Tag Archives: General Motors

business news

GM owes its existence to government?

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Donald John “Smart Gut” Trump has blasted General Motors for closing plants and for announcing plans to lay off as many as 15,000 employees as part of a company restructuring.

I laughed when I heard the president declare that the government “saved” GM “and this is the thanks we get.”

Oh, wait! That rescue mission was launched during the first term of President Obama. Do you remember that one? The auto industry was in trouble. The new president got Congress to approve a massive bailout for automakers. The money propped them up, helped preserve them; it saved them from collapse.

Then the automakers paid the government back for the money they received!

I guess what rankles Trump the most is that GM’s decision to lay off those workers turns one of the president’s signature campaign promises into, well, an empty campaign promise.

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Who's Lauer kidding?

NBC talking head Matt Lauer is facing stout criticism for a question he asked of General Motors chief executive Mary Barra.

The question: Can you be a good parent and a good chief executive of a major company?

http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/tv/2014/06/26/matt-lauer-defends-interview-with-gms-mary-barra/11435373/

Lauer, host of the “Today” show, said he’d ask a male CEO the same question if given the chance.

Interesting, yes?

I don’t think I’ve ever heard that question posed to, say, Lee Iacocca, Ted Turner, Malcolm Forbes, Rupert Murdoch or, heck, even Jack Welch, the ex-General Electric boss and Lauer’s former boss.

USA Today reports: “Lauer notes on his Facebook page that Barra addressed the difficulty of balancing her work and home lives in a Forbes magazine article. He says if a man in a high-level job had publicly discussed the issue he’d have ‘asked him exactly the same thing.'”

Umm, I don’t think so, Matt.

The sad fact of today’s world is that Corporate American remains a Man’s World.

I have no doubt that Barra will do a good job as she grapples with the issues facing a leading automaker. Is it relevant that she’s also a mother?

Maybe, maybe not. It would be were it to become known that her job interfered with her parental responsibilities.

Matt Lauer’s insistence that he would have asked a male CEO the same thing is almost as insulting as the question he asked Mary Barra.