Kerkorian thinks Wagoner is an oaf? That's the rumor and we agree

Wagoner's poor performance is nothing compared to the ineffective Board of Directors at GM. Have the directors no shame in allowing a weak executive team [Wagoner, Lutz etc.] to continue the dismantling of a great company?

I agree the GM is deeply troubled and probably going to be insolvent in the next 12-18months. But if Kirk doesn't like the way Wagoner is running the joint then why doesnt he just sell off his stake before he loses the lot?
In addition with a near 10% share holding he would be able to quite easily push for a blood letting at board level and instill several board members that will serve his agenda. It's not rocket science.

The guts of the matter is that Kirk doesn't give a toss about GM's cars or anything like that for that matter. All he is concerned with is his investment and trying to profit out of buying such a large stake in the company when it was very cheap. Like he has done many times with other companies in the past and will continue to do so in the future.

Well if I had a big investment and was losing money on it, and I thought the executives were incompetent I wouldn't just take the loses. Indeed I'd get someone on the board [and Kirk has done this] and try to put internal and external pressure on the board [and Kirk is trying to do this].

However a 10% stake doesn't give full control over the board !

If you believe that the current executive team gives a toss about GM's cars you are deluding yourself - they've run the company into the ground already.

I'd prefer Kirk to be running GM than Wagoner and Lutz. Lutz in particular is a disgrace - this egotistical self proclaimed saviour of GM's models has made mistake after mistake in the management of the new product portfolio. He thinks we are still in the 1960s and that a couple of small sports cars can turn everything around - fire the idiot [Putz] and stop blaming the messenger [Kirk]

GM is 50% at fault. The 50% is the unions and healthcare issues that imports don't have the same issues with. Styling and product has been their problem. They also started the devaluation of their products with consumers over 20 yrs ago with continuous discounting. I'm not sure what the link up with Renault and Nissan is going to do. Right now Renault has been struggling. Nissan has certainly come back but it's sales are a little off this yr. Perhaps the only thing that I see Carlos Ghosan doing if he were to head GM would be to either to sell off or desolve the umprofitable brands like Hummer,Saab, and Pontiac. This would lead to more plant closings and more employee buyouts then GM's original plans. I don't see any platform sharing in the near future and I don't see what GM could offer for Nissan that it already does not have. Perhaps it could be a way for Renault to come back to the US.

Here's what I would expect under Ghosan:

Address the issues -
* simplify the brands - stop wasteful spending on Hummer, Saab, Saturn, and maybe even Buick etc.
* reduce the number of products - eliminate unprofitable and aging products
* eliminate unprofitable dealers and enhance the dealership experience
* dramatically expand the number of GM's fuel efficient smaller vehicles (short-term by leveraging Nissan and Renault existing models)
* overhaul the new product portfolio process and the products currently within the process
* encourage braver exterior designs, better interior designs, higher fuel efficiency and greater safety for all new products

However I think the main benefits would be (a.) speed - Wagoner is too slow, and (b.) credibility - I imagine that the turn-around plan would be more believable under Ghosan and thus investment analysts might upgrade GM's debt and save money

make saab and saturn one company, same with buick and pontiac. that get rid of a lot of crap. hummer is probably really profitable though. do all your stuff too m-b basher.
the suv market will be gone in 10 years as muscle cars are back, so 25 year olds will aspire to a camaro rather than an escalade.
improve a cars packaging, ie make more use of interior space and light with big windows and bigger cabins, smaller boots (trunks) and shorter bonnets.

Rupert, I think you're on to something with those consolidations. So much of GM's problems are with Unions/Healthcare, so I think that if GM gets that ironed out, they can afford to keep Saab and Buick, especially Buick. Also, America's love affair for SUVs is far from over.

GM has got to take more drastic actions in this turnaround. I agree with many who say that there are too many divisions, too many brands and too many dealers.

GM should take the hit now to position itself for a stronger future. Some will get hurt, but in the long run it will be for the highest and best good.

A good strart would be to shitcan Rick Wagoner.

I don’t know. Yes Wagner is a pansy but I think things are going a lot better. Could the turn around go faster? Maybe but I think a lot of you know how long it takes to make a car from scratch. Much quicker you GM might be sacrificing safety & quality and nobody wants that. I definitely do not believe the SUV market will go away. People need big SUVs. Are going to cram your two dogs two or three kids you and your wife and all the junk that goes with it into a small SUV, car or crossover and go up to the mountains for a fishing trip or small camping trip? A lot of people do that here in the Northwest you are not going to do it in a Nissan Pathfinder which by the way gets worse gas mileage than a 2007 Tahoe.
GM has a lot of work to do but I am confidant they will get it done.
By the way, they are doing a hell of a lot better then Ford. Of coarse this is all my opinion.

Read the health care deal each slack-jawed GM UAW due payer gets:

<<http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2005-06-22-gm-healthcare-usat_x.htm>>

“At a time when the average American company requires workers to pay more than $2,000 a year toward family health insurance premiums, the auto industry is among the 4% of employers that offer free family health coverage. Retirees, who outnumber workers by more than 2-to-1 at General Motors and represent significant percentages at the other major U.S. automakers, get the same deal.”

More from the same article:

“The cost of providing health care adds from $1,100 to $1,500 to the cost of each of the 4.65 million vehicles GM sold last year, according to various calculations. GM expects to spend at least $5.6 billion on health care this year, more than it spent on advertising last year.”

As Lee Iacocca said, “… U.S. automobile industry spends more per car on health care than on steel." GM’s Board of Directors and the parade of buffoons they’ve had running the show that allowed the UAW to build shoddy cars and enjoy better benefits than 96% of the American workforce, ‘they’ are the architects of GM’s meltdown.

There is nothing GM can do to save itself. It will not disappear but it will keep shrinking until it becomes an also-ran in the US auto market. This is a trend that began in the seventies and has no signs of reversing.

The main reason: They have acquired a reputation of poor quality, laggard technology, and dreadful reliability. In short GM is not sexy anymore. The last time they were sexy to a lot of people was in the 60's. That's a loooong time ago.

They started acquiring this bad reputation in the 70's. And maintained it through a non-stop streak of bad decisions. It took a generation of car buyers to cement this reputation, it will take at least a generation (and a lot of money) to undo it.

Examples of boneheaded moves that led to this descent to mediocrity:

--Sticking with twin-valve OHV iron block engines well after the imports finished switching wholesale to multivalve OHC aluminum engines. A GM exec even said once that really, OHV iron blocks are good enough for our customers. Yeah, if you want to focus on the least sophisticated segment of the market and are willing to acquire the reputation of Technological Laggard.

--Castrating Saturn just when it was starting to establish a glowing reputation of quality and service. The bean counters said it wasn't making enough profit. They put no value at all at the improved brand reputation that Saturn was bringing to the GM table. Now Saturn is a shell of its old self. The glamor is gone. Trashed by GM.

--Pouring the bulk of your product development spending on light trucks and SUVs when pretty much every energy forecaster in the world was saying that the world is running out of oil and gas will not stay cheap forever. We're seeing the folly of that decision now.

GM has turned into just another American company led by weekend warriors, and soulless college graduates that know nothing of style & performance. They instead design practical yet SOULLESS automobiles..

FORD falls under this same category. poor poor company.

heres an idea. put an age cap on the free health care to retirees. like 80 or so. people that live to 100 are really breaking them cause their health care is more expensive, and like stated above: the retirees outnumber workers 2:1 and they all have higher health care cost. i can see it now the stick on a new cobalt like this:
air conditioning - $995
destination charge - $715
employee health care - $1150
pin stripe - $65
damn labor unions break the bank again.

tundraboy - says Pouring the bulk of your product development spending on light trucks and SUVs when pretty much every energy forecaster in the world was saying that the world is running out of oil and gas will not stay cheap forever. We're seeing the folly of that decision now....
Did GM decide last week to redesign these trucks.. NOOOOO.. they started doing this a few years ago when gas pricing was low... made good sense then. And concidering they are selling over a million of these a year even now it still makes good sense. Plus they have decent designs on these trucks so now they can roll out the rest of their product planing. I think The GM Nissan deal is a bust. I think Kerkorian is just mad because instead of tring to help solve GM's problems he is looking for ways of improving its stock worth so he can dump it. At one point I think he thought it could take over GM. He is a fool all he is after is a buck and he hasn't been able to make it so he has been trying to get his money back wheather not GM last of not.. Didn't he try this before with the boys over at DODGE????

Kerkorian dumped his remaining shares of GM and walked away with a modest profit at the end of Nov/early Dec.