GM's Problems: Who's To Blame? You Tell Me

[Uzzy]

Originally Posted by Saturn69

From a Canadian, no less. Thank you, Uzzy.

I learned that on in my American Histroy class at the 'Murican University I went to. I might be a Canadian, but I bleed blue, white and red.

[skylark68]

The fact is that no one really made an excellent product in the late 1970's and 1980's. Buyers were taking massive gambles buying any vehicle from any manufacturer during that time period.

Build quality was hit or miss with every major manufacturer. GM was guilty of some big losers for sure, but I do know that for the most part the full size trucks were an exception. There are still plenty of '80s vintage C-10's on the road today. I can't say the same thing about the X-bodies though...

OT- but i think VCDJ's "business" is selling illegal drugs. He's got pushers that he employs, makes 6 figure profits, spends a lot of free time posting anti-GM diatribe, doesn't invest the money, considers company profits his profits to buy houses in cash... Do the math.

[Smoke]

Originally Posted by VCDJ

Who ever is running that company is reason for gm problems. They had 10+ years to make gm profitable and they failed. They lost 10% of market share. Closed down so many factories sold everything that was there to sell and they are still loosing billions. Now gm market cap is 9 billion and toyota is 154 billion. GM focused of truck and suvs for so long and even then they could not make a profit and you would think that they would change their plan and maybe focus on builiding cars so that you have good future. You can not tell me that those two idiots at gm did not expect gas price to rise. Plus gm still is behind in quality. Honda, toyota, ford, nissan they all make higher quality cars then gm. Again another management failure. This is why when gm produces one good car it does not sell well. IT is because gm burned so many people with poor quality cars that people do not trust them any more. Again who is to blame for that? IT is gm management. Those two idiots must go or gm will be history soon.

Did you expect it to rise 10 years ago or even 5 years ago. I sure didn't. Not this much.

[camaro_freak]

Originally Posted by jlt0x

It took Cadillac to be on the brink of complete failure to make GM brass realize that their design and execution of products had to change. Ford's management moves too slow and they're paying the price...buy not making much money from 2-3 models.

Why did it take GM so long to realize that quality and design is king in the auto market? Why do you think Toyota and Honda are doing so well?

excellent point, Cadillac had to do something or they would have been dead. It wasn't much of a choice

Originally Posted by jlt0x

The UAW is dragging GM's bottomline thru some fowl stuff these days. At a time when the labor union should be doing its best to make GM a strong industry competitor, it OKs strikes and costs GM more money. GM will eventually de-unionize all its facilities (except for the professional positions - artists, engineers, designers). Laborers are supposed to be on the cheap-side of the salary scale. But when you have janitors pulling $50k or better to get their time before retirement, overhead costs tend to rise. Hiring non-union workers with certifications to do special tasks (welding, engine repair/builds, painting, etc) makes the workforce more competitive internally to do a better overall job thus making the overall quality better too.

There's a reason labor cost in other countries are lower than those in the US...they know the actual job is simple and are paid accordingly.

I'll have to diagree there. labor's JOB isn't simple and is core to producing what GM sells.

[MaxLegroom]

Originally Posted by skylark68

The fact is that no one really made an excellent product in the late 1970's and 1980's. Buyers were taking massive gambles buying any vehicle from any manufacturer during that time period.

Build quality was hit or miss with every major manufacturer. GM was guilty of some big losers for sure, but I do know that for the most part the full size trucks were an exception. There are still plenty of '80s vintage C-10's on the road today. I can't say the same thing about the X-bodies though...

OT- but i think VCDJ's "business" is selling illegal drugs. He's got pushers that he employs, makes 6 figure profits, spends a lot of free time posting anti-GM diatribe, doesn't invest the money, considers company profits his profits to buy houses in cash... Do the math.

DING! We have another winner here. I tend to doubt that anyone who writes posts like VCDJ does has a business where he had to get any real education or training to get it.

If he tends to avoid banks, well, at least on the borrowing end of it, so did Nash for quite a while. This was one attribute that helped that company weather the Great Depression. Perhaps an additional culprit that has not been addressed is our banks. The further that you let them into your business, the more trouble, I figure, you will be in. At this point, I fear deeply for Chrysler...

One additional point I might add about VCDJ's rantings, is that much of Japanese cars "made in USA" parts are, it would seem, from newly created American arms of Japanese suppliers. When you have to deliver parts that were made in American and the only difference between the package you're delivering and one that might just have come off the ship is the USA replacing Japan, you really have to wonder.

[mantis662]

Originally Posted by K-1

If said company cared about you, they wouldn't be making a few grand of profit off your back. They'd sell it at cost. Connect the dots and you'll see that the company only cares about your money.

Wait a minute VCDJ drives? I thought he was like 10 year old!

[TriShield]

It's GM's board and upper management.

Every other automaker has profited handsomely in our market while GM's cash burn is nearly 1 billion per month now. That's no accident, that's the captain steering the ship straight into an iceberg.

[andretti2008]

i thought about this ans i thought i'd post it...mainly, the leaders are to blame but we should not blow them off as loosers either, during the factory closures and job cuts...well wagoner and lutz took pay cuts (on thier own). and recently picked them back up. but thats not my point. america is to blame for the down fall of GM, but GM only helped that love for foreign stuff, really! louis vuitton, coach, yokohama, toshiba, lexus. God bless GM its going to take them overseas sales to pay for our nasty needs. but are the needs? their is a trump card for GM though in works for the US. (thanks to CAFE being passed) GM will play hard in the coming years, when gas gets as expensive as it is in europe, the netherlands almost 7 dollars a gallon! GM builds great cars that get great mpg's but not sold in the US yet! why? good question. cause gas is still on avg 3.50 acrross america...cheap if you do your homework.

[ericmvest]

The Board of Directors and executives are mostly to blame, but the UAW shares responsibility for making General Motors less competitive than it could be. The recent, selective strikes at Kansas City and Lansing appear opportunistic. It is quite a coincidence that the two plants are making General Motors’ most successful vehicles in North America were the strike targets.

Also, remember how the UAW blocked the Yellowstone project in 1999? This project was patterned after General Motors' Brazilian Blue Macaw project which located suppliers on site to build subassemblies, some even under the same roof as the assembly plant. General Motors executive J. Ignacio Lopez de Arriortua talked about building such a plant 15 years ago in Spain. General Motors developed this concept over 15 years ago but has been blocked by the UAW from using it in the United States. The transplant competition is unencumbered by the UAW and is not standing still. The recently opened Toyota assembly plant in San Antonio copied General Motors' Blue Macaw concept.

[2002 Caddy]

Leadership is IN CHARGE... If the company is failing it is because the LEADERSHIP is FAILING. That's business 101...

Second year business students will also recognize that GM's Leadership problem was actually identified as something good they are doing... By the orginal poster...

Business 201: You rarely make money by ONLY cutting costs. You make money by increasing gross margin, increasing revenue, managing costs and increasing inventory turn over rate. GM leadership has been CONSUMED on cutting costs and has completely ignored the other 3 items. This is common practice of CFO's who become CEO's BTW... CFO's are almost all Cheap Ba$tards.

How are we doing on the other 3?
Revenue? Negative
Margin? still way behind the competition
Inventory Turnover? Less then average

It gets worse: The cost cutting that occurred in the Cadillac division for example will leave that division with one "popular" car and NO world class 32V V8. Cost cutting will kill that once iconic division

Lack of focus on revenue and margin EXPANSION has left GM without a competitive efficient small car... at a time when one is DESPERATELY needed.

Sure getting costs undercontrol is important... But if you aren't generating a positive cash flow all you are doing is postponing the inevitable

[Ming]

Originally Posted by minnfang

Doood!!! How did you end up using that Grand Am picture? It was taken at the local Pontiac dealer in my little hometown in central Minnesnowta. Small world!

The magic of Google image search.

[Ming]

Originally Posted by GM-Joe

The Big3 had no choice but to put the most effort into their trucks because those were the only vehicles that made decent profits.

As for neglecting cars, Saturn, Buick, Saab, and Pontiac were neglected, but on the other hand those products aren't so bad either. The CTS, Cobalt, HHR, Auru, Malibu, Charger, Mustangs, Town & Countrys and a whole slew of others are top notch vehicles

Problem is, until those last cars you mentioned, people were unwilling to buy "not so bad" cars from Detroit, not unless they were extreme Domestic loyalists. They wanted "good" cars. And GM's lack of interest in selling smaller cars was painfully obvious.

This is why so many driveways here in Texas have a Domestic Truck or SUV on one side, and a Japanese or Korean car on the other.

The Domestics painted themselves into that corner, while the Japanese and Koreans are able to thrive whether gas prices are up or down.