Pot calling the kettle black, eh?

Oh no A4, our government has NEVER mismanaged ANYTHING EVER…

I wonder how shocking it would be for the Amerian people if Congress and the Senate were exposed to the level of scrutiny that the auto companies had to endure.

Is anyone “shocked” that these people were “shocked”?

I blame the Scots. If only they had devoted that much effort into cloning Iacocca instead of sheep.

im surprised they were shocked at all. i would think they are more upset at having to sort through this than shocked.

Agreed, A4. I’m shocked at the mismanagement of Obama’s administration, all of the ridiculous ‘czars’, and congress. Hell, Barney Frank makes Rick Wagoner look like CEO of the year by comparison.

and Mr RATtner is perhaps impressed by DC I suppose?

Even if Obama wasn’t bought out by the unions before the 2008 Elections, GM and Chrysler would’ve been bailed out regardless of whatever situation they were thrown into.

It just goes to show you how easily the government can be manipulated by a few corporate and unionist douche bags.

They were shocked how well GM was managed compared to Congress

Would like some explanation on what “weakest finance department” means. Were they under weight, did not know what they were doing, getting rough shod over by Engineering, poorly balancing the books, UAW controlling them? What does he mean?

If the government is shocked at mis-management then you know it’s go to be bad. If you think otherwise you should buy some stock in GM! oh, wait…that’s right the stock is worthless and was delisted.

@Z06ified, before you start talking politics, get a clue. The current administration does not have “Czars”, they are called special advisors; which good old Bushy also had. The term “Czar” came from our friends in the media, i.e. Fox and the like. Why the media started calling them “Czars”? Maybe to persuade people like you; guess it worked! I do agree with you about congressional inefficiencies though.

As car enthusiasts since this is all done under the same house, all these heads put together as one unit could produce some really innovative car concepts since solving this task of making Chrysler and GM alot more interesting to consumers all over the world is going to need innovative platforms to stand on. Things like putting Alfa’s Berlina in competition with BMW’s five series starting with the old 300C platform, to me, things are already geting heated up. I believe almost everyone will agree in the end that this bankruptcy and recovery process, in a whole, for GM and chrysler is was a good thing for the domestic market and produced some cooler and better cars.

gm fanboys will say anything to detract from the conversation of their beloved company shown in negative light. “quick, lets start bashing obama’s administration before someone uses objective thinking.” pathetic.

more dumb government bashing…does the government get everything right? no…does the government get everything wrong, no…so far the reorg of gm has been quite successful…

and i’ll repeat that for the knee-jerk bashing morons…so far the reorg of gm has been quite successful…

quite successful…

bashing in the face of success = sour grapes

where’s “need more oil for gm”?!? what have you got to say?

That’s your best ever JohnnyC, seriously! I’m somewhat of a scholar on Iacocca and what I have learned is that he was probably the best head of an auto corporation ever. He did do magic and probably could do magic again even in his mid-80’s. He wanted to come back in control as late as 2006 but Daimler put the stop to that.

Can we imagine what would the auto industry be like today if Lee was successful in getting his partner Kirk Kerkorian to buy out Chrysler in ‘98? Not here, that’s for sure!

On this article… Oh boy! One thing doesn’t make that much sense though… Maximum Bob was part of the regime the auto task force hated – so what’s up with the promotion??? I think they are being dramatic in their accounts just a little bit – and/or Bob is really the guy I know he is and he was the lone ranger in the board rooms. We all know Bob doesn’t put up with sh!t from anyone!

LWA must be in that 20% of people who think the govt is okay.

I’m shocked the govt bailed these jokers out.

…The nerve of Obama saving 300,000 jobs AND saving 2 of the big 3’s Iconic American companies…..wheres Bush or Limbaugh when you need ‘em!

Everyone, read the entire thing, please! It’s not political as it was just simple economics. I’m impressed at simply what this meant to everyone in the industry. Read the whole thing!!!! It’s pretty amazing stuff.

if it wasn’t for Obama’s administration, people like z06ified and a4 would be standing in a food ration line right now.

: ) heehee

If it wasnt for people like you saying crap like “heehee” shows like The Hills wouldn’t exist. You bastard.

Not to mention I don’t currently live in the U.S. so I think I’d be fine.

Yeh so where is the GM for Oil or whatever his name was guy these days? He should be all over this.

I’d like to start a task force to audit the Gov’ts travel expense program. Imagine the $millions if not $billions that could be saved if that was put under scrutiny and tighter control.

Thanks for the obvious lesson Mr. Rattner.

Lemme make sure I got this right: the Presidential Administration publicly reveals its findings of gross mismanagement, and some of you morons shoot the messenger by attacking the Administration rather than the companies guilty of mismanagement?

superman – I’m not as much of a Obama hater as some other people – but really? Explain to me your logic on that? Please – enlighten us with that bold statement… How would have McCain/Romney/Huckabee have taken this country to a place where we would be having food rations? Even the liberalist of liberals would think your statement was out of line. Okay, maybe they wouldn’t, but any level headed person could tell you Presidents can only do so much, so for all the job market/economy thing we love to blame on Bush or now Obama – they really can only do so much bad or good.

Jake, very true, there is only so much a President can do. What i question is, had it been McCain/Romney/Huckabee, is if they would have let GM and Chrysler die the death they (some say) deserve? From what i remember, and please correct me if im wrong. McCain and Romney were against the bailout? If thts true then the future could have been real different. Thanks

Get a grip everybody! The government is our responsibility, we vote them in and if they stink, it is our own fault and we need new people in power. That is what is happening now, and hopefully we will always keep a closer eye on our government than we have.

The car companies have stunk up our economy for a long time and they have to take all the blame. The cars they sell in Europe are nothing like what they sell here, nevermind Fords hot sedan that goes to Australia. All the fun stuff is overseas which makes it more obvious how they stunk up the cars sold here and let the barn door open for the imports to come in. Tough stuff but they have to take the blame.

Now we need these jobs and companies very badly and hopefully they will improve drastically. These are desperate times in case you don’t know, things are getting much worse. Unemployment is growing a lot. We need to make cars here, we need to make ships here again! We need more jobs in this country! Jobs you can raise a family on.

Get rid of NAFTA!!!!!

Politicians always blow things out of proportion to feed on people’s fear. The knee-jerkers are the one’s often fooled by this propaganda. If any of the Republican candidates were elected it would likely cause a political feud between the Congressional Democratic majority and President. Nothing would get done, just as the Democratic Congress did nothing under Bush. I think the likely outcome would be loans to GM and Chrysler, not a no strings package of our tax dollars they got from Bush and Obama. There’s no way they’ll pay back the bailout in full and Chrysler is nearly dead. It’s their own fault, they had a crappy business structure and produced sub-par products.

I agree Digger, we need to get rid of the UN as well. The government wastes so much money on overseas projects, we need to keep more of our dollars here and stop being world police. Let the other countries fight their own battles, we have enough issues to deal with here.

No More Oil For Toyota – You know who Romney’s father was… right?

No, they probably would have bailed out GM and ChryCo. I don’t think they had the wherethal to eliminate 300,000 jobs – it’s a political suicide. Should Chrysler been killed? We still don’t know that. We can all hope Fiat saves them, but honestly no one in this world can say it will work. We’ll see – but it still was a gamble. GM was going to be saved no matter what – you kid yourself thinking one of the guys would let them die. I put my life on that even if the goverment stayed out of it – Toyota and Honda would have came together and found a way to either buy them out or loan them the money, besides the company where I work would have loaned them billions to stay afloat too in our own interest (they did actually). They need GM too.

“they had a crappy business structure and produced sub-par products.” – It’s unfortunately kind of that easy to explain.

First off, I think we need a Government Task Force to see THE Horrible Mismanagement of the Obama Administration within not only the first year of his administration and begin to not only Oust Idiot “DO NOTHING members of his elected cabinet, but pray that 2012 comes soon so we can put another Republican in the White House to fix the crimes on the Obama Administration!

I mean Pelosi and Hillary Both Retard who not only stifle and make matters worse but also suffer from Cranial Rectal Inversion. Barney Frank who the hell is he! Damn Queer.

Ok But I will say that GM is not well managed, but to show you how Dumb Washington is. Chyrsler should not be Thrown in the Garbage Can. THE US needs not only Manufacturing but jobs. You don’t s*** can a company expecting to put more people back to work! This shows you how Dumb ” THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION IS”

who wasnt surprised by this?

Digger I knew NAFTA WAS S*** in College, but to show you how Dumb Professors were and this is back in the early 1990’s they were saying NAFTA would be a great thing. They must of been on something. I wish I could go back to the University personally and Fire these UN-American Professors with the $75,000-$120,000 Salary and S*** CAN THEM to be working down at SUBWAY being yet another sandwich artist to get a feel of what it is like making Minimum wage Instead of raking off College Salaries telling their students its ok that we Lose jobs in our country! Fine you go work in one of these sweat shop jobs for 70 to 90 hours a week and get paid like an illegal then come see me!
Then I will Whip you! for good measure. All just to get a taste of theur just dessert for saying sending many american jobs to Mexico and South America would be a good thing. Um NO, but this kind of S*** For Brains Professors is what I had in many cases in my B.S. in Bus. Admin throughout College actually University. But I would be too harsh on them now just 40 years at Hard Labor Breaking Rocks @ Fort Levenworth Kansas should straighten out!

obamas task force should check out the golden parachutes chrysler and gm ****ty management left with and make them pay back their bonus checks to taxpayers

Wait a minute guys, Obama’s task force just find out both company was mis management? HELLO, most of us we know that even before Obama is president, WTH. After wasting couple billion dollars that taxpayer has to pay for? Some one need to shoot those Task Force Team. This telling us that Obama Task Force Team are not doing their job at first place, and they should do what Bush want to do AKA LET THEM DIE.

Ya know, considering that the government can’t run *ANYTHING* efficiently or under-budget… it says volumes when even THEY were shocked at GM.

When the federal government says YOU don’t know how to run things
YOU F’N SUCK!

That said
There is a difference between management and talent
GM is showing a lot of talent
That was being kept under the mattress for far too long
It almost cost them everything
DrFill

Jake, Thanks for the response. I looked up Romneys dad…I see. I may not agree with you 100% but i appreciate your level headed response…

…unlike some paranoid idiot, sore loser and big babies who would rather see America fail just to say Obama failed, who make up any excuse to say Obama is crap….always fail to realize the damage Bush did in 8 years cant be fixed in 9 months. I’ts funny how, as much as I disliked Bush…I was really hoping that he could make things better. THATS the difference between left and right.

“If Obama solved World Hunger, Conservatives would complain that he caused over population” (D) Fl.

I don’t understand the blame of GM CEO Rick Wagoner. Did he not win Auto CEO of the year like two years ago and three years ago from like Road&Track?

any country that loses the ability to make things eventually becomes irrelevant. when we can no longer support an army of engineers, scientists and innovators we will become a nation of paper shufflers and merchants. rue brittania!

JakeK66 I am a big fan of Iaccocca too I read his autobiography over 25 years ago. He is a good guy but he is not the only one who knows what it takes to succede in the American Automobile Industry.
. The Problem in American Business in General is that there is no Professional Graduation to the top of the company. And Yes sir That is a problem, because what has been going on behind closed doors for years is basically the rich knowing the rich and that is how Top management is transferred or chosen instead of by MERIT as it is done in Japan. I like the Japanese Business Model and it makes all the best sense in the world. IF American Companies want to succede they need a Tiered way of employing professional managers , CEO’s and give them a limited tenure this way you always have the Freshest Ideas at the top. 4 years like the presidency for our country is a good time to make either a good change or bad one. And maybe we should have the ability to remove a President at any time if they fail to get things going in the right Direction. IE I think Obama has’nt shown anyone S*** so far he is dealing with Double Digit Unemployment still but the fat cats on Wall streets are back to fun and games and making their millions while some Folks can’t even put food on their tables for their families. This is sickening!:(

At least GM’s products didn’t reflect their “mismanagement”, said “mismanagement” must be in non-engineering related parts of the company. CHRYSLER, on the other hand, who’s products are one step above VW, all you have to do is ask a (former) owner of a 2.7 L engine how Chrysler is managed from engineering right down to the general good will of the company.

JakeK66 you want example I’ll give you an excellent one and its not even a car guy lucky him he’s and Airplane and Jet Man the original Rocketeer Alias Iron Man- from Boeing Aircraft Company – CEO Alan Mulally- is working his magic at Ford Motor Company as CEO right now and is doing a damn good job.

carstuff, you asked the very same question that was going through my mind. I found a story that was a bit more complete. I don’t read CNN or Fortune news but this article was linked on another site. Here is an excerpt. The last sentence is hilarious. The hypocrisy is just a tad evident.

====================

“For example, under the previous administration’s loan agreements, Treasury was to approve every GM transaction of more than $100 million that was outside of the normal course. From my first day at Treasury, PowerPoint decks would arrive from GM (we quickly concluded that no decision seemed to be made at GM without one) requesting approvals. We were appalled by the absence of sound analysis provided to justify these expenditures.

The cultural deficiencies were equally stunning. At GM’s Renaissance Center headquarters, the top brass were sequestered on the uppermost floor, behind locked and guarded glass doors. Executives housed on that floor had elevator cards that allowed them to descend to their private garage without stopping at any of the intervening floors (no mixing with the drones).

In my relatively few interactions with chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner, I found him to be likable, dedicated, and generally knowledgeable. But Rick set a tone of “friendly arrogance” that seemed to permeate the organization.

Certainly Rick and his team seemed to believe that virtually all of their problems could be laid at the feet of some combination of the financial crisis, oil prices, the yen-dollar exchange rate, and the UAW.

It seemed completely obvious to us that any management team that had burned through $21 billion of cash in a year and another $13 billion in the first quarter of 2009 could not be allowed to continue. Equally important, GM’s February viability plan was more “business as usual” and not the aggressive new approach that we felt was essential.”

http://money.cnn.com/2009/10/21/autos/auto_bailout_rattner_excerpt.fortune/?postversion=2009102108

wow, horribly mismanaged? who woulda guessed!

hmmm…i think everyone said everything that was on my mind.

so, let me get this straight, bk2009…because the obama administration didn’t further nationalize chrysler, you’d rather have a republican in the white house, because a republican is going to further nationalize chrysler and save those manufacturing jobs? here’s a clue for you, republicans aren’t for nationalization of anything! you call yourself a conservative, and yet blame the obama administration for not being liberal enough and not completely taking over chrysler like they did gm…you are contradicting yourself…a free market conservative would’ve argued for letting the marketplace sort it out and chrysler and gm would have died, along with hundreds of thousands of jobs…you can’t have this both ways…

perhaps you’re more liberal than you realize, because further nationalization of chrysler would not have been on the agenda of any conservative president…

don’t worry, i don’t really expect a logical response…you are free to continue thinking you’re conservative, and hating liberals, and yet criticizing them for not being as liberal as you would’ve liked…

The rich and powerful make the decisions. Remember when they were saying comunists were the enemy? Well the rich and powerful gave it all to China! WTF! They used to say we have to fight war against them, but now they are the ideal place to make everything! Just don’t eat the food!

What happened to the conservatives who said the comunists were the enemy! I tell you what happened, they gave away our country to the comunists in China. We have to learn who we can really trust, just don’t take what politicians say for granted even Obama, we need to use our voices and our votes, there is so much to fix. I think Obama and his people are moving at a snails pace, like they don’t know what to do. FDR tried things and if one thing didn’t work then he would try another.

Tax the imports, make things here. Tax Exxon for renting ships not made in the US? We should do more.

I think people on this post care about their country, we need everyone to care. Talk to your friends.

Auto Task force was shocked at GMs mismanagement?? I’ll tell you someone who isn’t shocked. ME!!

I swear to god I wanna take a pic of the GM and Chrysler logos and write “Corporate Fail” on them to post them up on failblog.com. If no one has done it already of course.

OH MY GOD…. I actually agree with you BK2009 about the Japanese model. But then you just had to start spewing your anti-Obama crap. Give it up! If you don’t like it, get involved in local politics and stop the political garbage on this forum

bankruptcy is a delusional self contradicting moron with fox news so far up his behind that he can’t think straight long enough before spouting their talking points. enough said.

psi, just read the same article. Really did not give any real data on what he is talking about.

First he complains that when someone needs 100 million they come to the board with a powerpoint presentation. What is wrong with that? Sounds like GM has a set way that fund requesters request money. What did he want? The request written on a napkin?

And then he talks about sound analysis. Not sure of course what he meant exactly but this is the auto industry, not the financial market he is used to. A + B does not always equal C. Perhaps taking a chance on some new technology that shows no possible payback (i.e. prius hybrid) for at least 10 years would be thrown out the door by a pure “financial” analysis, yet it sure did pay off for Toyota in the long run.

And as far as the execs sitting on their own floor. Seems like any company as big as GM would keep the execs together with a bit more security than everyone else. And since they did have their own parking spots there would be no need for everyone else to have access. The execs did ride the same elevators, they just had access to a floor others did not.

I am not saying that there was nothing wrong at GM and did not need changing but his article just did not put much out there. Most likely he will write a book and make a bunch more money.

Superman, usually I disagree with you, mostly because you call me a GM fanboy (of which I am not), and you tend to attack people for no good reason other than they appear to dislike Japanese cars. However, I couldn’t agree more with your last comment. That was funny.

Digger, trust no one….

I personally am against government intervention, however, I’m crossing my fingers and hoping that this government intervention actually works out. I’ll be jumping for joy if all three American makes pull through and become stronger players in the world market, no matter how it’s done. Time will tell, but I think the future is starting to look up. That’s not a contradiction, so don’t hammer me for it.

Oh, and BK’09, you went to college?

leftwingagenda I am not for a Bail out of Chrysler idiot. I am for a Lee Iaccocca Type that can take the Helm of Chrysler and keep it a Great company. I am not for another Idiot el Richy Rich to take the Spot of CEO of Chrysler and then insure they have golden parachutes before saying I am selling it off to a Foreigner or I don’t care. This Lazy attitude has become the american way. I am getting mine and then getting out! with out any real work. But leftwing if what you saying is let another American Giant go under because of one or two Douche Bag CEO after Lee Iaccocca Left Chrysler then your a Communist.
and don’t even care about your fellow americans who need work.

Grabs Leftwing by the Nose. NO Here’s what you do A******* you replace the Chrysler with a Great Transportation Visionary and Engineer – who is not willing to sell out the company, not willing to make a cushy retirement for themselves while the company fails, or some other clown the Wealth Fat cats on the board of directors decide to pencil in as CEO. Wharton School or RICH Lazy SOB’ how can we graduate- find a Company to suck dry and blame everyone else for OUR mistakes. This leftwing is the Problem with American business management the lack of RESPONSIBILITY and Direction.