What Wagoner should have said to Obama

Pound sand Mr. President. Pound sand.

Ok, I know, it’s easy to armchair quarterback when it’s not my company and the employees that I was responsible for, but still the idea that President Obama, or at least his administration, has effectively forced out the leader of a publicly held company should be making a lot more people quiver in their boots.

Was Wagoner an incompetent leader?  Possibly.  Did he make mistakes? Certainly. Including flying to Washington, D.C. to beg in front of the congress while having taken millions in salary, and while flying in expensive airplanes, etc.  Not to mention the mistakes made in continuing to build cars and trucks that customers really shouldn’t have been buying (and of course they made many cars and trucks that customers definitely didn’t and wouldn’t buy).  Vehicles that weren’t fuel efficient, weren’t environmentally friendly, etc.

Still, Wagoner was doing his best, at least since the days immediately after that initial screwed up effort to beg for a bailout, to try to save his company and save the jobs of the employees that work for it, as well as the jobs of those that supply parts and services to GM and his subsidiary companies.  At the same time, Wagoner was meeting with resistance from the unions and shareholders, and coming to a solution that would save the company has certainly not been easy.

All that said, the eventual solution, the solution that has hung out there for quite a while now, is likely to be bankruptcy for the company.  By declaring bankruptcy the company could reorganize under the control and guidance of a bankruptcy judge/court, and in doing so they’d be able to work on tearing up contracts along the way to cut expenses even more.

Realistically, it doesn’t much matter if Wagoner is out at GM.  I’m guessing he’ll have walked with a nice cushion/golden parachute.  (Maybe not, perhaps the Obama administration was smart enough to prevent another embarrassment in that area, as opposed to what they did with AIG.)  Regardless, he’s out and someone new will be in and they’ll hit the same obstacles that Wagoner hit and probably wind up in exactly the same place that Wagoner was going to wind up in.  Knowing that, it seems that Wagoner should have held up a big middle finger to wave in the administration face while telling the employees and stockholders that they all need to cooperate and look after the best interests of everyone, perhaps the threat of yet another government takeover or one of the largest bankruptcies ever could have convinced everyone of the seriousness of the problem and help lead to a workable solution.  Perhaps.  Now it seems we’ll have to see if someone else can do it, though I expect it’ll be meet the new boss, same as the old boss, for everyone at GM.