(from Brenda Avadian of www.tadwu.us ..... and tadwu means The American Dream: Wake Up
GM: Let it file Chapter 11 and reorganize
A CALL TO ALL IVY LEAGUE MBAs
Let the Harvard, Wharton, Yale and ?? MBAs apply their Ivy League educations and then really earn their reputations by delivering innovative plans.
RESTRUCTURING
And if part of the fix is for GM and Chrysler to merge, execs should NOT be entitled to a special fee (written into their employment contracts when times were good). For those who don’t know about this ... company leaders make money each time they divest (spin off, sell off) and merge (take over, combine as equals). This process should simply be to improve business not as a way to continually merge and divest in order to line the pockets of executives and the brokers who advise and coordinate such deals.
AMERICA IS BEST
We Americans are the best in the world (at least, that’s what we keep telling ourselves). Let’s pull together to get out of this mess, BUT NOT WITH HANDOUTS!
PAIN YIELDS GAIN
Sure, the ripple effect will be enormous. But pain endured for the short term will yield creative ideas that should have been put into place over the past decade while Honda and Toyota increased their market shares in the U.S.
URGENCY?
Besides, what’s all the urgency? Only months ago we heard reports that GM had enough cash to carry it through the END of 2009. Now, all of a sudden with the U.S. government’s $700 billion handouts, GM’s Wagoner says they need billions, now?
JOBS BANK
Why are above-average earning autoworkers entitled to a 95 percent pay package during layoffs?
UNIONS
While unions were a good idea for workers during the turn of the century before last (late 1800s to the early 1900s), today, they’ve become the very thing they worked hard to fight against ... self-serving profit-minded organizations. Long removed from trying to overcome company abuses of mine workers expected to work 14-hour days in unsafe environments and sometimes not even paid for all hours worked, today’s union workers have been riding high (and growing obese) on the gravy train.
Remember Bethlehem Steel, a cornerstone of American business? It could not fail. But it did, when Korean steel companies provided lower cost (and lower grade) steel to American builders who couldn’t get enough of the stuff. The greed of the upper echelon (auto industry leaders and union management) rippled down to the workers. Unions fought heartily to raise wages and benefits until in this world economy, where the Toyotas, Hondas, Kias and Hyundais were better at giving America what we wanted at a price we found reasonable. The Big Three were less and less competitive.
DEALERSHIPS
While I agree that many dealerships have been cornerstones in their communities for years, and now may be at risk of failure , this is the unfortunate result of the ripple down theory and nature’s way of keeping the strong.
SUPPLIERS
Perhaps we need to return to the old model of reduced (actually, NO) credit. Suppliers must band together and insist on deposits then full payments when products are delivered. No credits shall be extended, because when suppliers don\'t get paid they don\'t have as large a cushion to ride out downturns; unlike Wagoner, Nardelli and others who continue to reap their sizable yearly income.
CREDIT
We Americans need to reduce our need for credit which fills pockets of the elite as they offer billions in loans to us for merchandise, food, cars and mortgages while profiting millions from interest and fees.
HANDOUTS for ALL AMERICANS?
Finally, the Big Three\'s begging for a handout leads me to wonder if all of us Americans should go to our government for a handout to replace losses in our dwindling portfolios. Who’s going to pay for all this? Can we continue to print more money? At what cost? Already our country is trillions in dollars of debt. Is this the America our forefathers anticipated? Is this the America our parents, grandparents, and before, sacrificed everything in order to pursue the American Dream?
