Hey GM! Guess what? That 14 million dollars you paid your CEO Rick Wagoner last year? You might as well handed out that money to everyone who was unfortunate enough to buy one of your cars because what has he done to earn that money? Send you into bankruptcy? I have an idea, hire me instead.
By the way, that 14 million dollars per year could have been used to pay 400 workers 35,000 per year. See, it's all about dollars and sense!
I guarantee I could run any of the big three automakers better than the guys who are running them now. First off, I would save them 13 million dollars per year right off the bat as I would only require a 1 million dollar salary (I know, it sounds like a lot but I would have to live in Detroit, that's worth at least 500G). How could I do worse? What's the worst that could happen, you go bankrupt?? Well, that's what 14 million dollars a year and private jets is getting you now so why not try?
Here's your problems:A. Your Corporate brass makes too much money and they apparently don't earn what they make and don't know how to run an auto business. Yes, the CEO of Porsche tops the auto industry in compensation but he knows how to make and market cars and his company is profitable so he deserves it. If fact, if you don't hire me, hire him! But when you look at Japanese companies, the ones who are really kicking your ass, they don't make nearly as much as the top executives at the big three.
B. Your workers make too much money. I agree that a janitor or button pusher at one of your plants doesn't need to make $50,000 plus full pension and medical benefits. Not in the global economy. That being said, workers in Japan and Germany and even workers of foreign auto companies in the US make living wages.
C. You are competing against companies which come from countries whose governments tax the rich CEOs in order to provide health care for everyone. If you were smart, you would stop taking marching orders from the oil industry and start taking them from the people who are lobbying for Universal Health Care. In fact, instead of paying lobbyist to convince congress not to enforce fuel economy and safety standards, have them lobby for Universal Healthcare which could eliminate 11 Billion dollars of health care expense for the industry as a whole. Duh!
D. One of your biggest expenses is health care for working and retired individuals. For Honda, every vehicle sold costs the company approximately $107 in pension and health payments. But for General Motors, the cost is approximately $1,360. Again, your biggest lobbying push should be for Universal Health Care and I am not talking about Obama's lame plan.
E. You suck at making cars. You used to be good at that and made tanks and munitions during WW11 even better; you know, when the government was telling you what to do. I admit, since the mid 90's the quality of your cars has improved and is up there with most European cars yet still can't top Toyota and Honda or their luxury lines. In essence, hire better designers and engineers, make a better product and when you get rated at the top of the reliability indexes, your resale values will go up, your warranty liabilities will go down, you will have fewer recalls and you will sell more cars as they will have more value. People want value. Hire Toyota's engineers! When the Colts couldn't get past the Patriots they hired Vinatieri away from New England; same concept.
F. You make cars nobody wants. Instead of looking at what sells throughout the world, you stubbornly make the same cars over and over again. Sure, the Minivan, the SUV were both great when gas was $1.30 a gallon but it's the 21st century, time for something new. There is only a shortage of ideas not a shortage of consumers. Sure, everyone could already listen to high quality, portable music but the Ipod came along, made it easier and more efficient and changed everything. You need to make the next Ipod. Hire some young, hippy, pot head, computer geek, kids from California to design your cars, they'll come up with something.
G. You can't sell these cars nobody wants. Hire a marketing department or a better ad agency or Don Draper even. Don't bitch about how nobody wants to by your Hummers anymore. Do you have salesman? Do you have a marketing department? Look at VW ads compared to the ads of the big 3. VW created a market for their cars. They went to young, educated, white urban dewllers with a little cash and said our cars are cool and you will buy them, and guess what they bought them. For the most part you let local market auto dealers do your advertising for you. Typically these commercials are done in someone's living room and consist of some guy jumping around talking about financing and as his voice echoes, you see about 9 of the cars they are trying to all sell driving sideways with weird camera angles. Not exactly, "you had me at hello". Selling your product is half of the ball game. So, no one wants your cars? Convince them they need it. Always Be Closing! So, nobody wants to buy the same brand you have been selling for the last 70 years? Trash it, come up with a new car. No one wants to tell their first date they drive an Oldsmobile or Mercury! Do consumers say they don't need a new car, well the people who bought the Iphone didn't need a new phone but they still bought an Iphone. In fact, the Iphones don't really work all that well but they are still flying off the shelves because they are new and add "value" to peoples lives. If European cars are selling, make cars that look like European cars instead of just buying those companies who make them and continuing to make your same old bullshit. You did this with the Taurus in the 80s, you can do it again. If Japanese cars are selling, make cars that can compete with those. If luxury and top of the line sports cars are selling, if Porsche is the most profitable company out there, guess what kinds of cars you need to be making and selling?
I do admit, I love the throw back muscle cars like the Mustang, Challenger and especially the Camaro, that’s the innovation I am talking about but I think you can see the problem with making a new 8 cylinder Muscle car with 450 HP when gas is $4.00 per gallon and the economy sucks. Porsche, however, manages to make high end "muscle" cars with 4 and 6 cylinders and would blow the doors off your GTOs, or V8 Challenger or Charger. It’s not that people aren't buying cars, they just aren't buying your cars! Guess what, the economy is never bad for rich people, you know this, you are the rich people. You buy luxury shit all the time no matter how bad the economy is. You need recession proof automobiles! Luxury cars are just that.
Penetrate new markets! Sure, you have the redneck, grandparent and gang banger market cornered but when was the last time a gay guy, yuppie, young JAP or hippy bought one of your cars? Make cars for people who live in the city since that's where the majority of consumers live. Sure the Focus was a good effort but I would still rather drive a Jetta.
H. You gambled your employee pensions away in the stock market. Ever hear of CDs or bank interest? Good thing we didn't do this with Social Security. Again, the difference between the free market and regulation. Don't do that again.
I. You put all your eggs into the SUV basket while Toyota and Honda were developing small fuel efficient hybrids and even hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, AKA cars people want. When gas went up to $4.00 a gallon guess what happened to your market? It didn't take a psychic to see that coming. We did invade a country that had the third largest oil reserves in the world.
J. You should also use those lobbyist to keep imports from getting into the country or at least get them to even the playing field for US made products. For example, by the year 2000, Korea exported more than 400,000 cars per year into the United States but only imported 739 American made cars. Since 2003, Korea’s imports on foreign cars has tripled to almost 54,000, only 6,235 were made by the big 3. Is this what they are calling free trade? With the kind of numbers you are asking for, I would hardly call it free.
And let's get this straight; It's not the Unions fault that you are running out of money. Now, they did get greedy and lazy in the late 70's and early 80's but they are not the reason you are in the situation have created. The United Auto Workers Union was founded in 1935. If the Unions were the cause of all your woes you would have went belly up years ago. Germany, Italy, Japan and Britain all have to deal with Unions. Now, you could say that the big 3 suck at negotiating as much as they suck at making cars but the Auto Union members were never going to go work for a different Big 3 or go to some other country to work. You were still the only game in town for these workers but that's something you apparently failed to realize.
Don't go to congress with your hands out when you personally make millions of dollars per year and got there on a private jet. This is the stupidity I am talking about.
All this being said, we have no problem loaning you money. Loaning. I would rather give it to an industry which provides 10% of all US jobs than give it to rich people on Wall Street who thought it was a good idea to give loans to homeless people. We helped out Chrysler about 30 years ago and they came up with the mini-van and paid their loans back early. I have no problem with this it's just I don't know if we really trust you to do the right or smart thing in this situation. Maybe there is too much competition. Maybe we should close the doors on Korea and let the big 3 become the big 2 making them leaner and meaner and allowing them to share more technology between them and cutting executive pay rolls by a third. Chrysler is private so it wouldn't really hurt the stock market as much to let them go as it would GM or Ford. I just hope they let GM make the Dodge Challenger.
So, Ford, GM, doesn't this sound like a better plan than what Rick Wagoner came up with? Begging! I have identified almost all of your main problems and have suggested some solutions as to how I would fix them. Wouldn't you want to cut 13 million in costs overnight? If so, hire me. I promise, I will at least do better than the schmucks you got in there now. How could I be worse?
Labels: Auto Industry, Bailout
