"I have a question."

Oh man, I heard him say that yesterday. First time I've listened in ages. It was SWEET.

I very much doubt Bary knows how to change a tire, and furthermore I bet he's proud of that.

Bary's not much with the manual labor, I'm thinking. Kinda like John F-in' Kerry, but without the Dickie's jacket.

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/pictures/20080608ObamaFlatTire.jpg

with barrys chicago training,taking one off real fast might be as far as it goes.

RACIST!!!!

Will Wagoner prove to be the modern inCARnation of John Galt? Time will tell.....

even tho Rush stated GMC should have gone chapter 11 he couldn't bring himself to unequivocally say it's time to gut the fat cat unions....

.....i wonder who will be first to baldly state the obvious ?

Well, as they say, 'only if it wants to change'.
(old psychologist joke. Sorry.)

Interestingly enough, the question that I always ask myself about a co-worker or boss is whether, if he were a mechanic, I would trust him to replace the brake pads on my car. The answer for most of management is a resounding "No".

Kinda like girlie-man Stephane Dion not even having a drivers licence??

"I am Rush Limbaugh, America's Truth Detector, America's Doctor of Democracy, a general all-round good guy"

I am, not stirred enough said, Canada's Bullshit Detector. Limbaugh is the biggest bullshit artist on the airwaves.

First of all Wagoner was not fired he was asked to step down so that a rescue plan could move forward. Wagoner perpetrated the biggest and longest paper loss cover up in the business history of the modern world. He has been replaced by the COO of GM until a replacement can be found.

Limbaugh and rightards taken in by him would like to see Wagoner continue as CEO. This is pure insanity.

No, imbecile. We'd like to see GM die the death it richly deserves, instead of becoming some kind of fascist state-run bollocks making politically designed golf carts. Bad ones too.

Personally I'd like to see you grow a brain sometime soon, stirred. It'd be like a miracle.

NSE wrote; "First of all Wagoner was not fired he was asked to step down so that a rescue plan could move forward."

Hmmmm, I may be slow and from the south, but how is that not the same as being fired ?

You know eventually, you are gona run out of excuses for this guy.
,

I guess everybody should be just like you hey Kathy... Like Obama only because he is black... RACIST HYPOCRITE!

(Wagoner was not fired he was asked to step down)

I appreciate comments like that; it eases my concern that the opposing viewpoints of someone such as NSE may have some sort of rational analysis going on that i have failed to appreciate. (Hey, it could happen!)
It is fun to watch the backfilling and justifying. Too bad the stakes are so high.

So they're only going to replace Wagoner huh? That's like when John Roth got replaced by his CFO (forget the fool's name).

The only way out of this is through bankruptcy. The entire firm needs to be cleansed and what they certainly do not need is Obama and a bunch of economists setting the new firm's (if there is one) long term objectives.

So they're only going to replace Wagoner huh? That's like when John Roth got replaced by his CFO (forget the fool's name).

The only way out of this is through bankruptcy. The entire firm needs to be cleansed and what they certainly do not need is Obama and a bunch of economists setting the new firm's (if there is one) long term objectives.

With the Clintons hiding in the woodworks, maybe GM is going to be forced into bankruptcy and then sold to Chinese interests. What better way to get their foot firmly planted in the market?

The first order of business for GM's new owner should be to appoint a commitee to investigate why black cars have so many more problems than other color cars.

"Henderson said GM doesn't want to use the bankruptcy protection route to restructure, but he acknowledges that path is "certainly more probable" now.*"

O's appointee is preparing the way for bankruptcy.

O's legerdemain is a humongous money-laundering scheme using taxpayers' money.

O's fascist/corporate State picks up speed.

"GM unsure on more CAW concessions: CEO"
(cbc)

"we started with bank deposits, money markets, auto warranties, and tomorrow it's toasters."

If only TOTUS could guarentee 1st round draft picks in the NFL. Then I'd be impressed.

The last century has been a constant fight against ascendant collectivism; that war is in danger of being lost because so many people are asleep at the switch. It's obvious that a significant number of Americans have now forgotten, after years of prosperity and freedom, that everything about their society is the result of America resisting, against the odds, the communist-style policies of so much of the rest of the world.

Mark Steyn wrote today, "Most Americans don't yet grasp the scale of the Obama project. The naysayers complain, oh, it's another Jimmy Carter, or it's the new New Deal, or it's LBJ's Great Society...You should be so lucky. Forget these parochial nickel'n'dime comparisons. It's all those multiplied a gazillionfold and nuclearized and Europeanized, which is less dramatic but ultimately more lethal."

Re Limbaugh, he's entirely right about the media being asleep at the switch, too, at a critical time. A huge techtonic shift is happening, something monumentally damaging and dangerous, and Alison Smith of the CBC, for example, treats Obama like he's just another manifestation of nominal, pitty-pat partisan politics. He's not.

Interesting times. Obama is the most dangerous man in generations, and yet even here at Kate's we see commenters quipping away, missing the point.

It will be interesting to see how Obama will be stopped. Americans are going to have to wake up, and if they do, hopefully it will be soon. The path he's taking America down has little to do, at this point, with old-fashioned partisan politics.

RACIST? No, racist would be, "Does anybody think Obama knows how to steal hubcaps?"

The US federal government is going to guarantee the warranty of GM and Chrysler. They are going to guarantee the losers.

What about those that are successful? Nothing? No guarantee?

It used to be that success and profitability were the incentives for hard work and productivity. Now Big O has a developed a new societal norm. Lazy overpaid under productive union guys are now the poster boys for the American dream. Well, its sure to turn into a horrible nightmare.

How'd you like to be sitting there today with a lot full of brand new GM vehicles, each one of them eating money in interest? Not to mention a bunch of salesmen playing fiddly winks in their offices because there's no customers?

I bet the owners of every GM dealership in the country are having kittens today. The shock will have worn off enough for them to realize they are now government employees.

RACIST?? I know it's Kathy, but it would be the typical lefty's response. My question would be is it racists to claim Obama learned to steal tires in Chicago, or racist to assume that only African Americans (or whatever the p.c. term of the month is) steal tires??

"First of all Wagoner was not fired he was asked to step down"

There is a big difference people! When you get fired, your boss says "your fired", then you have to pack up your things and leave your office, you don't have to go home, your boss says, but you can't stay here.

When you are "asks to step down", your boss says "please leave" then you have to pack your things, and leave the office.

It is a huge difference people! Huge!

Strange times ,strange events, unless you are a lefty of course then all is normal and well.

Lefties: You hated Bush ,which I understand, but this is crazy, when are you going to wake up and admit your guy is a dud.

Ford had the Edsel
GM has the Obama.

phantom - no, they aren't government employees.
They are government prisoners. Without any protection from contracts or other rules. Obama's New Society takes power away from financiers, manufacturers, industrialists and workers. That is, his New Society kicks out the middle class from any political and economic ..and legal..power.

Remember, government employees are unionized collectivist puppets. Protected, tenured for life, and unproductive of any wealth; all they do is move wealth around from site to site, taking their cut as they do so.

Unions have destroyed the productive capacity of industries like GM. Unions, which are parasites, have switched the focus of the industry from the production of consumer-desirable goods and services, to the benefits of the employees. Huge salaries, benefits, massive pensions, early retirement, double time, sick day benefits even when not taken..have all leeched out the profits of the industries.

Rather than enabling the industries to pay for research, new plant equipment, new technologies etc, the profits have all been moved to the benefits of this elite set of 'workers'. Result? The death of the industry for it cannot produce viable goods.

Obama's agenda - and it isn't simply his but is that of the hard core left in the Democratic Party - is to strip the middle class, the domain of the Republican Party - of any rights and powers.

Will this be successful? Obama's 'population', the ones that he uses as his voting bloc, are the unproductive members of society - the welfare, the non-working and the illegal immigrants..and be assured that the Democrats will get these illegals on the voters lists...and..the intelligentsia, the civil service, the academics, who are equally unproductive.

These are the people who are all susceptible to utopian rhetoric, to being fed misinformation which they don't know enough to criticize..; to being manipulated with emotions of fear and hope; and, to being manipulated with accusations of bias and racism. These are Obama's three strategies he uses to keep him in power.

Criticize him - and you'll be attacked by his team (as they do attack FOX and others); criticize him and you are dead in the Press Room (as Obama cut dead the NYTimes, and other newspapers that criticized him). And remember, Obama's Press Meetings are filled with followers and pre-selected questions. Nothing is ad hoc; because Obama can't answer analytic questions.

At the moment, the reaction is verbal; it's stunned surprise and you can read and hear the shocked reactions. But, it still hasn't 'hit' a lot of people..exactly how far Obama and his group are moving. The Tea Parties, the rejection..Obama will ignore them. Utterly ignore them. That is, he'll ignore the people, the ordinary man on the street who rejects him, while his team will smear the MSM who reject him.

The question is - can the fictional world of academia, where you can retitle a 'terrorist action' into a 'man-caused disaster'..can this fictional world become the real world of everyday America? Will Americans accept such fiction?

At some time, I think that people are going to have to take Obama to the Supreme Court. Sounds insane but, if he's ignoring the Constitution, he's going to have to be reminded of it.

I posted on the G&M yesterday that O knows what a lug nut is cuz he keeps hiring them but does he know how to tighten one.

Does Obama know how to change a tire?
Probably not, but he can hope for change.

If that doesn't work -- hope harder!

Where I grew up, everyone learned early on how to change a tire, start a fire, make a decent cup of coffee (without a $300 coffee maker) and a lot of other routine skills. Nowadays it seems that learning to kick around a spherical ball is the only thing that matters. Maybe we should go back to requiring everyone to take several hours of archery practice on the longbow. That seems to be where our society is headed.

First of all Wagoner was not fired he was asked to step down so that a rescue plan could move forward.

To comment on that is just too easy.

BTW, fat cat union employees represent 15% of the cost of your car. I think the other devil really lies in 0% financing. Do you really think GM, Chrysler & Ford weren't liable to pay the interest charges? (which BTW amount to $1000's per year & the finance companies are independent of the manufacturing arms) What we're seeing here is the fruit of 0% financing sales gimmick, a 14 year old tree that has finally blossomed.

ET, I'd make a funny comment, but reading your comment and EBD's above, it actually isn't funny.

How about the suppliers? That's going to be interesting, eh? GM leaned on their suppliers hard, they were infamous for it. But that's going to be -nothing- compared to Government Motors. They probably won't even be given the opportunity to turn down contracts, just get taken over in turn.

ET, I wouldn't put much hope in the Supreme Court. Obama's going to pack it in the next couple years, just as ours was packed by the Liberals.

Either the Republicans win HUGE in 2010, or there's going to be full on fascism south of the border.

Time to start beefing up the Canadian Forces? We -are- sitting on more oil than Saudi Arabia, y'know.

bear - the Unions, which are parasites, have destroyed GM. Why? Because the unions focus on the workers not the product. The union agenda is to get as many workers in its 'nest' as possible, and then, feed off them. The way to feed off them is to increase their wages, benefits etc, so the dues could increase. But this focus on industries working only for the workers/unions..rather than the industry working to make products and services..is economically disastrous.

For example,

Because of unions, GM was unable to fire unproductive and incompetent workers. Unionized employees are 'there for life' no matter how unreliable, incompetent, unqualified.

Because of unions, the assembly was inefficient and costly, for unions required such extreme job classifications that you needed ten people to do the job two could readily do. Ten people versus two. Think about that.

Because of unions - you couldn't replace workers with robots, which are cheaper and more efficient. In fact, you can't get rid of workers except by retirement - and the pensions are enormous..remember, the wages are at least 72 per hour.

It isn't simply the wages which are the problem. It's wages, plus inability to reduce numbers of workers, plus health care, vacations, sick days, and pensions, pensions, pensions etc. Health care costs are at least 1,600 per vehicle.

And what about the infamous Oklahoma Plant, which GM tried to close in 2006 but the UAW contract meant that the 2,400 workers continued to receive full pay and benefits for the next two years as they 'attend classes or 'volunteer in the community'.

Two years pay for not working. Tell me, what industry can afford this? And why should it? Again, the unions did this; they switched the focus from the product to the worker; all profits went to the worker rather than the product. Result? No ability to make products...

Toyota makes a profit of at least 2,000 per car while GM makes a LOSS of 1,200 per car. GM, which is unionized, has collapsed under the weight of the Union Parasite, the UAW.

And they called George Bush a Fascist!

When will the people wake up to what Ogabe is doing to the USA?

"I'm deeply reassured that the largest company in America is owned by a guy with the vast private sector experience of Barack Obama."

I was watching when Krauthammer delivered that line with a straight face. It was a thing of beauty. Pity none of the "O's" followers will ever get it.

ET:

Because of unions, the assembly was inefficient and costly, for unions required such extreme job classifications that you needed ten people to do the job two could readily do. Ten people versus two. Think about that.

Because of unions - you couldn't replace workers with robots, which are cheaper and more efficient. In fact, you can't get rid of workers except by retirement - and the pensions are enormous..remember, the wages are at least 72 per hour.

Honestly, I am SO tired of these canards being tossed around. From the Automotive News, May 2005:
General Motors' Oshawa, Ontario, No. 1 plant passed Nissan Motor Co.'s Altima line in Smyrna, Tenn., as the most efficient assembly plant in North America, using 15.85 labor hours per vehicle. The Oshawa No. 1 plant produces the Chevrolet Impala and Monte Carlo cars.

From Motor Authority, June 2008:
The latest report from influential analytical firm Harbour Consulting-Oliver Wyman has found that Chrysler’s Supplier Park plant in Toledo, Ohio, is the most efficient vehicle assembly plant in North America. Not only that, the Harbour Report also found that Chrysler’s overall efficiency and productivity was equal with that of Toyota.

The Supplier Park plant manufactures Jeep Wranglers and only needs 13.57 labor hours per vehicle. However, not all credit can go to Chrysler because the plant is actually micromanaged by a number of different firms. Kuka Group is used to manage the body shop, while Magna Steyr manages the paint shop and Hyundai Mobis looks over the chassis assemblies.

The next-closest assembly plant was General Motors' Oshawa No. 1 plant in Ontario, Canada. The plant used 15.18 labor hours per vehicle to build Chevrolet Impala sedans.

Chrysler showed the biggest improvement of all carmakers, cutting its total manufacturing labor hours per vehicle by 7.7% to 30.37 on average, the same number recorded by Toyota. However, Toyota's number did slip compared with last year’s result. It needed 2.5% more hours to produce a vehicle this year than it did last year.

Ford improved its total manufacturing productivity by 3.7% to 33.88 labor hours per vehicle, while GM's total improved 0.2% to 32.29 hours.

So how, exactly, are they using 10 people to do the work of two, or tremendously less efficient than the Japanese transplants, when the difference in labour time is on average 3 hours per car? Please stop posting these ridiculous and untrue assertions.

I pointed this out yesterday: GM's demise (and all of Detroit's) started with the 1970 strike. GM feared they would be subject to an anti-trust suit as they had 50% of the US market, so they caved on higher retiree benefits, and most important, the "30 and out" principal. Since the UAW uses a "pattern" contract approach, Ford and Chrysler had to follow suit. This meant a young man, starting out of high school at 18, could retire at 48 with an indexed pension and health benefits. Since life expectancy has increased dramatically since 1970, that young man could conceivably draw pension benefits for 30 years - exactly as many years as he worked!

Of course Toyota, Nissan, and others don't have these costs - they haven't been in business long enough in North America to have a substantial number of US workers drawing pensions. As Mark Steyn wrote (I don't have a direct quotation) GM, Chrysler, and Ford have been turned into virtual senior citizen homes with small automotive subsidiaries.

The real cause of this, as always, is government. Without the threat of an antitrust suit, GM might have stood up to the UAW a little longer, and settled for something less punitive. But at the time, Japanese manufacturers and the OPEC oil shocks were not on the horizon, gas lines were a distant memory from WWII, and GM thought they would maintain their dominant position indefinitely. Hindsight is always 20/20, but I defy anyone to tell me that they predicted all these things in 1970.

Absolutely incredible - unadulterated socialism in the USA. You know you have a socialist government when...the Presidents asks a CEO of a private company to step down (euphemism for fired). Why didn't he ask the CEO's of AIG and its subsidiaries to step down? Hmm, wonder if it has something to do with the $103, 000. + campaign contribution? He gives banks money but forces private companies to merge with an Italian (Fiat) company. The Dictator is choosing which companies he will allow to survive. The day has arrived - the US is officially a socialist and fascist country.

Word is out that BAMBAM is already readying FEMA camps for the rioters.
Remember his core support is unproductive and when the welfare gravy train hesitates....THEY WILL RIOT.
The Roman Emperors were very skilled at manipulating the mob....Obama's control slips when the bread and circuses fails.
We are certainly descending into interesting times.....firearms and ammo are becoming a scarce commodity........there are a lot of folks afraid---very afraid.

Stepped down, laid off, fired, "taking one for the gipper" ..... they all mean the same thing - well, at least to those who chose not to get caught up in flowery proses like our friend Not Stirred.

I think hubcap stealing would have been beneath Obama. I mean, after all, how many do you have to steal in order to support a coke habit??

Here's my two cents from yesterday on the same topic. I put 'em online before reading anyone else's opinion.

http://thecanadiansentinel.blogspot.com/2009/03/obama-tightens-control-over-means-of.html

Probably exaggerated a little bit, but, hey, the other side does it all the time, so they can't complain if I do...

Tut, tut. President Obama does not steal hubcaps.

He delegates that sort of thing.

I forgot to add one other point:

Obama's ultimatum that Chrysler make a deal with Fiat makes me itch to play poker with him. What does he think Fiat's going to do? If they have any brains - and that's the land of Machiavelli they're from - they'll let the 30 days expire, let Chrysler go into bankruptcy, and then go cherry pick the parts they want in a fire sale. Obama's idiocy has guaranteed that Chrysler is done.

Too bad; our family made a lot of great trips in our Chrysler minivans.

kevinb - your statistics hide reality and are irrelevant.

Labour hours per car is totally irrelevant. What matters is the NUMBER of workers being paid for those labour hours. If there are SIX workers, each putting in ten minutes, then, this is still ONE hour. And that's the problem - the employee numbers at these unionized plants, where the only way to get rid of the worker's presence is by 'early retirement', and you yourself note the extreme costs to the company of such 'non-working workers'.

That is, you get rid of the physical body of the worker but you don't get rid of the financial cost of that worker. So, what does it matter how many hours it takes to complete the car, when the selling price of that car must cover those SIX ..or TEN workers, rather than the ONE worker..and also, all those non-working early retirees..who took early retirement..and didn't wait for 30 years.

And, as noted, the costs of employee wages, benefits, health care, pensions..all paid by the company not the worker - effectively meant that profits could not be returned to the product. They were returned to the worker.
The inability to fire workers, the necessity of paying people who didn't work (Oklahoma)..what company can bear these costs?

And no, the real cause is not the government. It's the unions. The parastic unions, which effectively transformed industrial production from its necessary focus on the product..to its focus on, and only on, the worker.

We consumers aren't purchasing the worker. We purchase the product. And if it costs too much because it has to cover all those unnecessary workers and their benefits; if it isn't a competitive product because profits aren't returned to making better products..then..we don't buy. What's the cause of this disaster? Unions - the parasites of the industrial world.

John agrees.
The USA is now a corporate-fascist State.

O is TOTUSPOGM.
...-

Meet the new president of General Motors
Globe and Mail ^ | March 31, 2009 | JOHN IBBITSON

By dismissing GM's restructuring plans, forcing the resignation of CEO Richard Wagoner and shuffling its board, while sending in advisers to work on restructuring, and guaranteeing its warranties, the Obama administration has effectively nationalized the nation's largest automobile maker."

"Conservatives are apoplectic. "These are no longer companies," stormed Americans for Limited Government. "These are now de facto agencies of the federal government.

"This is a new order not just for the American economy - but for the nation's entire system of government. The executive branch is taking upon itself seemingly limitless powers. ... This is war."

They have a point."
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2219252/posts

Now that the big O has guaranteed the warranty work you'll see about ten the amount of work on each new vehicle and it will help keep the dealers afloat.

What are Constitutions or covenants to do with Obama? He is above such mundane realities with his. Super super duper awesome community organizer powers.
As he says: Yes we can. Meaning he can do whatever he wants since he's Black. With any criticism seen as racism. Who would call him out?
The race whores like Jesse Jackson, naw. The guilty feeling elitist white establishment. No way. This guy makes em feel like they have done penance. The MSM, hah, they worship his shadow.
The black community. Get real, remember Barry Marion as mayor of DC.
Folks this dude will just do what he pleases with not a peep from the peanut gallery. God save America.
JMO

ET, PLEASE don't get tunnel vision! The unions aren't the ONLY problem!

But, as usual when a group is threatened with the loss of it's lucrative entitlements (0% financing) they lash out. Get out your frickin' calculator and do some math. How much interest is there on a $50,000 loan over 60 months? Any clue? Cause when you buy that chariot @ 0% the finance company ISN'T being a nice guy, they're sending SOMEONE the bill!

It's easy to vilify the unions, lord knows on many levels they deserve it. BUT what role did the geniuses over in fleet that sell units below cost to get numbers up play? I've seen fleet units get absolutely trashed through abuse, we deny warranty and then the fleet dorks turn around and pay for it AFTER the dealer declines the warranty. This is not an isolated case, I can think of three cases at one dealer of the 200-300 in the last 6 months that cost GM $15,000 just because someone is a chickenshit @ GM Fleet. What about the recurring problems that engineers fail to fix from one model year to the next? (think cooler lines & heater resistor modules). Someone has to set these people down and FIRE THEM ALL!

The business model is screwed up completely. I've seen this elephant walk and it's doesn't want to change course.

Boycott Government Motors!

Buy Ford!