A Decade's Long Financial Treasury Office Managerial Rape Job

On March 29, 2009 President Obama fired GM CEO Rick Wagoner.The likely replacement, unless the government hires from outside the company, would be Chief Operating Officer Fritz Henderson, said John Casesa, managing partner at New York-based consulting firm Casesa Shapiro Group. "If they go to someone inside, Fritz is the obvious choice,” Casesa said. “He’s run every region, he’s been number two and he knows where all the bodies are buried." No doubt, Fritz's long connection to the entrenched GM dogma was why Ed Whitacre replaced him as GM's CEO in December 2009. The Treasury Dept. which owns 61% of GM stock, was informed of this move but not consulted in advance. 

The scope of Wagoner's failure is titanic in market share, money, jobs, customers, workers and residents of GM's factory towns. 

Fifty years ago (1959) Detroit's auto industry was the undisputed heavyweight champion of the industrialized manufacturing world. Sitting atop a throne and heralded as one of America's greatest crown jewels of business success Detroit was, at the time, starting to be proclaimed in the media as "the design capital of the U.S.A." wrote Jane Fiske Mitarachi (now Jane Thompson) the editor of Industrial Design magazine in 1955. And yes, General Motors was shoulders above the rest of the auto makers as the sole leader of an Automotive Design Arts and/or Styling Renaissance Movement. Not surprisingly, GM was the epitome of business success and way out in front when it came to Design & Manufacturing. Now, half a century later in 2008, America's auto capital -- Detroit -- is perceived by the media and general audience as the laughing stock of the global automotive economy. Sitting in dead last in the global sales performance race of Design are: General Motors, Ford and Chrysler. 

"Do you think I'd go through what I've gone through in the past two months if I didn't want to stay," said Rick Wagoner, GM's CEO after receiving federal bail out money on December 19, 2008. The behind-the-scenes reason Wagoner wanted to stay at GM is to prolong the inevitable: How he has been perpetuating a massive fraud relating to building poor quality American vehicles that are improperly designed! Of course this has been the ongoing fatal flaw that sunk GM, and Detroit, in modern times. Wagoner knows the moment GM goes into bankruptcy, which it will most certainly do in 2009, he will forever be castigated as one of the greatest American corporate villains -- who ruined the largest company in the world over the last 75 years of business history. Consequently, it will then be exposed how similar he was to his GM CEO predecessors who also hide all sorts of valuable historical information and perpetuated a decade's long deception in America's auto world, "that design is not important" when it comes to car sales. Basically, Wagoner has lied and deceived millions of American car buyers. For this reason going into 2009, Wagoner has a horrible image problem he will never be able to shake relating to GM's plunging sales. Why? The savvy general public will not buy millions of products with a stamp of approval coming from a crooked GM CEO named Rick Wagoner. He's also proven on Capital Hill in Washington, and in front of millions watching on TV, that he's a flunky treasury office administrator cut from the exact same cloth as Roger Smith who steered GM in the wrong direction long ago. Some of Smith and Wagoner's biggest pubic image problems relate to character flaws people in our "new economic times" abhor, Hubris, Jealous Greed and Narrow Self-Interests. 

In many respects, GM and its current financial leaders are directly accountable for the enormous destruction of America's auto capital. Fact: GM has capitulated over 10 big points of market share since Wagoner became CEO -- this is way ahead of the pace of market share lost by Roger Smith during his nine year run being GM's CEO back in the 1980s! Wagoner and GM's current board of directors are the main reason the company is on the brink of collapse. But of course GM's tricky CEO doesn't want any major stock holders, the auto journalistic community or the general public to ever find out the behind-the-scenes reasons GM and Detroit has suffered its worst performance recorded in history. Later studies will no doubt reveal in the history books that Wagoner ruinous business activities and legendary destruction of wealth makes the Madoff scandal (destruction of wealth) look like kindergarten antics in comparison. 

The following example prove Wagoner is actually a poorer quality CEO than Roger Smith. For in less time, Wagoner has lost more GM market share than Smith did during his entire run as CEO. Here's what auto journalist, Michelle Krebs, wrote in an obituary on Roger Smith: 

"In 1980, GM owned 46 percent of the U.S. vehicle market, but, by the time Smith took over a year later, the slide had started. And, unbeknownst to Smith at the time, it would continue to slide, dropping to 35.1 percent when Smith retired in summer 1990."

"GM's 10% point collapse in market share over the last seven to eight years (2000 was year Wagoner became CEO) is the worst performance of a GM CEO ever recorded" and all this statistical information is provable in numbers and finance and that's what investigative journalists today should be examining. Compare the facts behind Wagoner's career against that of Roger Smith's ruinous corporate behavior and one can begin to see how this info cuts through all the claims and counter claims. Wagoner's tenure is the darkest in General Motors' history, but this CEO's minions cloud the truth and make sure the media never spotlight measuring Smith against Wagoner's career on a scale. Doing this proves that the carnage of Roger Smith pales in comparison to the damage done in the GM treasury office by Wagoner. Not to mention the national pride, prestige and honor that's been lost -- the scope of Wagoner's failure is titanic in market share, money, jobs, customers, workers and residents of GM's factory towns, etc., etc... 

In the beginning of the twenty-first century, Wagoner's done a number on Detroit, too, for his collateral damage has contributed towards making the national media put a countrywide "national disgrace" label around Detroit's neck moving forward. Naturally, that's very harmful and another reason leaders in and around Detroit should oust Wagoner sooner rather than later.

Can GM Survive in Today's World?

In the last 12 years, Richard Earl has amassed an archival trove of rare information that has already begun to help reinvent and transform America's auto industry towards getting back on the right track. Many people now realize, especially during the last quarter of 2008, that the once iconic corporation -- GM -- is very likely going to be entirely reborn beginning in 2009. Richard believes that after the sagging GM brand is finally put to rest, during an interim of creative bankruptcy, many good things for the American auto industry will start up again. He likens what's been happening in Detroit for decade's of time now, "as a ragging forest fire, and once it burns out, some beautiful things will blossom, grow and materialize during the rebirth. 'GM' the brand will likely be done away with and/or spun into a new 'Chevrolet Car Company' which after all, has been Detroit's greatest brand now for well over the last fifty years. This historical fact, about Chevrolet's strength, is proven in numbers and finance, too. "

Powerful People Financed This Operation

The Official Harley Earl Website knows accountability is one of the tallest orders in DETROIT today (Fall, 2008) and that self preservation is at hand regarding whether or not there will even be a successful "America's auto capital" a decade from now. After all, powerful people in Detroit (some people are named at the top of this section) have financed GM''s precipitous downward slide.

Only because of a monster super spike in oil and gas prices is this historical account finally going to be fleshed out. Why? Nobody in our modern world ever witnessed the high priced "Oil Card" everyone just lived through during the first three quarters of 2008. America's Big Three auto company's market share, stock prices along with all the mismatched (obsolete product design) inventories sitting on their dealer's lots caused death blows to these already weak car companies. For example, GM is now a penny stock (trading near $3 a share)! This is one of the greatest destructions of wealth of all time.

Has the mega "Auto Design Trend," really ended? Have consumer's desires in this country really changed where, in the future, "Economy" will rule over "Design" as being the leading force in car sales in the United States moving further into the 21st Century? We hope not, because if that's the case the global economy has been dealt a severe blow that's going to cause repercussions that may slow business growth for a long time to come. 

This Collier's magazine commentary explains exactly where GM was 50 years ago. Because of Harley Earl's Auto Americana Design story coming to the fore, more and more scholars understand today how GM was once the free world's greatest company of all time that had a very unusual automotive design manufacturing monopoly:

This 1959 newspaper story below pinpoints the beginning of a long paper trail of failures by GM's financial treasury office administrators (bean counters) of General Motors leading to the overall miserable state the American auto industry is in today.