Aren't GM's, And Ford's and Chrysler's, Problems All The Same: Bad Management From The Top Down?

Implications: For the last ten years as the center of the OEM automotive industry's growth has shifted to mainland Asia we have heard nothing but failure-excusing buzz words from the 'leaders' of the OEM American automotive industry. Legacy costs, health care, and, just now, as they finally admit it, raw material costs, are mantras endlessly repeated without a moment's hesitation by the highest paid managers in American OEM automotive history as the companies they mismanage continue on in the longest profitless period in American OEM automotive history. Isn't it obvious that Wall Street has simply abandoned the American OEM automotive industry to its own devices and fate?

Analysis: The romantics and more-and-more fantasists in the increasingly nonprofessional Detroit automotive business press endlessly repeat what the bespoke suited, chauffeur driven, company plane carried top managers of the broken US owned and operated OEM automotive industry tell them at press conferences at which lunch is served and cars and trucks are handed out for 'test drives.'

Like clueless politicians industry 'leaders' repeat over and over again about the future direction of their companies, "We have a turnaround plan," or "We will be profitable in the  [fill in blank] quarter of [fill in blank]," or , Ford's all time favorite, "We're right on track with our turnaround plan."

The sad truth that has already impacted Michigan and will now affect the US midwest in general is that the segment of the US OEM automotive industry that is still owned and operated by Americans has become irrelevant to the future of the American economy.

The US domestic economy benefits directly from the profitable operations of foreign owned and operated OEM automotive companies. Such manufacturers as Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Hyundai, Daimler, and BMW now operate assembly plants in the USA. These companies have also brought their suppliers to the USA where they also have built manufacturing plants. The foreign owned and operated OEM automotive industry in the US was originally known as 'the transplants," but today the transplanted industries have overwhelmed and moved the domestic manufacturers out of the fertile fields of the US market.

Incredibly the overfed jackasses who manage the OEM American owned and operated industry bray about legacy, healthcare, and labor costs, even as the transplants not only eat their market share but actually export cars and trucks from the USA to other markets including their home countries based on their experience here of lower costs than in their home countries!

So, what is the glaringly obvious problem?

It is that the OEM American automotive industry's long term strategic planning is and always has been nonexistent.

The world's profitable OEM automotive companies have planned for currency fluctuations, raw material cost and availability issues, labor rate growth, and technological change in the long term. The US managers-they are not to be described as equivalent to those, for example, of Toyota and Honda, have planned only to please Wall Street and to fertilize golden parachutes and grotesquely fat retirements and severance packages. IN OTHER WORDS THEY HAVE TAKEN CARE OF THEMSELVES INSTEAD OF THEIR COMPANIES AND SHAREHOLDERS.

It is now time to pay the piper, but the payees will be those whose homes and families have been dependent for sustenance on jobs in the OEM American automotive industry.

Wall Street's day of reckoning is approaching. The first time that a low rated GM, Ford, or Cerberus-Chrysler cannot sell a bond or a preferred share or use 'assets' to collateralize a 'loan' the game is over.

That day is rapidly approaching, and I don't think it matters anymore outside of the American midwest what the self serving incompetent managers of the American OEM automotive industry do or say.

It is almost comical to watch the astronomically paid 'outside' turnaround 'specialists' and 'restructuring' planners scramble over the bones of the auto industry looking for some scraps of meat to satisfy their own hunger from an already dead beast.