Roger and Me

"General Motors didn't evict them. Talk to the landlord."

- then GM CEO Roger Smith on former GM workers being evicted from their homes after 1988 plant closures in Flint, Michigan.

General Motors is bargaining, begging and pleading for a handout and is threatening to launch the Queen Mary of all failboats.

They say they need $50 billion, so I asume they need at least double that. How much they'll need the following day, week or month is anybodys guess. I suppose you could ask CEO Rick Wagoner but he wouldn't be able to tell you anything, other than how to steer the Titanic straight into an iceberg.

This is the same Rick Wagoner that in 2005 made a huge bet on big trucks (or a big bet on huge trucks). FAIL. GM has been restructuring tens of billions of dollars in losses for years now and has been shutting plants left and right. If the guy had half a fucking brain in his head he would have made the move to more fuel efficient cars, not Hummers.

I wanted to get a feel for the current company vision so I visited GM's website. First gm.com, then the Corporate Information tab (click). The first thing I saw was some hydrogen fuel cell shitshow, then an annoying popup asked "Would you be willing to participate in a 8-10 minute survey about GM?"

Really, an 8-10 minute survey? No thank you. I'd rather read more about your retarded hydrogen fuel cell car that will never see the light of day because plug in electric and electric hybrid cars make more sense in every. single. way.

What kind of company asks you to take a survey the second you visit their website? I clicked one page off of the home page and already you're asking me to spend 8-10 minutes of my time so you can collect information? Imagine walking into a store to buy some shoes and the instant you walk in the door, whoosh, some kid is in your face asking you to rate your shopping experience (the one you haven't had yet). What kind of a company does this? General Motors.

Lucky for them I was on a fact finding mission, and was curious to see what kinds of questions they would ask in their survey, so I clicked "Yes". Another window popped up that said:

"Thank you very much for your participation interest. But unfortunately we already have enough participants for this survey. Therefore we have closed the questionnaire. However we would be very glad if you could participate in our studies in the future!"

That was all I needed to see. And that's how I know that GM is the worst auto maker on the planet.

Welcome aboard the too-big-to-fail boat. The begging bowl of taxpayer loan money is over there. Make sure you lap it up.

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The Bank of England proved that it was late to the rate cutting party and cut a panicky 150 basis points. The European Central Bank cut 50 basis points.

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The market had it's worst two day stretch since 1987 ahead of what is expected to be the worst unemployment report in decades. Estimates are for a loss of 200,000 jobs in October.