The Slow Suicide of GM: or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Obama

I'm sure you've heard the news by now. GM is going under like the Titanic. What you may not know is that this particular vessel hit the iceberg over 30 some years ago and has been sinking ever since. Campfire time, boys and girls, while I spin you a yarn of ignorance that could have been penned by the Brothers Farrelly.

We have to go back a ways, to the days when GM was sitting pretty on manufacturing cars to the customers liking and the world looked good for the American auto industry. It was just after WWII, and the US economy was the only economy left standing. There was much celebration and copulation and a good bit of that was taking place in the back of a GM vehicle. And things looked good. For a while.

Then came the Korean War, and the US Government commissioning cars from Japan as we still pretty much occupied the place and it was located so conveniently near the place where we needed to be. Come 1957, the Toyota Crown was introduced to the United States. It didn't go over so well, but it didn't die off either.

Enter the 70s and the first gas crisis. I'm sure there's a way for this to be pinned on disco or the Osmonds, but I haven't found it yet. That's beside the point. The fuel efficient and steady Japanese car began taking a big upswing in US sales, while the gas swilling US vehicles began sitting thirsty in ditches or as lawn ornaments. What happened? Well kids, the government set new levels of gas efficiency expectations, and the Japanese companies complied to these with ease, where as GM decided to go the loophole route and start building more trucks and introducing the SUV as a way to get around the stringent gas rules. But the problem stems back a bit further.

The Unions. See, back when the money coming in for GM was good, the Unions wanted their cut and GM complied, offering their employees pay plans for life and some of the best benefits money can buy. Where did the money for all this come from? The Research and Development department, of course. Instead of investing in technologic advances that would keep them ahead of the game, GM made the foolish gamble of putting their faith in an unchanging product and bowing to the demands of people who...for all intents and purposes...had no real idea about the coming trends in the mechanical and economic climate.

And Mr. Obama is not the first person to bail out GM. GM has been getting government protection since the 70s, as it was once the staple of the American automobile industry and to let it die would have killed the whole thing. Essentially all this last bail out did was buy a bit more time to get the funeral plans laid out. Face it, GM has been the business equivalent of Terri Schiavo for the last 30 some years, and we've been forcing money down it's feeding tubes in hopes of seeing some kind of life, but it just isn't there.

This brings me to Chrysler and the person CNBC dubbed "The Worst CEO of All Time," Bob Nardelli. Chrysler is a different beast all together, and I can almost guarantee they are in the situation they're in due to this man. Let's take a look at his track record for a moment, shall we?

Nardelli got his start at GE, where he was shut out from becoming the CEO by one Jeffery Immelt. Literally within minutes after leaving GE, Nardelli recieved a call to head up Home Depot. Here's the thing...for the first few years it almost looks like he was doing a decent job over at the Depot until you look at the fact that their growth rate...while still rising...was cut nearly in half when he took over. When the company was pretty much bankrupt and getting thrashed by Lowes (due in no small part to the awesomeness that is Gene Hackman's voice) , he took a nice 210 million dollar severance package and left.

Bringing us to Chrysler. The man actually blamed the poor auto sales on his company making cars too good. and I quote: "We spent about half a billion dollars in the first several months. Our warranty costs are down 29%. It's an interesting comparison because in the hearing today, going around the panel, the majority of the Senators said that citing specific vehicles that they own that they've got 60, 70, 80,000 miles. The comment was you guys are making them too good and therefore, we're not buying vehicles and we're contributing to your problem. That was from the Senators on the committee today. On April 30, 2009 Bob Nardelli announced that he would leave the company as soon as the bankruptcy was over."

And that was just talking to Wolf "I've got the coolest anchor name ever" Blitzer. In April, he turned down the government loan because it would have required him to cap the executive salary. 8 days later, the company filed for bankrupsy.