Company of the Day: General Motors
More than a year ago, when I reviewed the generally sorry state of Detroit’s automakers, I wrote that “The Big Three will hardly dry up and blow away anytime soon.” Probably that’s still literally true, since even a Chapter 11 filing — which plenty of industry watchers are talking about openly for GM these days — would not immediately shutter auto plants. These ancient beasts of General Motors and Chrysler, whose talks for a merger may gain speed after Election Day passes, don’t give up their last breath so easily.
But it’s a testament to the lingering appeal of unrealistic expectations that GM finds itself in this predicament at all. Chrysler’s plight we’ve seen before, back before Lee Iacocca improved its performance and restored its pride in itself.
But GM? Even after all these years of its mediocre-to-awful financial performance, many Americans still feel a wave of nationalistic pride when they think of the company that dominated the global auto industry for long. And yes, that is in the past tense, because although GM remains the #2 auto maker in the world, after Toyota, its influence seems to be waning by the day. The latest indignity: the Treasury’s signal that, no, what’s good for General Motors is not good for the country, and therefore GM will likely not receive Federal money to help its efforts to acquire Chrysler.
If the deal does go through, national industrial pride — or at least job protectionism — will take another blow when the combined GM-Chrysler closes plants and lays off thousands of workers. Those moves would inevitably follow the merger, because they follow every merger of the type: when two giants in an industry converge in HP-Compaq fashion, the underlying motive is to “rationalize” the costs of infrastructure, combining the customer bases of the two businesses while eliminating redundancies.
Maybe — maybe — a Mark Hurd-caliber chief executive could achieve the best of both worlds in blending GM and Chrysler by achieving both great scale and profitability. But such a feat is rare indeed, and there must pass much more water under the bridge, and much more hand-wringing about it, before General Motors ever regains its lost might.
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Related posts:
- What does the future hold for the Detroit car makers?
- General Motors — Company of the Day (9/26/2007)
- Ford gains on Toyota — the Toyota way.
- Company of the Day archive.
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Good Points, but the continued slams of left-leaning media on GM (and Ford and Chrysler) always leave out the fact that the Big Three have been building very equivalent cars for many years. Foreign governments subsidize their automakers (on our shores nonetheless), the latest being the Korean makers……..and how many Americans who will vote for Obamanomics tomorrow are driving japanese or euroboxes without ever considering where those dollars REALLY end up?! I have a new Cadillac CTS, a 9 year old Lincoln Navigator with 150K miles, and a 04′ Jaguar XJ (Ford design improved) in my garage, and I will hopefully never buy another Asian backed-built car in my life. Also will be voting for pro-business McCain-Palin…….not the socialist party Obama-Biden ticket. America (and our media) needs to wake up to the truth, and then report it with accuracy!
What a change a few generations make
During the 30’s the government asked GM to step up to the plate and bail out banks!
Ron Rau — You might want to check out the item I posted the other day (linked at the end of the post we’re discussing) about how Ford has been gaining on non-U.S. makers in terms of quality.
What I’ve read about vehicle quality doesn’t indicate that GM is gaining on Toyota and the rest. GM might be better in quality than it used to be, but not (I suspect) enough to close that gap.
So, a question for you: what sources are, in your view, *accurately* reporting on this issue, if the “left-leaning media” aren’t?
Oh, and one more: what benefit would the media — left-leaning or otherwise — derive from misreporting this story?
P.S.: I’m glad you’re voting your conscience, but it doesn’t help anything when people talk about the Democratic Party as the “socialist party” — or, for that matter, when they call the Republican Party the “fascist party” or the like. I think we can make our points without resorting to slurs.