Shantanu

It would be more entertaining to see a tall woman/short man combination. :lol:

He also looks like he's had lots of plastic surgery.

It's difficult to say because there are shared costs in between divisions. Also the notion that shutting down an unprofitable division would increase GM's profitability is not necessarily correct, because those divisions may be paying down the fixed costs of technology and labor even if they don't post absolute profits. Then again, you have phenomnon like Saturn that may lose money but which help GM make money in the long term by pulling new customers into the brand. Overall, the issue of "which brand is profitable" is a fools debate because it's so hard to quantify.

Fvck Yeah, that's what I like to see! Instead of being the company that delays it's products, GM has got to be the company that brings out its stuff ahead of schedule. Good news.

Ah sorry. I got confused between "leader of GM's financial unit" and "leader of GM's finances" thinking Devine ran GMAC. If what people say about him is true, then this boob shoudl have been replaced long ago.

I don't think Devine has done anything wrong. He operates GM's most profitable and successful unit: the financial one. The one who really screwed up the company is Rick Wagoner. And of course Bob Lutz's products have not been the big hits he promised they would be. So #1 and #2 have to go, but why replace the guy whose actually doing his job well?

The actual central city of Detroit is pretty densely built up, even today after half it's pouplation has left since 1950. But the suburbs sprawl across hundreds, perhaps thousands of square miles. But there's nothing atypical about Detroit, most American cities are like that. Some places like Phoenix are all sprawl, even the central city (outside of downtown) looks like a big suburb. I think there's somewhat less sprawl in Canadian cities, perhaps because they don't build as extensive a network of local expressways for people to get around. But it's still pretty close to how things are in America.

The basic question remains: Is there nobody better than Rick Wagoner on this planet to run GM? I'm not sure Rick Wagoner could run a McDonald's restraunt properly. I think they should spend whatever money it takes to bring in someone to fix GM.

Why does Rick Wagoner even need a pension? He's made millions during his lifetime, and has enough cash to live comfortably for the rest of his life. But the main point here is that what does GM get from paying this guy when he's retired and not adding any value to the company? This is just dumb, all around.

Actually I heard Michael Moore is 6'1". So he's not just a fat bastard, he's a rather large fat bastard. :lol: The upper middle class, liberal Volvo drivers who buy up Michael Moore's works don't really give a damn about the American factory worker, but reading or watching Moore's stuff makes them feel good about themselves. That's what it's all about. And Michael Moore, who was probably a big nerd back in his hometown of Flint, is something of a token blue-collar white guy in the fashionable parties of New York City.

I doubt many workers are actually being laid off. GM probably hired most of these people back in the 1960's and 1970s, so they are about to retire. Other folks will be given transfers to other GM plants. And the few that are left will collect 90% of their income.

You're driving a 500 now? Congratulations.

Any way you cut it, this is the worst day for GM, *ever*. :(

I wonder what the Rick Wagoner apologists think of this move. GM is going to shrivel up into a shadow of its former self. What a sad day.

I was in Dallas in 2002. it seemed to be a pretty strong market for GM. It had the most SUVs and trucks of any town I've seen, very few sedans on the roads. Basically market segments GM does well in. But Lutz's comments seem to imply that GM hasn't been doing so well in Texas.

Would you rather be mugged, or would you rather have someone shoot you in the face? They're both bad things, so they must be the same right? :huh: GM was not by any means dominating the auto world in the late 1990's, but at least it was profitable. At least it could make cars and sell them for money. At least it had 30 points of market share. At least there were more people buying GM cars back then. At least GM hadn't allowed the Japs to get a foothold in the big truck market. At least GM wasn't involved in a stupid tie up with Fiat. At least Cadillac was still the undisputed #1 luxury seller... What does GM have now? Incentives? Debt? Humiliation? Bankruptcy? A pile of rubble? :blink: Sure the product coming out of GM these days is great, perhaps the best ever. But Rick Wagoner isn't in charge of the product. He's in charge of running the business side of things, and he's completely ruined it. He's got the reverse Midas touch, anything he lays his hands on turns into a pile of crap. At what point is Rick Wagoner going to be held accountable? Most CEO's are fired for much less. His reign has been disastrous.

What are you stupid? Kerkorian has done something that Rick Wagoner never has, which is to build a successful business. Rick Wagoner took a company that was doing OK for itself, and completely ran it into the ground with a series of boneheaded moves in less than 10 years. He's destroyed about 70% of GM's market value.

I think if GM stayed off the incentives for a good 4-5 months, using that time to lower sticker prices to something that's reasonable, then the incentive age would be over. Neither Ford nor Chrysler have shown much stomach for coming up with new incentive programs, they mainly follow GM's crackpot schemes so that they can stay in business. Of course those 4-5 months would be brutal in the retail market. Low sales and low market share month after month. But that's what it would take, IMO. GM already had 2 months under their belt. I don't think they should have capitulated so soon. Now the cycle will begin once again. December will be big, and January will leave dealerships out in the cold.

Well, I don't know about killing off Toyota, LOL LOL! But it is a good idea for GM to attempt to limit Toyota's future growth.

Some of the import brands need to be killed off if GM is to survive. The market is too competetive. If Mitsubishi could be crushed and driven out of the U.S. market, that would be a major win. VW/Audi aren't doing that well and should be on the hitlist as well. The premium Germans (BMW and Mercedes) should be kept to the market share that they are at.

The economy is growing. GDP growth has been positive throughout Bush's tenure, except for 3 quarters of 2001. The economy has grown about as much during Bush as it did under Clinton.

It's not a good sign that only 60% of them voted for it. Obviously many in the UAW still don't get it. In 2007, my guess is that they will probably be demanding pay increases from a GM that's almost bankrupt.

Rick Wagoner is such a dumbass. He should be thrown in prison for his malfeasance.

Well you can spin anything that way if you want. I don't know how much truth there is to that, because Ford was blowing money like crazy in the 1990's. They were making hand over fist on their trucks and SUVs. They spent billions more than they needed to buying out completely useless Euro automakers like Jaguar and Land Rover that had a name, some cachet, and little else. But who knows, maybe the high cost of living in California got to them with Lincoln and Mercury. :lol: Oh, there are more white people than Asians in America? I didn't notice that, thanks for pointing it out. Seriously though, the decision to setup import offices back was back in the 1960's. And the Japanese wanted to go to a city that had a large number of Japanese people already, and LA was that city. This meant that Japanese people were accepted locally (back in those days, racism was a real concern in many parts of the U.S.), and also the Japanese employees who didn't know English so well could have the help of a local bilingual staff. I know so because a former President of Nissan that I saw on TV said as much. Why does that seem so implausible to you? Why do you think the Hispanic TV industry is HQed in Miami, and not - say - Minneapolis? Or, why do many ethnic newspapers have their HQs in New York, and not Fargo, ND? I would think that a real estate wiz like you would be able to figure something obvious like that out.

Lest we forget, Ford got caught up on the same stupid "California Car Culture" bandwagon a couple of years ago. They moved their Premier Automotive Group (Volvo, Jaguar, Land Rover, Aston Martin) offices from NJ to LA. How stupid is that? These companies have corporate HQ's in Detroit and operations on the other side of the world in Europe. The head of the group left after a few months because it was ridiculously far away from his native Germany. They also merged Lincoln and Mercury with PAG (completely abandoning their Midwestern roots), and moved them out to LA too. Thinking that the California Car Culture would work its wonders and make them winners. Didn't work. Lincoln and Mercury were soon moved back to save money, and PAG still lingers on in LA, most of its brands still haven't delivered the big sales or big profits that Ford thought they would pay out. When the Japanese started selling cars in the U.S., they all opened up import offices in LA, because 1) LA is close to Japan (compared to say, Detroit, or New York), 2) LA had a lot of Japanese people for them to employ locally, and 3) LA is a major port. These points matter less now, because Nissan's American operations are less Japan oriented, so there is less reason for them to be in LA.