im thinking nascar and the racing world in general may be very different in a couple years….

LaNeve is just begging for his job. Imagine where he would go after this gig? You completely fail in marketing campaign, prediction and estimation. As a matter of fact could not be more wrong 100% of time. There are of course few guys within the same corporation who’ve done even worse, when worse is hard even to find. And those executives who demand our tax dollars to continue in the same direction.

I’d say lets feed Africa(especially Kenya!), cure aids and cure cancer and Ebola virus, before we lavish those fat cats with tax dollars.

Dealers couldn’t sell a car, let alone sell an idea. Good thing the money is already on the way… $100 billion is the new figure.

Until there is a change in GM’s upper-management (read bye-bye Wagoner, Lutz, plus many others), and removal of the current board of directors—this is all for naught.

That last sentence makes absolutely no sense. If Bush passes on the aid package and the Big 3 might not make it because of that, then it would be too late for OBama to do anything. According to some analysts, GM might not make it through the end of December, let alone into early next yr. The Big 3 have been behind the 8 ball for quite awhile now. They deserve what is happening to them. However, if they all fail, it will have dire consequences to the economy. Most part suppliers could go out of business and other auto maufacturers will be hit very hard. I don’t know about anybody else, but I am getting tired of our tax dollars bailing these stupid companies out. If the Big 3 do get bailed out, the loan should be paid back in a timely matter, and if not, penalites assessed. What a mess.

I’d be investing in the dairy industry. They must be moving a lot of cheese to go along with the whine.

The roof
The roof
The roof is on fire
We don’t need no water
Let the motherf**** burn!!!

@ johnnycanuck
or at least enough cheese to feed to people that will be in the bread lines if the Big 3 go under.

You know, everyone says this is a huge deal, and that unemployment right now is as high as it was during the Great Depression. However, during the Great Depression, we had an unemployment rate of 25%. One out of every four people were unemployed. Right now, the rate is at 6.2%. If GM were to fail, and 5 million people were to lose their jobs, the unemployment rate would skyrocket to a blistering rate of… …9.7%! That puts things into perspective, doesn’t it?

I’m not saying being unemployed isn’t bad, and that it wouldn’t hurt our economy. I’m just saying that we should stop being so pessimistic. We’ll get through this. It’s not the end of the world. We just need to help each other out a little bit for a while, and everything will be okay.

Paulson has already said anything with the automakers is to be kept separate from the Financial market which affects/effects the world markets. I’m surprised that no private entity has stepped in yet, but the US has done it to itself but honestly the worst has yet to happen.

One of the big 3 fails and we are looking at 10% unemployment - you think things are bad right now with people loosing their houses left and right, wait until another 5% have no income and are being foreclosed on.
Sadly GM (or Ford or Chrysler) really are too big to fail. While I would love to see some of these idiots in charge of these big companies get what they deserve, I doubt this will happen.

Loan them the money, since the other option is worse, but cap the executive teams income at a reasonable 150-250,000/year. No stock options, no bonuses until the company starts showing some real positive cash flow for 3-5 years in a row. Meaning positive income due to accounting “tricks” doesn’t count.

And of course they will have to pay the loan back with interest.

Te economy is in bad shape and it will be worse then Insignificant 2.8 go out of business. However, if there is a demand (market) for cars somebody will build them. Defaulted companies facilities will be available and will be picked up by someone else (Hyundai, VW, whoever). There will be interruption in flow of cash to suppliers, but alternative is that Recovered 2.8 will be building cars nobody will buy anyway. We may recover the brain dead patient, but what the quality of life for us and the patient? Nancy is not talking about restructuring and tossing bums out of their cushy jobs, we are talking Government Motors. Consumers will not be able to sue for wheels falling off - how do you go after federal government?

The printing press is running full tilt. The US dollar is dead. Buy gold and save yourselves. It gets uglier, a lot uglier.

wtf does nascar have to do with this murphy
you mustve just read the latest automobile mag

GM can lobby me, this aid needs to go through, even if only in a small amount until Obama can really sit down and iron out what needs to happen.

So, let me get this straight:

- GM and Ford’s upper management should resign.
- Executive salaries capped, and bonuses withheld.

So who the heck would be willing to take their places? Leaders from Honda, VW, or any other profitable company would never jump ship to clean up this mess unless there was significant compensation.

Personally, I think that Lutz, Wagoner, and Mulally have made some great strides dealing with the unions, streamlining production, and marketing (some) good cars. If they can survive this downturn, GM and Ford may actually start to gain market share.

I wouldn’t give them a blank check, but providing a bridge loan would be a prudent investment.

I know a bunch of LLN bloggers that would like to take a crack at running these companies…

look how government bailouts have helped the airline industry. it’s time to cut the fat, get lean and mean, quit diversifying, and buckle down. the product has made some good strides in the last year. if there is any sort of bailout with the new administration, it will be for the sake of protecting jobs, and expect a whole lot of strings attached.

We are all angry at executive pay; but, DetroitWatcher does bring up a good point about needing to pay enough money to retain or gain good leadership. So, how could the government, if it ends up bailing out the “Big 3,” satisfy both the need to curb pay and keep it sufficient? How about setting targets with dollar signs? Unfortunately, the targets could not be too specific as that is too close to a planned economy (e.g. the government should never say: Sell 40,000 Volts and get $20,000); however, the government could set goals such as: Return GM to profitability and you will receive $10 million (or whatever people could agree the true value of such a herculean feat is . . .) from the bailout money that has been set aside for compensation. I realize this is probably a pipe dream and the libertarian in me HATES it, but these are desperate times and ANY idea should be considered.

There are a lot of good arguments that have been made on these forums about Wagoner, Lutz, Mullally and others not being responsible for the straights GM is currently in and how those folks have made moves that would have seemingly saved either company in better economic times. That said, what the executives are not getting is that the average person in America lives in the dreamworld where we believe that truly good executives cap their own pay at $1 like Iacocca did (despite whether he may have made tons of money in other ways). It is probably unrealistic on our parts, but we live in a culture that reveres the heros who throw themselves on grenades to save their comrades. Even if it is, it does not seem unreasonable to the average American for some gallant executive to throw him or herself on the metaphorical grenade.

@DetroitWatcher, it’s called a “succession plan” and every savvy corporation has one. If those players are all this country has to offer then close their doors now and save everyone, especially the US taxpayer, the grieve.
.
@maxcar, the airline industry is probably the worth example you could have chosen. Most have aging fleets, deferred maintenance, and they still beat the hell out of my luggage.

If there is a buy out package a part of it should be a tax credit to the consumer for the purchase of a new vehicle purchased from the Detroit 3. There should also be a low interest loan package with strict qualifications for QUALIFID BUYERS (unlike Freddie and Frannie). It is time to encourage Buy American, starting with the auto industry. We can not afford to lose our manufacturing sector and the skilled and unskilled labor opportunities that are the base of what was the real middle class.

@forthedriver, this makes a lot of sense to me. But does GM have enough time to wait for the money to trickle up the chain? Perhaps this should have been done months ago.

@ LLL#3, You’re right, they likely do have a succession plan. But it probably consists of bringing out the “B Team” to continue with the current strategies. If this is the case, I’d rather see the current game plan implemented by the folks that came up with it originally.

Just read that a federal “Auto Czar” may be appointed…. now that’s scary stuff. You can bet that some tool in Washington is just salivating at the chance to get involved in the design of the next Vette!

US DEALERS ARE ASKING GM TO GET “NEW MANAGEMENT” THAT CAN WORK WITH US, INSTEAD OF THEM TELLING US “SALE MORE! - SALE MORE!” HOW ABOUT GIVING US A HAND SO WE CAN SALE MORE YOU PRICKS!……. WE GET NOTE’S ALL THE TIME FROM THE “GM” AND YET, ANY THING WE ASK FOR FALLS ON DEATH EARS, FORD, DODGE, MITSUBISHI, FLEET MANAGEMENT GET ON IT AZAP! BUT WE HATE MAKING A CALL TO THE “GM”, WE JUST CALL OTHER DEALERS HAD THAT IS HOW WE RESOLVE OUR ISSUE’S, (IF WE CAN FIND ONE STILL OPEN THAT IS)…
BUT FOR “GM” TO ASK US FOR HELP…. I WANT SOME OF THE STUFF THEY ARE SMOKING!!!!!!!

I suspect Detroit watcher is a plant.
Any one that thinks the big three management teams have any thing other than a rudimentary idea about either their product or their companies is living in cloud cuckoo land.
All they care about is the big pay check, the private underground parking, and not having to deal with poor people.
Personally i would make one of the conditions of any bale out that the upper three or four tiers of management have to drive, themselves, in that companies cheapest vehicle day in and day out, come rain or shine for a year or two, we might see some improvement in quality then.

Catiadesigner . . . Your idea is something they should be doing voluntarily. I would be interested to know what vehicles the execs do drive (i.e. are they driving their own company’s vehicles and do they ever drive the cheapest trim lines of each vehicle?). If you do still have connections to any of the big three then you should definitely submit that idea. We know Toyota makes their engineers do it and I read in a NYT’s article that one of the big whigs at Toyota does it . . . seems like GM, Ford and Chrysler execs should be as well!!!

http://grabdemocracybythehorns.com/takeaction/

@Catiadesigner

A plant? To what end? Sorry, not me.

If I come off a bit pro-American-Car-Maker, it’s because I bought my first domestic car EVER a few years ago (Mustang GT) and my experience has been surprisingly good. I’ve been interested the Detroit car makers since.

I think that it’ll take a long time for the current regimes to truly turn Detroit around. Switching horses mid-race will lengthen that process. Excessive federal micro-managing will kill it (though handing over a blank check would be nuts).

Regarding management teams caring only about compensation… Well, if my company cut my pay in half, I’d leave. Likewise, if a company tried to recruit me for less than market value, I’d say “No.” Same thing goes for them.

BTW: Note that I’ve left Chrysler out of this discussion… I think they’re completely screwed.

Also, I agree that exec’s should DEFINITELY drive their own products… as well as sample the competition every so often. That’s just good product development process.