH or UM) And even so you can tell the difference in your and you're. It doesn't take a rocket scientist and the grammar police can fuck off. Maybe once you get around the whole "Obama won deal with it" shit you'll see how completely fucking retarded this guy is. He never did ANYTHING in Congress but vote "Present" and now he's over turning shit left and right. Lets close Gitmo in my first day then realize "oh shit, we have no where to put these people on Trial, lets use civilian courts: Lets also not realize that the majority of Gitmo prisoners released have gone on to commit terroristic acts in Iraq. Yay! Lets also blame the U.S. for the drug war in Mexico by saying American's are giving Mexican's full auto assualt weapons! (dumbasses)

Yup, what a great....uhhhhh....ummm......uhhhh.... President we elected. I can't wait till people get fed up with his ass.

That's the best you got? That's it!?
No wonder the conservatives are doomed.

 

[bluzohh6]

Sickmint79, I'm sorry to say it predictions are what got us into this mess. You CANNOT predict anything, no body has a crystal ball to see the future. All we can do is make the best educated guesses, to TRY and predict what is going to happen.

 

[James]

regardless, the obama numbers are far, far larger - although i don't exactly blame obama for this. i think the picture would be very, very similar if we had mccain in office right now.

I don't know, last week's FAIL....
After the whole GOP criticizing the Obama budget and getting called out by Obama to shut the hell up and offer a budget of their own....
The House Republicans two days later come out waving around their new budget....except it was just a 19 page pamphlet on conservative ideas and values....WITH NO NUMBERS.

This morning House Republicans are supposedly all having another pow-wow to actually make up some numbers so they don't look so stupid the second time around.

 

[bluzohh6]

We need a revolution

 

[sickmint79]

Sickmint79, I'm sorry to say it predictions are what got us into this mess. You CANNOT predict anything, no body has a crystal ball to see the future. All we can do is make the best educated guesses, to TRY and predict what is going to happen.

i'm not saying anyone can predict the future, i'm saying that those people that have credibly forseen this event have extremely little faith in the current attempts at a solution, and some that even believe it is this supposed cure, not the disease, that will kill the patient.

also saying 'predictions got us into this mess' is a little off sounding, more accurate if you say miscalculated risk and incorrect economic models contributed to getting us into this mess.

 

[sickmint79]

I don't know, last week's FAIL....
After the whole GOP criticizing the Obama budget and getting called out by Obama to shut the hell up and offer a budget of their own....
The House Republicans two days later come out waving around their new budget....except it was just a 19 page pamphlet on conservative ideas and values....WITH NO NUMBERS.

This morning House Republicans are supposedly all having another pow-wow to actually make up some numbers so they don't look so stupid the second time around.

i suppose whereas i am saying the republicans would be spending nearly as much, you are saying the republicans would have been too incompetent to have produced anything up to this point. regardless of how they get there (they would eventually i'm sure) i'm just saying i would not expect the final product to be all that much different.

 

[sickmint79]

We need a revolution

agreed

 

[James]

i suppose whereas i am saying the republicans would be spending nearly as much, you are saying the republicans would have been too incompetent to have produced anything up to this point. regardless of how they get there (they would eventually i'm sure) i'm just saying i would not expect the final product to be all that much different.

I haven't given much thought to what Republicans "would have" done, it's a moot point....but if the actions of last week are any measure, then incompetency for sure. They've had just as much time to get their own proposal together and get some merit behind it to counter an Obama budget they knew was coming. They completely dropped the ball.
And while the final pricetag might be similiar you can bet it would be allocated MUCH differently.

 

[sickmint79]

well, it does not exactly seem like they are all playing nice together. as i recall the republicans were barely involved with the stimulus package and just had it dropped in their laps a few days before the vote. i would totally expect a party with enough votes to pass through things practically just by themselves to be able to produce something much faster. also regardless of party i think this is a bad thing - there should be some debate out there for things, it is scary when one party has all of the power - not that i think these 2 parties are *that* different anyway.

i'm certain it would be allocated much differently and i would not be surprised if i thought it for the better. it seems (to me) that much on the left are merely defining spending as stimulative and i think this is far from the case, and that the majority of this stimulus is really spendulus. regardless of whether the cause is good or not, i think the questions are 1. should the government be doing it and 2. will it *stimulate* the creation of growth/wealth or merely redestribute it? when addressing any ideas, and it seems like a lot in the spendulus could be answered with 1. no and 2. unlikely.

 

[bluzohh6]

the risk models themselves weren't flawed, but the people interpreting the results of the calculations were the ones that were flawed by greed. A number of people regardless of political background predicted the inevitable collapse because they knew what people were doing with the results from the risk analysis. It all comes back to greed, people making a quick buck despite the long term results. In my eyes it was a bunch of greedy people taking advantage.

 

[DanJ]

And none of them will ever be held accountable.

 

[bluzohh6]

Not so fast there professor, there is still some hope a couple will be held accountable for their actions. But most likely not the majority. I think if our economy wasn't in such a sad state, and people realized the damage these people were causing, I would like to think some legal actions would be taken.

 

[sickmint79]

the risk models themselves weren't flawed, but the people interpreting the results of the calculations were the ones that were flawed by greed. A number of people regardless of political background predicted the inevitable collapse because they knew what people were doing with the results from the risk analysis. It all comes back to greed, people making a quick buck despite the long term results. In my eyes it was a bunch of greedy people taking advantage.

yes the models were flawed, which should be evident for a number of reasons, such as rapid failure of banks profitable during the great depression, and just the general level of complexity that they are trying to model (and will never be able to). no economist anywhere on the planet would ever tell you that a model isn't flawed, even those that use them religiously. and especially these ones that so obviously were!

a number of people did not predict this. a very small amount of people did. many with similar backgrounds in austrian economics, which is essentially is taught in zero colleges. many were also libertarians as well. the bubble peaked in 2005, and in 2007 the vast majority of professional economists predicted a light recession - if any at all. dennis kucinich had an economic advisor that recognized this crisis was imminent. ron paul had but didn't need one and this was one of the main topics he harped on constantly, while other republicans laughed and said he was loony. those who saw this coming were few and ridiculued until shit started falling apart. they did not predict it because of "how models were being interpreted" - although many of the austrians lump in the fact that models were being used *at all* as a major contributor. and they are talking about models used by the federal reserve, not by investment banks.

greed is a human sin. deal with it. it's never going to go away. people are motivated by personal incentive. it is completely impossible for this alone to create a bubble. 100%. by insisting on this as the cause and simplifying everything down to this you are completely missing the real causes, and thus, real ways to prevent another one. you should get the book "Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises" and see what you actually need to throw into a recipe to cook up a bubble.

you can prevent it two ways:
1. allow a market to actually be free and set things itself, so that all the ingredients don't get thrown into the receipe in wrong amounts. throw cake into self adjusting oven.
2. restrict freedom and control every ingredient that could go in to the recipe. spend a lot of time and money monitoring everything about it.

#1 is outside playing with the kids while the cake is in the oven, #2 is opening the oven every second to check if the cake is alright. opening too many times might cause the cake to never rise. not checking enough may cause the cake to burn, what the baker was so strongly trying to prevent in the first place.

 

[sickmint79]

and before anybody says we tried #1, #1 has failed us - what we have today and for decades is most certainly not #1. #1 does not have a small group of men that we think are really super smart trying to control economic growth. (central bankers)

 

[Alacran]

Goodbye Chrysler, 30 days until the end, Goodbye GM as we know it- may the bankruptcy judge give you some lube beforehand.

Ford NEVER took a bailout- did a lot of restructuring to avoid this mess, that's one HELLUVA job by that CEO. {golf clap}

Ford has always had a plan to survive as a private famliy company.

GM is going down for their stupid Saturn, Hummer, and a lot of other stupis stuff they did. Saturn and Hummer was a waste of resources and now GM has to pay for it.

Chrysler sucks.

 

[sickmint79]

i thought saturn was actually doing decent, and even wanted to break off as their own company? i've just gotten that impression from some stuff, haven't actually looked into that at all.

 

[Spicy McHaggiz]

Saturn is doing great, well at least since they ditched their cheap plastic models for the current lineup. And the last I knew they were going to see if anyone would pick up the line, otherwise all the dealers would bind together and buy the company.

 

[rocket69GTP]

Easy. When you as a company need to keep begging the government for billions of taxpayer dollars just to stay on life support.....and after the fourth multi-billion payment, the fifth multi-billion payment, the sixth multi-billion payment, and they finally they tell you NO MORE...then that shit is on you and nobody else. But of course it's the governments fault that GM came begging for money, right?



How do they run the company as they see fit with no money?
Here's the answer- they don't. Because they don't have a company anymore to run.
The CEO or board of directors aren't really in a position to say FUCK OFF, lol.
And they want to keep their jobs.


There is no conspiracy, the answer is very simple.
CEO's and Directors are big holders of/compensated with stock options. You know what happens when a company goes bankrupt? The stock is WORTHLESS. It is in these guys' best interest to keep the company running.



Free country has nothing to do with this- this is business. And government is somehow the bad guy in all of this? Why shouldn't the government ask GM to get rid of the boss and do some SERIOUS restructuring OR ELSE you won't get any more billions....GM is luckily being given a choice AND a chance.

Start over and run the company without FEAR from the government?! Gimme a break.

Here is my issue with this - at what point did we put the onus on the government to bail anybody out? They gave a handout to the financial institutions... why shouldn't the automotive companies believe that they deserve to have a piece of the pie too? The critical error was in allowing this cross-pollination of free enterprise and government interest to exist in the first place.

I agree with you... at what point does the government say no more now that we have started the snowball effect? Bankruptcy protection was created for a reason - to allow companies a chance to restructure or be bought out... potentially at wholesale prices.

Agreed. High level management would like to keep their wives happy and to maintain the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed. My issue is - this is a problem that was created BY management and therefore accountability falls to management to solve... not the government.

Again, there should be NO government involvement in the first place. UAL managed to restructure... DAL managed to restructure in bankruptcy - why should automakers not have to face the same fate without governmental intervention? This is the time for automakers to take back their company and expel the unions that have financially driven these companies to ruin. This should be a reckoning, but not at the hands of elected officials... it should be driven by the stockholders who stand to lose all or gain all dependent upon company outcome.

To put this all in a nutshell, when the government comes knocking at your door to tell you how to wipe your ass, let me know how it feels.