Croc

You wanna be a snide jackass, you get to be blocked.

I'm sorry, but this is rubbish. When you go to a bank for a loan, they want a business plan. If they don't like the business plan, you don't get the loan. The government is doing nothing differently than looking at the business plans (viability plans) and giving the yay or ney...but unlike a bank, the companies are getting some feedback on this. And hey, Wagoner didn't have to step down! He could have soldiered on, bleeding red ink all through the courthouse as GM goes through bankruptcy proceedings. This was the right decision, just too late.

No way dude, you can't project soldiers onto the age demographic at large. Soldiers by nature place a higher value on the USA brand, hence American manufacturing, American cars, etc. The hipsters are buying Scions, Mazdas, VWs, etc. while the more upwardly mobile are going for the BMWs, AUDIs, and Volvos.

For someone who never assumes, you sure were basing a few posts on faulty assumptions.

Yeah, except you're assuming there was ever much of that "midwest" in the boy in the first place...

Likes this.

No more power than a standard bank has in approving/denying loans. If the administration says "No money if this guy is in charge" then GM has a choice in accepting the money with those conditions, looking elsewhere for funding (good luck with that ), or filing for bankruptcy. How is it better? Because not ALL of the cars are in the POS category? Financially, GM is in pretty bad shape. Businesses do not exist to make superior product, but to make money. How in the hell am I underestimating him? He has a pretty impressive record of bad decisions, failures to capitalize, failures to react to changing market conditions, and a legacy of "too little, too late." The only thing he could be lauded on is saying "hey, I'm incompetent at product planning, so I'm going to make Bob Lutz the 'car czar'!" Ford only recently has fewer brands. GM's had the same problems for 30 years, and it's a problem with mentality, not much else. Lutz brought in some change, but he could not effect organizational change in his capacity. GM needs an outsider who will be able to look at things with fresh eyes and make the necessary organizational changes. Not really in agreement on this at all. Ford is multinational, just like GM. Ford has simply been successful at building a cohesive, unified company, while GM still, through its organizational structure, allows infighting to exist.

1. The government has very little power over the company. The government is just acting like a bank and looking over GM's business case and viability plan to determine if they should invest. That's basically it. 2. In the case of Rick Wagoner, I'm shocked that the level of incompetence inside GM extends to the Board of Directors, and that it took government intervention to get Red Ink Rick out. So no, Uncle Sam forcing my resignation is not a scary thought to me because unlike RIR, I'm not an incompetent fool who has pissed away billions over the past 8 years. 3. Maybe RIR just realized the jig was up and he's better off pursuing something corresponding to his skill set, like flipping burgers and pouring softserve at the local Dairy Queen--if he can pass his ServSafe certification, that is.

I know, right? Unleash the chimpanzees with dart boards and finger paint, and I think some better decisions would have been made. The man truly has abysmal instincts.

Why? I'm much less worried now that Red Ink Rick is gone. Hopefully we will get an outsider to GM, but someone who is familiar with the auto business--that would be ideal. And get a grip on your "fear"--it's pretty ridiculous, honestly. Either make peace with the unknown and yourself, or start reading a lot more and gaining information--those are the only productive ways of dealing with fear. Going off into fantasy land with these complex conspiracy theories that would make Rube Goldberg confused as hell is NOT optimal or rational.

I don't recall what they were called as this was years ago. I watched several epis of one series to humor my roommate, but it really just didn't make a good impression. Honestly, the argument you're making is analogous to "You can't say all minivans suck, you just didn't experience the right ones." But clearly what was open/accessible wasn't that great. There could very well be diamonds in the rough, but the whole genre is pretty negatively affected by all the crap out there. If I want imported culture, I'll go to Baliwood as that stuff is interesting as hell.

IT'S ABOUT FRACKING TIME!!

Exactly. GM seems like a company that divorced itself from reality nearly 3 decades ago when their business model needed alteration with the oil embargoes. Since then, they haven't gotten it together.

Yes. Yes. And the nosebleed thing is just f@#king weird. Really? Family Guy is aimed at children? South Park? Yea, such great kid shows. Ren & Stimpy was also not much of a kids' show. My roomate freshman year of college was obsessed with anime, and he convinced me to watch some of it. He had bootlegged Japanese anime (early bittorrent user), and allegedly the quality was very good. But...honestly I still came away from it with the same opinion: cheesy and lacking in substance, for very immature people. Now, the other thing that strikes me as interesting is you claim the plots are deeper, more complex, more interesting, etc. Not my takeaway, that's for sure--I thought Japanese culture was pretty damn pervasive, to the extent that without some decent knowledge of it you wouldn't really "get it." I found the plots fairly generic, but less accessible due to the cultural knowledge required to get it. And I find the shrill, shrieking, screaming style of voicing to be obnoxious.

It got excellent reviews? Hmmm...don't recall that, and for good reason: it doesn't deserve them. It's a halfassed product, styled terribly blandly, too close in size to the CTS, too expensive compared to CTS, too narrow for its segment, and a cheap cheap CHEAP interior. And then sales numbers. Now the Chinese SLS would be a different story, but the US-spec STS? Half-assed. And how exactly am I playing favorites with the SRX? It's won several comparos, and it drove like the 2003 CTS, while having lots of storage and passenger/cargo space. Best SUV I have driven, period. And if you want to talk sales numbers, they exploded (relatively speaking) after the restyled interior came out, and that's with no promotion or anything.

I think I made it pretty apparent that I wouldn't...?

Very rarely now. I'm not a Tweeting Twat who's obsessed with Twitter, so the new format is very off-putting to me. I was on the old site (the last iteration) frequently, though.

Crazy/senile/whatever, my point is that if she seems like she is NOT a credible source of information, but rather someone who goes on and on about something, random people would probably be less likely to go out and buy GM after talking to her. With all due respect to ocnblu, I know if I came across someone championing the GMT-355s with what I know about them, I'd seriously question their taste level and knowledge of vehicles on the market as a whole.

Yup, and many people move out here from elsewhere because people tend to agglomerate in areas according to shared culture, mentality and values. Hell, back in Indiana I was very "California," though I just didn't know it. The only real "assimilation" I have undergone regards speech vocabulary/accent/patterns and social norms--not that the latter was hard to do as I found the midwest "nosiness"--oops "friendliness"--to be very irritating and rude my whole life. The irony of being called out by "da Borgermeister Meisterborger" certainly is not lost on me.

Exactly. Except that I don't really understand why GM went the route it did with European distribution when it already has dealership networks with Opel and SAAB. Why have a middle man, a middle man that is PAID to distribute the cars. It seems like unnecessary spending on GM's part, and as we are finding out, GM is caught outside with its pants down, so to speak. I would definitely be interested in knowing the logical, rational thought process leading to the decision to have a middle man involved in Cadillac Europe. And for those who need it spelled out, my point is that GM really needs to THINK THINGS THROUGH a lot more with its operations, in the US and in Europe. Whether it is a lackadaisical approach to product planning (Cimarron, Catera, STS) or poorly thought-out (at least in hindsight) distribution agreements, GM has chronically made similar blunders seemingly without learning the necessary take-aways each time for the past 30 years. It's irresponsible to the shareholders, is dangerous for the company, and frankly illogical since the result is hemorraging cash and failure to turn a profit--which is the sole raison d'etre of being a "business" in the first place. Seriously, look at the top banner--"GM's Biggest Fans and Toughest Critics." I really shouldn't have to defend myself on my record as a poster here because everyone on this site can look back and see that while I do not mince words on GM's blunders, I also do not hold back on any praise that they deserve when they knock something out of the park. My point of view, though, is that for the future of the company and brands that I love, GM really needs to fix a lot of the internal disorganization that has lead to the fact that the homeruns are dwarfed by the boondoggles, and the future of the company is in serious jeopardy. GM is not taking their current situation seriously enough IMO, and they clearly never took their past crises seriously enough to make changes in the organization to prevent recurrences. That is majorly frustrating and infuriating, both as a consumer and as a shareholder.

I wouldn't call her a champion...if she's as crazy in person as she sounds on here, then wouldn't she likely come off as a fool to anyone thinking about cars? I think it would hurt GM sales if anything.

Cannot disagree here.

You haven't seen me, and yes, I am very "California." It's crazy how quickly I assimilated.

Man, it's just so true. You're right, you're all right--Cadillac hasn't halfassed a single vehicle since the Cimarron. Every single model has been a gift to humanity. Like these fine examples: Look guys, Cadillac is my favorite car brand, ever. But I will not become a and simply because the fact of the matter is that Cadillac is STILL failing to deliver. The CTS is fantastic, but where's everything else?

Honestly, I have a hard time fathoming how someone is simply incapable of discerning the difference between a tiny compact and a large coupe. Especially when the profiles aren't even close to being the same, no similarities in character lines, grilles, taillights, etc. I just don't get it.