Thursday, September 20, 2012

The GM bailout from a fan, and why he wants it to end

Ed Whitacre, the author of this article, is a former CEO of GM and a fan of the auto bailout.  Though I disagree with him on the significance/importance/propriety of the bailout, I agree with him that it is time for GM to be General Motors, not Government Motors. 

The result: GM spends an awful lot of time checking in with the people who administer TARP over everything from hiring to executive compensation and management. For a global company, that adds up to a lot of distraction. 
....

GM is now trying to convince Treasury to sell, for some of the reasons I have mentioned. These same reports say that the government may be willing, but not at the current stock price. GM stock hasn't performed as well as everybody would like, but I remain hopeful that it will rebound as the global economy improves.
Meantime, life in the hypercompetitive world of GM goes on. The company already answers to a lot of constituencies: stockholders, unions, Wall Street and global competitors. Adding TARP to the mix for another few years, or even another few quarters, is not fair to GM or to the one million people it employs, directly and indirectly.

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