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Can General Motors be saved?

by: Kathy

Tue Aug 05, 2008 at 11:15:00 AM EDT


CNBC will present a one-hour documentary tomorrow about General Motors, "a company fighting a legacy of bad decisions, poor quality and foreign competition." Saving General Motors airs August 6th at 9 p.m.

Program highlights include:

The Long Road Back - Auto industry legend Bob Lutz is the man charged with bringing quality and excitement back to GM's cars.

Red Means Go - While GM's sales are diving at home, they're thriving abroad, fueled by the coolest new car in Communist China: a Buick.

A Star is Reborn - GM hopes to make history - again. The Chevy Camaro, a classic muscle car born in the 60's, is back, and NASCAR star Dale Earnhardt, Jr. is the first to take the wheel.

Jobs on the Line - Warren Kennedy has worked almost every job on the GM factory floor. After taking a buyout, he looks back at a company vastly different from the one he began at 30 years ago.

Green Machine - With SUV sales tanking, GM's bid for a greener future hangs on its revolutionary electric car, the Chevy Volt. Just one problem: they still have to come up with a battery that can power the car.

CNBC will also profile GM CEO Rick Wagoner, "who has also been on the job for 31 years. Wagoner discusses why he believes he is the right executive to lead the company despite its decline in market share, its loss of billions of dollars and the stock losing more than 75% of its value."

The program is being framed as a race against time, which some analysts fear has just about run out for General Motors.

The struggling automaker, which has lost more than $51 billion over the past three years, posted a $15.5 billion quarterly loss on Friday as its North American sales fell 20 percent and plunging prices for SUVs prompted deep charges for its auto finance business.

Most analysts believe the company will have significant cash issues going forward, with some believing the automaker will have to tap external funding sources to meet its capital needs. [...]

Liquidity will remain an important concern among investors as cash flow in the second half of the year is likely to remain negative for the company, Goldman Sachs said....

Lehman said it remained more comfortable with the turnaround prospects at GM's rival Ford Motor Co.

Only time will tell if General Motors survives, but it's already too late for the thousands of workers who lost solid middle-class jobs.

For more information and video clips, click here.

Kathy :: Can General Motors be saved?
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Bob Lutz belongs on a Sinclair sign (4.00 / 5)
Lutz is a dinosaur, pure and simple. In his book High and Mighty, Keith Bradsher, the former New York Times Detroit bureau chief had a few things to say about the man:

• He once drove a Jeep Grand Cherokee through a glass window at the Detroit Auto Show.

• At Chrysler, he marketed the ferocious-looking Ram pickup, which further ratcheted up the SUV arms race.

• At GM, he stepped up SUV and pickup production, especially the Escalade.

• He also encouraged designers to make GM's vehicles even more menacing.

And this doozy after Bradsher's book came out: In an interview with a Dallas magazine, Lutz called global warming a "total crock of s**t."

"When you smoke and drink, that tobacco doesn't mix with alcohol and you feel lousy the next morning, so I gave up cigarettes."--former Tiger manager Mayo Smith.


Sinclair? (4.00 / 5)
Yikes, it took a moment for my brain to kick in and remember that blast from the past!

Lutz actually drove through a window at the auto show? The engineer who designed the airbag must have had him in mind.  


[ Parent ]
Ever heard of T-85 fuel? (4.00 / 5)
It's a blend of 85 percent testosterone and 15 percent conventional gasoline. If Lutz had his way, this product would be available nationwide--and not just at Sinclair stations.

"When you smoke and drink, that tobacco doesn't mix with alcohol and you feel lousy the next morning, so I gave up cigarettes."--former Tiger manager Mayo Smith.

[ Parent ]
Don't expect any changes (4.00 / 5)
Online update from the WSJ on today's board meeting

The auto maker's board, composed of 14 members with Mr. Wagoner as chairman, met Monday and Tuesday. The meetings were part of the annual product review the board conducts, and included a Monday night dinner and presentations from top company executives.

"The board has expressed its support for Rick Wagoner and the GM management team on several occasions and that has not changed," GM spokesman Steve Harris said.

"The board is totally behind Rick, realizing nobody could deal with this situation any better than he," one person close to the board said. "It's a case of an excellent plan, [and] delivering on all promises."



Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience and rebellion that progress has been made. --- Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man Under Socialism

Maybe they'll switch ad agencies (4.00 / 4)
Or bring in someone like Lou Holtz to give a motivational talk to the company's sales force.

That will solve everything.

"When you smoke and drink, that tobacco doesn't mix with alcohol and you feel lousy the next morning, so I gave up cigarettes."--former Tiger manager Mayo Smith.


[ Parent ]
Maybe they should quit giving each other payraises... (4.00 / 4)
every time they downsize workers and actually try to accomplish something that will keep everyone employed.

A voice in my head tells me not to be so mean to the conservatives.  I work very hard to ignore that voice.

[ Parent ]
Re-phrase the question... (0.00 / 0)
Should GM be saved?

The observation of GM "stock losing more than 75% of its value" is incorrect by definition. A common stock is exactly the "value" of its corporation. GM, by definition of corporate value, will soon be worthless. Why Obama would invest precious tax dollars in a dying corporation is beyond me, except that it sells in Detroit. If I had a dollar to buy common stock, it certainly wouldn't be in a car manufacturer in Detroit! What little scrap value is left will be bought by salvage brokers and any revenue will be invested in corporations that can envision our future transportation solutions. Perhaps those investments will be in a new bus manufacturer in Detroit, but I doubt it. The dollars will more likely go overseas to build our next generation of transportation.

Can you imagine that the Chinese will fill their future countryside with six-lane divided highways covered bumper-to-bumper with "classic muscle-cars"? What planet was that again? The name of the future chair of the GM board of directors will only have two letters.

pura vida, mae




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