Bailout Watch 519: Help Wanted
In “ General Motors Death Watch 251,” I suggested that The Presidential Task Force on Automobiles (PTFOA) terminate GM’s entire management “team” and replace them with fresh talent. Easier said than done. The number of people qualified to run a car company may stretch to a couple of dozen. But it may not. The number of executives who’d want to run GM—or Chrysler or GMAC—is some fraction of that number. Finding board members for these federally administered companies will easier, but not easy. As The Wall Street Journal‘s pet expert points out, “Executives and directors at these companies will have to balance obligations to taxpayers and other shareholders, all the while under close scrutiny by Congress and the media. Directors ‘are in an impossible position,’ said Charles Elson, head of the Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware’s business school. ‘No one who has much sense will want to put themselves in that position.'” Oh, and did we mention? Your salary would be capped. Can’t upset the voters. Evil bankers and all that. Still, that’s why recruiters SpencerStuart and Ennis Knupp & Associates get the big bucks, courtesy of you-know-who (hint: you).
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All kinds of talented people have gotten the axe. Finding someone for these posts who are politically unattached shouldn't be much of a problem. The problem will be finding people who are qualified to do the job, appear to be politically unconnected but aren't, AND actually want the job. The Rule of Life is that people who are connected always have work.
De Lorenzo will need a job. He appears to have all the answers (or is that excuses). He also has that hard to quantify dismissive mad genius streak.
Look at these Ford sales figures and tell me how a company can sell at one third of it's previous rate and still pay all the huge fixed costs like pensions? The answer is they can't. http://www.blueovalnews.com/index.php?categoryid=22
I would be willing to join the BOD even with the salary cap. I couldn't F-it up any worse than these Bozo's.