Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Crunch Time for D troit

Another appearance in front of Congress for the automaker CEOs but this time no biz jets and with fresh new plans, part of which included a CEO paycut from eleventy million down to a dollar.

No wonder they're in trouble--a dollar is so yesterday. Why not make their salaries 99.9 cents per year, outdoing the historical precedent while showing the world how silly it is to still price services in increments other than legal tender, like some companies we all know and love?

As to the GM plan, they say they'll blend Pontiac into other lines, possibly sell Saab, and maybe even drop Saturn altogether. That could have been worse news for Tennesseans since Saturn's original plant resides in rural Spring Hill, except for the fact they produced their last Saturn in 2007 as GM decided to convert the plant into one making other GM products. Don't cry too many tears for the over 2000 who got laid off, though:
Saturn workers who are laid off will receive about 80 percent of their net pay, along with unemployment payments from the state, according to GM.
Hmm. Anyway, conventional wisdom seems to be that Saturn accomplished its mission to change GM business practices across the board. Now we get to see if it was too little, too late. Let's hope not. If we're gonna subsidize them it's in our best interest to get our money back.

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