NYT: "Bankruptcy is Not Unthinkable for Detroit's Former King"
You'd think we were back in second grade, what with all this "not" stuff. New York Times Op Editorialist Roger Lowenstein joins celebrity stock picker (and former GM booster) Jim Cramer and Merrill Lynch analyst John Murphy in accepting GM's not impossible nightmare. In his attempt to discover "WHO shot GM?" Lowenstein passes rising gas prices, a lack of hyrbids and bad design and goes straight to… the United Auto Workers' (UAW) legacy costs. "None of G.M.’s management miscues was so damaging to its long-term fate as the rich pensions and health care that robbed General Motors of its financial flexibility and, ultimately, of its cash." Huh? Apparently, without paying all that money to the UAW GM could have "designed new cars or researched alternative fuels. Or it could have acquired half of Toyota." Or bought Saab! Or HUMMER! Or started Saturn! Oh wait… sorry. It's all about universal health care and highly relevant shit like that. "The sorry decline of General Motors has proved Reuther right: the government is the better provider of social insurance. Let industry worry about selling products." Sure. That's the right approach. NOT!
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The NYT should indeed be worrying about bankruptcy. Its own. Should we take anything they say seriously??
If this was Japan, Rick Wagoner would have jumped out the window years ago.
In Dallas Rick Wagoner emphatically stated that "Bankruptcy is not an option. Speculation and comments about bankruptcy in the past week are "not at all constructive or accurate," Rick Wagoner said Thursday. We have 24B in cash and $7B in credit available." "Under any scenario we can imagine ... our cash position will remain robust through this year" and the company has options for raising cash beyond that, Wagoner said at a lunch meeting of Dallas business leaders." What now?