GM Redux

Well, GM has truly turned on the groveling. Now that they claim they need $4B just to get to 31 December (& another $4 to make it through another month), they’ve suddenly discovered that mistakes indeed were made.

Emphasis on the past tense.

As reported by Reuters & other media, they took out a full-page ad in trade rag Automotive News. They took out a print ad, probably hoping that would limit the distribution of their mea culpa.

As in so many things, they were wrong.

In the ad they confess to having “disappointed” & even “betrayed” customers by turning out gas-guzzling behemoths & other pieces of junk over the past 30 years.

“At times we violated your trust by letting our quality fall below industry standards and our designs became lackluster,” the ad says.

Again—emphasis on the past.

It moves quickly on to whine, “Despite moving quickly to reduce our planned spending by over $20 billion, GM finds itself precariously and frighteningly close to running out of cash.”

& so we should let bygones be water under the bridge, & so on, & fork over our money to keep them operating.

It doesn’t seem to actually say why we should do that, although it does remind us that “millions of jobs” are at risk—their fall-back extortion threat.

It’s amazing what the fear of losing his corporate suite can do to propel a CEO to pretend to level with his customers, past & prospective. Our Congressweasels have pretty much decided to bag the idea that the auto industry focus on energy-efficient vehicles & are about to hand over $15B out of the $25B they set aside for retooling to GM & Chrysler to help get them through the night.

(They’re calling the money “loans”; but who among us believes we’ll ever see it again?)

But apparently they’re seriously considering tying that largesse to giving the sack to Rick Wagoner.

They should stipulate that he & his executive team should spend time in prison, making lots of new potential car-buying friends, until their companies have repaid these “loans”.