Terry Box Nails GM's Coffin
Even though I disagree with him more often than not, I like Terry Box's writing. If such a thing is rhetorically possible, The Dallas News car correspondent thinks outside-the-box. He's also a true champion of blue collar consumers. So when I caught a link to his coverage of GM CEO Rick Wagoner's appearance at a Dallas luncheon– where Rabid Rick's dropped his infamous and ineffective "inaccurate" bankruptcy rumor remarks— I knew we'd get some additional insight into Wagoner's thinking, or lack thereof. Box flags the fact that Wagoner reckons GM's Arlington will be GM's sole SUV supplier. "We think the segment will be big enough to support a plant," Mr. Wagoner assured his Lone Star State admirers. Think? But here's the real money shot: ""We used to do cars and everything else – with everything else being trucks. Now, we are moving toward three channels: cars, trucks and crossovers." Parsing that, it seems Wagoner still doesn't get it: America's future is predominantly car-shaped. Or does he? "Our job now is to get our cars more profitable," Wagoner announced. And how, pray tell, is he going to do that? Oh sorry. The answer would require a coherent turnaround plan with publicly stated goals. Why start now?
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My guess would be that GM's turnaround plan is something along the lines of- "Grab a bottle, hunker down and pray for daylight!"
I'm just kinda confused. The big investors in Yahoo (Carl (strip and flip)Icahn, et al) will get a new board, do whatever to get that company to wring the very last vestiges of it's soul out for money. But they won't touch GM?? Just the real estate alone would be worth a mint! Sell off some factories to the Chinese, or the Indians and make some coin, then let the rest go to the highest bidder.
So, tell me when and how much you're putting in your bank account? Tell G'Dub that he's got to tell us when he's going to nuke Iran. You guys get the point. Some things don't need to be public. Besides, do any of us really know when and where this current economy is going? GM is hot building small cars in Mex. Texas doesn't need to know thses things. Besides, it's already public knowledge. Their turnaround plan should be privvy to investors and owners only. Period.