Wagoner's golden parachute

[dazzleman]

If you do send an e-mail with detailed directions.   

[Colonel Cadillac]

I don't really think any management team could have turned GM profitable or produced cars on par with the Japanese with the legacy costs burdening the company.

Then again, the Ford team managed to keep the company afloat...

[dazzleman]

I don't really think any management team could have turned GM profitable or produced cars on par with the Japanese with the legacy costs burdening the company.

Then again, the Ford team managed to keep the company afloat...

Not sure I agree.  Prior to Mullaly, all the Big 3 took the path of least resistance, avoiding confronting the unions and relying inordinately on gas-guzzling SUVs.

Business is like war.  The biggest reason for loss in war is "too late."  Waking up too late to what you have to do, so there's not sufficient time left to do it.  Those 2-3 extra years that Ford gave itself to deal with the unsustainable path it was on may be the difference between survival and collapse.  That GM didn't see the need to address the issues Ford addressed until the government had to bail it out makes its survival probability less, at least as an independent company that isn't sucking the tit of the government.