Tuesday, March 31, 2009

One down, hundreds to go

Well, I’ll be a Corvair convertible: our new(ish) President has cut off the flow of bailout funds and told GM and Chrysler to go back and cough up real plans for restructuring to save themselves from imploding on their own excess.

And, by way of showing his degree of seriousness, he’s given GM CEO Rick Wagoner the sack.

Without severance payment.

Aw, gee—CrockTears™!

(Yeah, okay—he still gets retirement benefits of $23M from his decades of service leading the company—at various levels—into the tanker. But at least he won’t get that ultimate insult of the buyout to get him to leave the executive office before you have to point a gun at his head.)

And for the first time we’re hearing the term “bankruptcy” applied with a degree of seriousness to the automakers. No longer that “too big to go bankrupt” nonsense holding them back from the consequences of the past few decades of their boneheadedness.

Finally, we’re calling a spade a spade here: Obama terms this “a failure of leadership—from Washington to Detroit.”

Well, duh

Word on the street is Wagoner will be followed shortly down the road to former glory by members of GM’s board.

On the one hand I’m surprised it’s taken so long for those with the cash to act upon the blindingly obvious idea that you shouldn’t trust those who got us into this mess to be able to get us out of it. Especially since the only talent they seem to have displayed is that for lining their own pockets.

On the other hand, I’m surprised that someone acted upon the blindingly obvious idea that you should not hire the foxes to guard the henhouse—especially when the foxes went to your university.

Perhaps this is a sign of good things to come.

Michigan’s Governor, Jennifer Granholm, seasonally termed Wagoner “a sacrificial lamb”. As you’d expect. But, really—I could once again quote Oliver Cromwell in dismissing the Long Parliament, “You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately…Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!”

Amen.

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