For most people, nothing says failure or hitting bottom like a $50-billion government bailout or bankruptcy — or both.
But you might not know that from the tone of GM officials on Monday as they discussed the automaker’s future after filing the biggest industrial bankruptcy in U.S. history.
In a filing with a New York bankruptcy court, GM blamed “the economic collapse and liquidity crisis that began to surface during the end of 2007 and exploded in 2008? for its financial crisis.
It also pointed to “exigent economic circumstances” that compelled it to seek a government bailout to “avoid a potentially fatal systemic failure” that would have hurt GM, and hundreds of thousands of others in the auto industry.
Missing from the explanation was an admission of management responsibility for choosing to rely on sales of large vehicles or for backing an ultimately failed course of gradual reform and cost-cutting that failed to turn the tide against $88 billion in losses over four years.
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(A 98-page affidavit submitted by Henderson also steers clear of the question of responsibility for GM’s crisis. In fact, the only use of the term “responsible” is to make the point that GM is “not responsible” for certain retiree benefits.)
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Just hours after GM’s Chapter 11 filing, GM CEO Fritz Henderson went as far as to call the bankruptcy a “once in a lifetime opportunity.”
“The GM that many of you knew, the GM that let too many of you down, is history,” Henderson said. “Today marks the beginning of what will be a new company, a new GM dedicated to building the very best cars and trucks, highly fuel-efficient, world-class quality, green technology development.”
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