Wagoner to Resign as CEO of General Motors

Ah, political scapegoats. Just as the ousting of our nation's president solves all of our nation's troubles, the ousting of gm's president solves all of general motors... (sarcasm)

In some way, I feel fine about this. Wagoner hasn't exactly done a bang-up job and through the sizable bailouts doled out to GM, the Federal Government is essentially a (very) sizeable stakeholder in the success of the company. I'm all for separation of Governement and Private Industry (we all know what the word is for that), but when a company willingly drinks the kool-aid, and routinely fails to come up with a plan to replenish it, what do you expect will happen?

I suspect Ford will be safe, but what of Chrysler if the Fiat merger falls through?

Typo Police: I believe you meant to say that the Detroit News said that the administration plans to give GM 60 days to revise its turnaround plan (not plant). =)

Wagoner did it to himself. He became CEO of GM in 2000 and the last time the company reported a profit (YTD) was in 2004. So in over 4 years the company has failed to adjust to a changing market and was too slow in making the necessary steps to stream line manufacturing and cut labor costs to remain in the black. All while under his leadership.

His time to go was long overdue.

Chrysler has been on the ropes this entire decade. I'm not sure what benefit will come from a merger with Fiat. Remember the merger with Daimler? They failed miserably in turning around the company and ended up selling it(to Cerberus?) in order to keep them off their books.

Both companies need to be restructured.

I think Ford narrowly missed a complete collapse by cutting Land Rover, Jaguar & Austin Martin from their line-up while introducing the 04/05 Mustang along with the previous generation Mazda 6 platform that lead to the Fusion, Edge & CX-7/CX-9. They still haven't made a profit in a few years (mainly due to poor sales in full-size trucks/SUVs and the Taurus platform), so who know's if they'll survive without a Government bail-out in the next year or two. Let's just hope they do for the sake of tax payers and the US Auto Industry.

Well, all Chrysler is is a hot potato to be lobbed carelessly around. I'm supremely shocked that Chrysler has existed this long. As cool as some of their products are, they're subpar compared to the rest of the industry. "Good enough" comes to mind.

Wagoner deserves to be fired. Indeed, he has made profound changes, but he hasn't made enough of them. You can't have a plumber come by to replaces all your old piping 1 pipe a month over the course of 9 years.

Keep in mind, the reason gm was turning a profit in 2000 was rental sales and lack of investment in automotive development (which is what people still associate gm with, even though it hasn't so much been the case in the last 10 years). Wagoner reversed both practices in an attempt to temporarily lose money to regain gm's image and ultimately gain money. Instead, they still get no respect (just check out these blogs) and our current depression has caught them without the funds to weather the storm.

Wagoner is just the scapegoat, having done what needed to be done, but having to take the flack for the company's failure.

"Wagoner is just the scapegoat, having done what needed to be done, but having to take the flack for the company's failure."

Well said Uncanny!