GM CFO: "It's Fair to Say There's No Crisis Here"

Robert Farago
by Robert Farago

Fair and… mentally balanced? I'm not so sure. But one thing is certain: there's a new spinmeister in town. Speaking with Automotive News [sub], GM Chief Financial Officer Ray Young whirled a mean dervish. "There are reports that we were in crisis," Young said, confusing his tenses. "That's far from the truth. We run a dynamic planning process here, so we're constantly feeling the market. We have a certain view of the United States economy and a view of the oil prices. After the month of June, our assessment of the U.S economy made us realize there's a lot more risk in this economy than we thought initially." D'oh! And then scribe Jamie "I Ain't No Stinkin' Lap Dog" Lareau asks "Will this plan save the corporation?" Whoa, Dude! Or, as Young says, "It's going to allow us to handle a very conservative set of industry assumptions, a very conservative set of mixed assumptions and provide ample liquidity through 2009. We're still working through 2010 plans. To me that's still too far away." If only Toyota thought so short term. Anyway, Young says bankruptcy is "not in the cards" and Car Czar Bob Lutz is playing with a full deck [kidding]. Also, the Beancounter has not been asked to price-up the cost of a brand termination. "I keep on reminding our organization that cash is king. I'm not sure what it would cost to eliminate a channel, but when we closed Oldsmobile that cost $1 billion. That's a lot of money."

Robert Farago
Robert Farago

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  • Anonymous Anonymous on Jul 16, 2008

    I worked on contract for GM for years. Laziest bunch of engineers you could imagine. They had some good ones who did about 99 percent of the work and the rest were great at making bad decisions. The chickens come home to roost.

  • Johnson Johnson on Jul 16, 2008

    Just so we're clear on all this, Toyota despite all their success is operating as if they are in a crisis, yet according to GM they are "far from" a crisis?

  • Stein X Leikanger Stein X Leikanger on Jul 16, 2008

    "Ah, wonderful! Fresh ice. Anyone care for a Polar Bear on the Rocks?"

  • GE Levecque GE Levecque on Jul 16, 2008

    Its the idea of "I dont care" attitude of GM executives that really tells the Truth of this whole sordid mess, what they said yesterday via the Chief Mouthpiece is what they said Six weeks ago, they just keep cutting and cutting, eventually there will be nothing left to cut!

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