Chan Lowe | Sun-Sentinel Blogs

They're calling it "tough love." President Obama has given General Motors sixty days to clean up its act and present a plan for the future, or we're cuttin' it off. He demanded the head of its CEO, Rick Wagoner, as part of the price of government aid.

Of course, Mr. Wagoner isn't the only one to blame. Sure, his company built big, fat profit-rich SUVs, but we--the American consumer--happily snapped them up. Then, being fickle, we abandoned them when the price of fuel rose. Now, nobody's buying anything, even small cars. Is that his fault?

Let's not forget the unions. I just heard that they get five weeks of vacation, 15 paid holidays a year, and Cadillac health insurance, for which they do not have to pay. Pretty hard to be competitive with the Japanese when so much fat is built into the cost of every car.

Why didn't Obama sack the big financial types? I heard it was because they're the only ones who know enough about the Byzantine system they created to unravel it. Wagoner's big weakness is that he runs a big industrial concern, and there are a lot of people who can do that, certainly as well or as poorly as he did.

It may or may not have been the best move, from a businees standpoint, for Obama to reach in and make breathtaking personnel decisions, but it was certainly politically astute. It looks dramatic, and in this climate, it gives people a warm feeling to see some bigwig's head rolling around on the assembly line floor.

Comments

So we have a president who campaigned that he was going to cut the pork from his presidency (but has not cut any pork at all) telling the auto makers to cut the fat from their company. Why am I not optimistic?

Posted by: Pointman870 | March 31, 2009 3:41 PM

Its too bad no one will ever take advantage of this to test my theory that a magic 8 ball can run a company better than a typical CEO. This would be the perfect opportunity to try :-).

Posted by: Tom | March 31, 2009 7:13 PM

Although he seems to think he's the nation's CEO now, with Obama's management experience, he couldn't get hired to run a muffler shop.

And firing the head of General Motors must be quite a coup for a power-mad narcissist like Barack- what a rush. His Marxist-professor mentors would have been so proud. But, it's costing GM $20M to fire Wagoner, and with dubious benefit- which is now on the taxpayer's tab, of course.

Barack Obama making business decisions and deciding who keeps their job and who doesn't is a very bad idea... he doesn't know anything about capitalism- except for that he doesn't like it very much.

http://reaganiterepublicanresistance.blogspot.com

Posted by: Reaganite Republican Resistance | March 31, 2009 8:00 PM

It is amazing how this has played out. When all this started with GM I sent my Senator a few emails detailing what I thought needed to happen. I said; GM needs new leadership (done), they need to go through bankrutcy (in 60 days)and the unions need to make major concessions (part of bankruptcy).

If I can see that, why can't our highly educated leader do the same?

Posted by: Tracy | April 1, 2009 9:58 AM

Chinese leaders have adopted a plan aimed at turning the country into one of the leading producers of hybrid and all-electric vehicles within three years, and making it the world leader in electric cars and buses after that. (NYT, april 1st)

China...
Was'nt it ounce a "marxist" country?

Posted by: Phil | April 2, 2009 3:03 AM