GM is a Joke

When I’m not busy boning-up on Mustangology on Autoblog (c’mon guys it’s been TWO DAYS!) I sometimes trace-back links to TTAC material. Today’s forensic surfing uncovered this little gem on MarketWatch. It’s a financial results press release from a company called CableOrganizer.com, claiming that they made “$21.2 billion more in profit than General Motors Corporation (GM) for the nine months ending September 30, 2008.” Yup, it’s a joke. “‘We are very pleased about our 2008 profitability and are obviously honored to have beaten GM by such a wide margin,’ said Paul Holstein, senior vice president of CableOrganizer.com, Inc. ‘Obviously we couldn’t match their revenue, but we were able to beat them handily on costs and expenses,’ notes Holstein. ‘For example, we put off buying a fleet of Gulfstream G5 private jets. That, right there, saved us millions of dollars.’ I called the company’s Marketing Coordinator, Juan Ribero. He was kind enough to send me the original press release, before MarketWatch’s editors toned it down.

“Mr. Holstein claims that he has not been contacted by anyone at GM to help them run the company and did not indicate if he would, in fact, take the top position at GM if it were offered to him. However, he hinted, ‘I’m sure I could lose far less than GM in my very first year. In fact, I’m pretty sure my 6 year old daughter could do a better job than GM’s current management.’ He added that she probably wouldn’t ask the Federal Government for a bailout either.”

While I appreciate the humor, this marks a new low for GM. The American company that was once the world’s largest AND most profitable has been reduced to the butt of jokes by the office water cooler. How the mighty have fallen.