Comments

I have a niece-to-be with one of those "fashion forward" Chevy SSR trucks. A fender bender occurred two or three months ago. The fender of the truck was demolished. To date, the body shop (a DEALER'S body shop) can not seem to get a replacement metal fender delivered from the factory. They did offer to fiberglass or plastic one.

HUH?

A GM dealer can't get a GM factory part?

Fashion forward... service backward.

That's NOT how you create customer loyalty, now is it? The kind of little, personal questions and experiences that make you want to say "MY tax dollars to bail them out? NO WAY. Better to bury the money in the backyard in a mayonnaise jar."

Posted by Dan Gunter at June 4, 2009 11:48 AM

Actually, in the Letters to the Editor section in today's WSJ, I think the real problem is stated by a Mr. George C. Roberts of Alpharetta, GA:

"Might the photo that accompanies the front-page article on the bankruptcy of General Motors ("GM Collapses Into Government's Arms," June 2) be an allegory for GM's United Auto Workers-induced problems: three men to remove one thin, cardboard sign at Fritz Henderson's meeting site?"

Posted by Paul Williams at June 4, 2009 12:45 PM

Paul, we all contributed to GM's problems. You imply that the UAW is the #1 culprit. Nonsense. A lot of parties are "tied for first." Not least of which are we-the-public. We want our taxes relatively low (hooray!), so we don't fund universal healthcare. We de facto push it off on our corporations--and when it was negotiated the Big Three were exssentially threat-free. GM management and the UAW are parties to the horrendus healthcare costs per car, but the story is complex. This is not in any way a pro-UAW comment; it is an anti-simplistic answer comment. Which makes it like the sub-prime mess. In that case, the public (you and me) bear some of the blame. We Americans love the idea of everybody owning their own home (hooray!); but excess in pursuit of that noble goal, by Democrats and Republicans alike, contributed to sub-prime madness; lots of people here, too, "tied for 1st" on the responsibility ledger.

Posted by tom peters at June 4, 2009 1:04 PM

So, Tom, are we shooting ourselves in the foot repeatedly by letting our tax dollars get invested in bailing out all these institutions?

Granted, time is of the essence -- especially in the case of banks -- so there's not much time for holding "town hall" meetings to discuss it all or ask for a "show of hands." Yet we appear to be trusting the President, Congress and special committees to starting playing the game of big business with money that belongs to us, the citizens. Do we really have a say in all this, or if things go wrong do we simply wait until election time to vote the culprits that did it out of office?

Our government has proven that it can not operate in the black, so I don't think politicians should be gambling with our tax dollars. They can use terms such as "investing in the security of American business" or whatever they want, but it appears pretty clear to me that their business decisions are no better than those of GM's leadership or anyone else's.

Sort of a twist on "the blind leading the blind," it feels like "the bankrupt advising the bankrupt." So who's playing watchdog over our investments and making the call when to "cash out?" Anyone?

Posted by Dan Gunter at June 4, 2009 3:25 PM

The failure of GM is the failure of it's management to manage.
Management was so rigid, and so tight.

I was working in GM from 1997 to 2000; in India.

in 1998 - we were doing some car testing in the mountains of Himalayas. There were 4 of us, other 3 were Germans from Opel.

We were discussing the degrading of GM, and concluded that by 2007 it will be bankrupt.

Interesting points...

1. We insiders were very well aware.
2. Management was very well aware.
3. Suggestions, advices and etc were handed over - but ?????

Why did GM failed is only one reason - BAD MANAGEMENT !!!!!

Posted by SK Agrawal at June 6, 2009 11:37 PM

SK, I was hoping we would all get the benefit of more inside opinions and experience. Thank you. I'm curious as to what sort of response (if any) you actually got to your suggestions. Were they totally ignored? Did you get halfhearted platitudes? Were you treated as if to say "You're not management, so how could you possibly know anything?"

Would you be willing to share more about your experiences with us?

Posted by Dan Gunter at June 7, 2009 8:26 AM

Listen to your customers not to the Highest Paid Person's Opinion (HiPPO).

Posted by Engago team at June 8, 2009 9:50 AM