Should GM be re-branded?

Generally Mediocre, Government Motors...crap by any other name is still crap. Until a more reputable entity (say, Tata) buys & renames it here's the next ad.

 

Anyone who believes in the free market, who supports the bail-out, is in effect saying that the free market does not work after all. GM failed due to bad management. If that management is not replaced with people who have an entirely different philosophy of management and business, then the bailout will fail to save the company and will just be a money pit. Merely giving Wagoner the boot, and promoting each of the people below him one level, will do nothing to save the company.

It would have been better to let GM fail and give the workers compensation until they got new jobs.

But it would have been best of all to completely restructure GM in the manner Michael Moore recommended, transforming it into a sustainable energy and transportation company.

Merely rebranding the company with a new name does nothing but give the advertising companies work. A new name changes nothing. Who here would be stupid enough to go out and buy a GM car just because it was now called Excellence Motors Corporation if you would not have bought a car from the same company under its old name???

 

Yes, I voted for "no bailout" and I have relatives that are in the retail automotive business for over 50 years. The Federal government should not be in the bailout business. If GM or any company is worth saving they should be able to raise all the money they need in the capital markets. They didn't try very hard. They should have tried begging at the airports and getting the money out of their own employees.

Perhaps the cure for unemployment is military service. GM's unemployed should be able to handle border security, customs inspection, and land mine detection.

 

What accounts? That's UAW/sympathizer propaganda, go check the numbers, I have. It's not that high even with "collateral impacts." Might have been true 50 years ago when GM had 50% market share - some people still want you to believe the old tapes.

 

IMO, the "should have been allowed to fail" is a totally different subject.

I don't believe that even GM buyers will be fooled by a name change.

 

If they get rebranded it should be a really really HOT iron, maybe that will spur them into action.

Wildkow

 

If I start a business selling dog crap and no one buys my dog crap should the government bail me out? No thats not the job of the government. Its my own fault for trying to sell a product no one wants. My business deserves to fail.

PS. I have some dog crap if anyone is interested. Please buy it. I have many hard workers that will lose their job if you don't.

 

If I use dog crap for brains and buy something I can't afford should the government bail me out?


Wilkdow

 

I already have enough of my own. And more on the way. :madgrin:

 

Not until you re-brand your company with a shiny new name.

Not if it keeps the same old managers it won't! If you want any substantive change in GM you will have to replace the entire management with people who have an entirely different model of business.

From the beginning, GM's managers have been concerned with nothing but their own compensation. The company that dismantled public transportation to force people to buy cars; that fought tooth and nail against safety features; that brought lawsuits to allow it to maximize pollution; that paid salaries and bonuses and dividends with the money that should have been invested to pay for future obligations such as workers' health and retirement; that lobbied for protectionism when Japan started to produce quality cars, rather than building quality cars to compete; that crushed the EV-1 rather than let the leasees buy them; this is a company who's managers are criminally irresponsible. Merely firing the CEO and keeping the rest of the management will not change GM.

Re-branding is an advertising gimmick. It means nothing. And without whole new management with a whole new philosophy of business, GM will continue to fail and the $60 billion will have been a total waste.

 

As long as the majority of the people believe that GM would have failed without the bankruptcy, then GM (and their government lackies) have pulled it off. I have my own opinions about this:

1. GM would not have failed. They would have been in trouble, but no more so than Ford is now. They would have dropped Saturn, Pontiac and Hummer on their own and moved forward.

2. The bankruptcy was a simple ploy to allow them to get out of debt free, throw out all their existing (legally binding) contracts, and to get a nice infusion of cash to re-start their product development cycle.

3. The government didn't "force" GM into bankruptcy. GM wanted this move for the reasons in number 2 above, and managed to either coerce or convince the government to basically take the heat off them for doing it.

4. Obama didn't "fire" the ex-CEO. Some factions at GM wanted him out, but he had enough votes on the board to make a normal overthrow difficult. By convincing Obama that it was all the CEO's fault, and having Obama "suggest" they dump the guy, those factions in the power struggle that wanted him out got what they wanted.

5. In going along with GM on all this, Obama has placed his administration in a position to be challenged in the Supreme Court for Unconstitutional actions. However, by the time all that has taken place GM will have accomplished what they set out to accomplish.

Note that the bankruptcy of Chrysler and bailout (not to mention purchase by Fiat) is even more suspect. In that case, it was a bunch of very rich individuals that owned Chrysler, not stockholders. What the changes at Chrysler did was bail out those rich guys for getting in over their heads in a business they had no background in running. They screwed up and will come out smelling like a rose in the process.

 

I think "Everyone got a haircut" is a good way to put it. Same people, same business philosophy, same greed-based management, but a nice new $500 haircut for everyone.

Are they really going to start making green cars? Well, maybe they'll offer the color green for the paint job. But as for the substance, I don't believe they've changed. That's why I think the government should use its shares to vote in new managers with a mandate from the owner (us!) to transform the company into a sustainable energy and transportation company.

 

Of course. I rather doubt that GM would have immediately gone to Chapter 7. There still would have been a Chapter 11, some brands trash canned (Actually, more trimming needs to be done), some stranded liabilities would have been dumped, etc

Seems I recall GM warning that if they didn't get the scratch, they would close factories. Well, they got the scratch, and still closed factories.