What More Could Auto Execs Have Done?

Don't send a sick horse to the races, it'll only gonna cost you.
The automobile branch is a example of a very sick horse and so is the weapon industry.

Obama is about to spend a lot of money on state wise infrastructure and schooling.

That is a very wise decision.
I hope he will be able to keep his promise because there are a lot of dark and evil forces in America
that do not like the transition from a war economy to a peace economy.

The republican administration allowed total tax write offs for SUVs for the self-employed and other private businesses. So no big suprrise as to what happened.

Go to the GM dealer today and ask for a deep discount on one of their gashogs. You won't get it. Every store in America is desperately trying to move their shlock; the car dealers and manufacturers are happy to sit while their vastly overpriced ve-hick-les rot in the snow. Why is anyone surprised that in a downturn, no one has $40K to spend on a glorified pickup truck?

I like the idea of these people twisting slowly, slowly in the wind, while they refuse to discount any of their product. Please, keep them all! Build enormous not-yet-junkyards out of them. Just stop asking taxpayers to subsidize them.

"| What the Big Three bosses should have done for their country and companies." it is somewhat difficult to discuss this when the opening premise is incorrect; what big business has done for years now, i.e. the destruction of general dynamics, has nothing to do with what is best for our country or our workers. in their quest for corporate bonuses and investor dividends, big business gave up all semblance of corporate or patriotic responsibility.

Why is there no responsibility for the outcomes of bad business decisions. Isn't the board responsible to shareholders? Why aren't shareholders demanding a new board. These people directed a failure. They should be gone. Likewise with management. This should be the first condition for public funds. Giving money to the same fools that created the mess is illogical. There has been so much said about the role of labor in this debacle, but little demand for the heads of management. When someone takes an equity stake in a company, they usually demand new management. We should demand no less.

I'm tired of these comments about "protecting the taxpayers" whose money will help save these companies. Who do you think works for these companies??? TAXPAYERS!!! And here's another little factoid....those are the same TAXPAYERS who are fronting the $700 Billion being used to save the financial system.

The rusty big three are beyond salvation. They should be allowed to go the way of Montgomery ward, Mervin. 28 years ago, trying to buy American, I went through 3 big lemons of these big three. I gave up and buying Toyota ever since, including 3 Lexus. Toyota never let me down. In the meantime. GM continues to produce Hummers and the like. Looking at the shrinking share of the market of the Big ttree, there must be a lot more poeple like me, who try to buy American, but have to give up.
That said, there may be a salvation: all the old and rusty CEOs should be fired and replaced with young kids, none of them may not be older than 25. Yes young blood is a must to reboot the whole system.

Detroit lied that it couldn't/wouldn't build small fuel efficient cars because no one would buy them: then ceded half the US market to Japan as it built small fuel efficient cars.
Do you really think if the big three went under the midwest would be filled with crumbling factories and roving bands of starving auto workers? Let the market form new carmakers who build the cars the market wants. If it's Japanese...fine, German...fine (but highly unlikely), homegrown/hybrid...great!
All my life I have been watching the big three build teenage-fantasy, overweight, gas hog monsters suitable only to the midwest highways while I have been buying japanese and german cars with four cylinders capable of driving in the city. Except for minivans, Detroit hasn't produced an innovative design in 30 years. On top of that, the arrogance of planned obsolescence still lives on and quality, which had improved falters with falling profits. Buyers like me have long been fed up and have been letting patriotism crumble in favor of common sense.
Let these dinosaurs die! We need to concentrate on planning for the new US auto industry that is wanted, required and inevitable.

If federal policy encompasses "saving" Detroit auto makers, call it what it is: "Nationalization". This will entail federal control of the industry, including product mix, pricing, and consumer support to purchase.
1. Change the management immediately.
2. Place strong incentives to purchase the models you want to move. Make car loan interest deductible and give credits for purchase of certain models.
3. Place strong incentives for developing energy efficient (electric) urban models.
4. Tell the unions they are nationalized, too and convert their benefits to civil service quality benefits.

How many members of the boards of directors also sit on the boards of big oil?

How many stock holders care more about money than they do about what is good for the country?

It is all ABOUT GREED!!!

I say let them rot. The only course of action that I see for them is to get new leadership and let these relics go sit on their fortune made from the misguidance of the American public.

If they want to "make it through the month" which they so desperately pleaded to congress, they should do the following:

1. Get rid of the many different badges/brands and consolidate them. They eliminate or consolidate badges like Buick and merge them with the Cadillac luxo market. They should take all Chevy trucks and consolidate them under GMC. Pontiac needs to go and whatever "innovations" they have should all fall under Chevy. Jeep? I'm still foggy on what they should do with that. Saturn should be the economy car focus.

2. Get the engineers to do a better job and remain competitive with the Japanese/Korean manufacturers.

3. Make cars that are not only fuel efficient, but also that are reliable enough to compete with 10 yr/100K mile warranties offered by foreign companies.

Although I've always had a japanese vehicle, I would love America to return to greatness in automotive innovation. They could do it but leave it to CEOs such as these, they will continue to crank out bland and unreliable vehicles that drive like Red Flyer wagons.

I have yet to hear much about what they plan to do when they get there billions of dollars. It is great that they are working for only a $1. How about giving some of the money they already have and invest in their own company? or How about them saying we are cutting every car/truck (excluding commercial vehicles) that have a mpg of less than 18.

These are just the rewards of making poor decisions years ago and not changing with the demand of high efficiency cars/trucks.

Americans need strong incentives to induce them buy the kinds of cars nearly everyone thinks we need--smaller, more efficient, more electrified cars. So accompanying any bailout should be a variable gasoline tax that guarantees that gas prices will never fall below about $4.00 per gallon. These taxes, at least in part, should be rebated to those in lower income groups to reduce the regressiveness of such taxes. I fear that without such a policy, smaller more efficient cars will not sell and the bailout will fail regardless of the leadership in Detroit.

How about showing all of us that they REALLY care about us by giving us an EXACT timeline of when / how they will be repaying taxpayer money?

How about putting up COLLATERAL for the money they are asking?

How about telling us what they are willing to pay as INTEREST for the money loaned?

How about telling us specifically that we, the taxpayer will get paid right alongside the employees, the vendors, and the dealers?

How about sounding SINCERE?

they could have argued that the gas tax should be raised. The only thing consistently to change the selfish ways of the American consumer was the increase of gas to over $4 per gallon. Use some of the funds for the bailout, some for infrastructure, some for alternates, mass transit, and subsidies to the poor.

Most of the Japanese auto makers also offer SUVs, pickups, and other oversized consumer vehicles. Detroit lost site of the "past performance doesn't guarentee future results" slogan, and didn't try and create the market they say they'll now cater to.

No executive needs to make $10 or $20 million, esp when he's been pulling that down for years with such dismal results.

Bring true pay for performance to the compensation structure for both management and labor, market a vision, and show how they intend to implement it. Then maybe we will see results.

All this talk about how the auto companies are sick etc. But its not just them-- its the American Economy that's sick. The newspapers are in trouble, health care is in trouble, any industry you care to name, the airlines, big pharma etc etc. Could it be that the model of importing more than we export, sending more and more jobs overseas, and living on loans, isn't exactly sustainable?

I don't care if they walked all the way from Detroit to D.C. Puleeze. Don't we live in a capitalist society? And doesn't that mean that the best business models survive...without government intervention? I'm with LAMB CANNON, let 'em twist in the wind. Everytime I drive by a dealership I am filled with rage (and I mean F-I-L-L-E-D)about how these bloodsucking vermin and their pimps in Detroit want us to feel sorry for them. Then I thought, hey why be mad when I can just chortle over the way karma is kicking your keister! In the infamous words of Stewie from Family Guy: Ha, Ha, Ha!

If the auto industry wants a bailout, and Congress might give it $15B, what prevents other "Rust Belt" industries such as steel, tires, mining, etc., from coming to the Hill to beg for their cut of the bailout? What about other non-Rust Belt industries that come to Congress, with hat in hand, also wanting their share of the bailout, e.g., chip foundries, Big Pharma, biotech, software, entertainment firms, etc.?

I for one was glad to see the 3 Execs working together as professional men trying to solve a problem. It was Congress that didn't have a clue. Some of them were not aware that Ford has had a hybrid vehicle on the road for 4 years. What an ignorant bunch they are proving to be.

Do your homework and you will see that Ford's plan was working prior to the bottom falling out. They turned a profit in 1st quarter 2008.

Also, WAPO is obviously reaching when they have to bring in so-called 'leadership' czars to discuss this problem which has been beaten to death. This is not a moral issue. Please.

Barney Frank is still shooting his mouth off about helping the incompetent auto makers. Is he as dopey as he presents himself?
Mr. Lutz, the macho vice chairman of GM is still acting tough and saying dumb things. He doesn't know humility or when to shut up.
Nancy Pelousi is always in a hurry to please the UAW. Doesn't she know that the American people are overwhelmingly opposed to giving the auto makers our money?

what *could* have been done is that they could *not* have been bailed-out.

But that goes for so many...

Let's face it. The last people that need to be complaining about government handouts are the people that work within 50 miles of any federal facility. In D.C. we really have no leg to stand on, here.

Second anyone who pays 40% of their income in Federal tax definitely has a right to ask for federal money to prop-up their industry.

Beyond that it's pure capitalism. Of course it makes no sense.

16 states have passed laws req. higher emission standards.
the auto industry is sueing these states over this legislation.
why should the Govt. give the big 3 any money when they insist on continueing with these lawsuits?

Yonkers, New York
09 December 2008

It is not fair to lay all the blame for the sorry plight of GM, Ford and Chrysler on the current CEOs of these corporations because they all came long after Detroit Three had already gone more than halfway downhill.

Detroit Three's desperate financial plight started some 25 or 30 years ago when they started to lose market share year after bad year without letup to the competition.
Detroit Three's top officials during all those past years deserve to shoulder most of the blame.

That is simply to set the record straight.

Mariano Patalinjug
MarPatalinjug@aol.com

You need to look at this as a business not as a charity. They need a pre-package Chapter 11 to go into. It is the only way that they can close surplus plants, redo contracts with workers and suppliers, and rework existing debt. The Big Three Auto makers are in the same position that Steel was in the 80's. Too many rusting plants, over paid workers and old mindset. Oversea car companies can make cars hear at a profit, they should be able to also. They just need to re-due their contract, the gravy train is over.

When grown men have to be told to get their act together it is only reasonable to believe they didnot do all they could because they didnot know what to do. There is apparent gross mismanagement in these companies and it is common for them to present themselves unprepared. These CEOs are accustomed to sliding their chairs up to a table and mumbling a few stupid words such as "I want". They are lousy managers, likewise sell lousy cars. This country is like these auto companies do not work hard enough.. we play too much, we do not take our lives seriously so naturally we are under achievers. When America get past being the most powerful country ego just maybe we will begin to excel in the world and maybe for the first time.

Since WW II auto workers have paid more in income tax than all the people of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisana combined!

Yet Sen. Shelby complains?

Even a large share of the $15 billion lent to the Big 3 will comeback to the Federal government in employee income taxes for the end of 2008 and the 1st quarter of 2009.

Everyone complains about auto worker health care and pensions.

But what kind of pensions did Senators and Congressmen (few women back then) have in the 1940s,1950s, 60s etc.

Only when auto and other union workers fought for better benefits, did white collar workers in other industries and states get "equal" treatment.

Including Senators and Congressmen and women who now retire with $2,000,000 or $3,000,000 payouts when they retire. Just ask former Senator Dole, even Senator Shelby will have a giant "nest egg" to take home to Alabama when he leaves Washington DC.

Everyone thinks they know how to run an auto company because they can kick the tires on their own car. But no one knows what a "derrivative swap" is and therefore no one criticizes AIG, Citibank, Morgan Stanley etc.

America at its heart is a "fair and just" land.

If the other States do not help the auto workers, the auto workers should direct their Senators and Congressmen in Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, Illinois, New York etc to vote against tobacco subsidies, cotton subsidies, federal highways in Alamaba, Mississippi etc.

What is good for the goose is equal for the gander! No Federal $ for any state.

Yes, the Big 3 have made some big mistakes. I don't think any of them have read 'The Reckoning' by David Halberstam or if they did, didn't heed its warnings of what happened in the 70's and 80's. As a person who grew up in a town that in the early 90's produced 20% of GM's US output I am also aware of what will happen it they are all allowed to fail. It will plunge a state that has been in a recession for the past 8 years into a depression. Are you ready for the costs of that?

"Bailouts" are a slippery slope...

Do ALL failing businesses qualify for funding?

Perhaps 3 large trees fall from the canopy, do you not think that many others shall compete to take their place? Is that not the innovation you seek?

I think "the ride is over". Whatever the problems, they should have been addressed many years ago, not in tax-funded "blood donations" to the vampires who sucked the business model dry in the first place.

Has the auto industry innovated to its past potential, or just pocketed the profit?

Are these "bailout" industries having to submit business plans for all this money? Does every taxpayer get to review these plans to make sure they're mature and logical? Are the antics of the execs sincere or media antics?

"Business as Usual" Washington DC is quickly discovering that in the world's business climate has changed.

Looks like "We the Consumer" are speaking quite clearly. Stop stealing our earnings.

resign...

Exit the banking business (car leasing).

What made a car company (that is incompetent at building cars) believe it would do better at banking?

Why not let banks handle banking while the car companies focus on building cars?

In fact, I believe 10 years ago mitsubishi got into the same problem - internally financed lots of car purchases that they had no business financing: don't know that mitubishi ever recovered...

The first task of Leadership is to provide a dependable vision of the future and the second is to demonstrate you really care about those who must help make that vision a reality. Had the CEO's admitted to themselves and to Congress that they were serious about tackling the problems of entrenched bureaucracy within their companies they would have signalled they have come to grips with the underlying problem. In terms of products, American cars are not as reliable as many of its competitors according to findings published in Consumers Report. For years Detroit has pursued a strategy of being the lower price alternative instead of the quality leader. To win on price you must be the low cost producer. With the help of Congress they hope to set aside collecive bargining aggreements as they and the unions cling to old strategies. To pursue a strategy of givening consumers the products "they want today" means you have to be diversified enough to quickly react to consumers changing behaviors. Detroit has failed at both. The solution lies not in restrucuring per se, but how to gain the position of leadership in personal trasportation.

Hal - Johnson City, TN

The whole debacle of the Big 3 is simply astounding and a vulgar demonstration of the largesse these three companies have become accustomed to. To go to Washington asking for a handout while the rest of the economy struggles just reinforces the arrogance with which these three companies have run their businesses and gone to market with over decades.

I also find it incredible that Democrats (and I consider myself to be one) are pushing for relief for these firms. The example set by the japanese transplants is the role model the Big 3 should be held to rather than handing out any money. You don't hear a whimper from the tranplants who have invested billions in this country and our economy. The transplants are also being affected by the same market forces which Detroit has so arrogantly claimed to be primarily affecting them.

It is a shameful, sad situation. But all of this is also highly indicative of the insular, narrow-minded mentality which will continue to exist in Detroit even after any kind of a bailout.

Recall that GM had admitted their own recognition of their shortsightedness years ago: they tried to build a brand separate from Detroit in Tennessee, Saturn. They were unsuccessful, in the end it became just another GM brand, fully integrated and absorbed into the Detroit mindset. That alone should tell all of us that GM is incapable of changing.

Change is good, even if bankruptcy is required.

WHY I'D LOVE TO BE THE NEW CAR CZAR, OR EVEN THE USED CAR CZAR.

I FIND THAT LAWYERS MAKE EXCELLENT CAR CZARS AND I HAVE BOTH DOMESTIC & FOREIGN CAR EXPERIENCE, NAMELY, FORD AND GM ON THE DOMESTIC SIDE AND HONDA AND TOYOTA ON THE FOREIGN SIDE

AND I KNOW CHINESE

为什么I' 是D的爱新的汽车沙皇，甚至半新车沙皇。 我发现律师做优秀汽车沙皇和我有两国内& 外国汽车经验，即，在外国边的国内边的福特和GM和本田和丰田

AND JAPANESE TOO.

I'なぜ; Dは新しい車の皇帝、また更に中古車の皇帝であることを愛する。 私は弁護士が優秀な車の皇帝を作る私持っている両方国内&をことが分り、; 外国の側面の国内側面の外国車の経験、即ち、フォードおよびGMおよびホンダおよびトヨタ

I thought is was a CEO's job to look at the competition when trying to improve his company's business,especially when the business is doing poorly. It's Bus 101! Well that would make them realize their vehicles would have to be efficient for the good of the whole & the business. They sold enough gas guslers to line their own pockets so why try to improve or be visionary. Dont forget those moronic he-man advertisements! I remember 30 yrs ago when GM displayed & bragged about the car of the future at EPCOT center. Oh, they must have been planning for year 3000. Note that EPCOT means ENVIRONMENTAL PROTOTYPE COMMUNITIES OF TOMORROW. Well here is Tomorrow - maybe the news media shud report more on Disney's concept here for more awareness, afterall he was a visionary. Obviously a lot of CEO'S, but not all, are blinded by all that green stuff and i don't mean the "environmental green". I agree we need fresh blood in these businesses. The big 3 look pretty worn. ...Saturn's a nice concept but I test drove one and could'nt get the CUV to drive straigt. I've been with Honda a long time now for quality & mileage. Dont they get that? The gov better have good conditions when they support the big 3. I hope we change our system to more accountability to top management. Some people can retire on dividends so can you imagine how much dividend income the Ceo's must get? They wouldn't need any pay or bonuses. This country should have the fortitude to straigten this mess out-but there should be some basic changes in priority. It's hard to regulate when profit is the main focus in a system. All big bus's were once a small bus. People are disallutioned because top management of big bus get rewarded for doing poorly. Something has got to change!

The best thing the CEOs could have done is to fire themselves. They still believe in the automobiles of 1950's and 60's. These are dinosaurs are unimaginative and failed to understand the market place. Yet, they rewarded themselves with lavish life styles and tens of millions of dollars in salary and compensation, symptomatic of criminal and corrupt corporate culture.

GM may have issued a mea culpa, but in a trade magazine? Why spend the money, why bother, when they could have done the same thing in front of Congress? Of course that would have taken leadership. Lacking that quality, they should all go and the sooner the better.

It is true that the "Big Three?" Auto companies represent a case study of failed leadership.
One of the basic failings of the operating business model is the overemphasis on short-term results or profits at the expense of long terms goals and objectives.

This is demonstrated by Detroit's infatuation and capital investment in SUVs and trucks in late 1990s and early 2000s.
The Auto industry surrendered long term survival for short term gains. This explains why Detroit is in its desperate state.

The financial industry is guilty of the same blindness. It used to be a mortgsge was a mortgage. One bought a house,took out a mortgage with a local financial institution and made your monthly payments over a 10-20 yeat period.One established lines of credits or investment streams over a lifetime.

Now one's mortgage is part of a package of mortgages sold to a third paty who packages these mortgages as an investment tool. The economic incentive for this new investment entity is that the banks and other financial entities can make a quick buck.

Now we ask Uncle Sam to bailout the financial community and the Auto companies for their stupidity. These corporate leaders failed to see financial reality when a quick buck could be made.

This passion for short term gains is a poison for real economic growth and until our economic leaders realize this. We are doomed for failure.

There are many causes for what happened, but primarily it was the lack of new thinking, competitiveness and short-term thinking. If you were a finance person at an auto company and were faced with investing a dollar in a compact car with a return of 10 cents or a dollar invested in a truck or SUV with a return of 50 cents, what decision would you have made? The fallacy with that thinking is that eventually the foreign companies would start making trucks and SUVs, too, which they were starting to do, and erode that market, too. Most companies, and people, too, take the easy way out. Can you blame them? Take the easy way out and hope for the best, or do something that is hard (compete) and maybe lose? That thinking is rampant in American companies of all kinds. I work in business and I see it every day. It repulses me. Many in corporate American would rather not play and lose than compete and lose. I guess it is cheaper, as you don't need to make the investment.

When Ford first came out with the Taurus, it designed an advanced and superior car and it was the auto sales leader in the U.S. Then new management came in and quit investing in cars and instead bought other companies. The purchases turned out to be poor investments and their leadership with the Taurus suffered.

There is a basic flaw with "On Leadership." As with all other efforts to point a finger of blame for the economic situation, it is a futile passion because the finger has a point: it is too narrow.

I understand the desire to try to identify one thing so we can all say: "Yes! That's it! That's the reason! Let's blame THAT!" The problem with blaming it on a specific "that" means by implication that you dismiss the importance of that and that and that ...."

In my view, we are not suffering the consequences of any specific economic event or structure or organization ... or even "just one real leader" as Steve Pearlstein argues in his column today (12/12/08). Instead, I believe we are suffering the consequences of a broad and deep cultual issue. Since the Post WW II expansion, this country has been hit by a constant innundation of "buy this" messages. Over the years, "The American Dream" has morphed from one based on principles of ethics and opportunities and individiual initiative to one based on dreams of buy more, buy bigger, buy more expensive, and buy even when you can't afford it.

We became a society where REALTORS would encourage their customers to step-up to a bigger sale and even if you can't afford it this year, don't worry you can get a mortgage with a teaser rate and in a couple of years your salary will grow and the value of the house will increase so you can use that to pay-off the debts you'll accumulate in the process. We became a society where consumers who had trouble paying their rents would be able to buy the latest flat screen TV on credit, without having to pay their first payment until next year so, hey, worry about how to make that payment then. We became a society where investors could bundle debt into packages that weren't truly quantifiable but could be sold and resold to other investors nevertheless. We became a society where it was hardly news when one kid shot another kid for the latest and hottest sneaker.

The problem with blaming "leadership" is that in so doing, you point your finger away from the real culprit (in my opinion): the way the American consumer culture became the American Dream.

Whether we identify the blame correctly or not, the real blame will ultimately give rise to the actual solution. I believe that we are just beginning to see the first signs of that solution, but it will come with increasing strength and clarity: we are in the first stages of a major cultural change in our nation, which will engage the world. However, unlike previous changes, it will be difficult to identify the nuances and patterns of this process because it will occur in a vastly different world: one in the process of shifting from a manufacturing to a knowledge economy; where vital commodities including oil and food have volatile prices and availablity; where individual economies are intermeshed into a truly global economy; and where people interact on a real time basis where geography, time and (often) language are irrelevant.

In this emerging world, people can (and, I think, will) coalesce on line into new communities where members share vested interests not unlike the vested interests that in centuries past gave rise to new nations. How will these new communities take shape and grow in a world disrupted by economic turmoil (perhaps beyond "turmoil" and more like catastrophe), heaving from the failure of a culture, tied together by the Internet?

Steve: I would encourage you to change this forum from "Leadership" (which I do believe is a vital component of the problem, but only one of many) to: "Leadership & Culture." Because if we do not accurately define the cultural changes that are about to sweep this nation, we may find ourselves overwhelmed with a new cultural environment that could be very dangerous.

For anyone interested, I write about things like this at www.deathoftime.com

What good is leadership without morals? Without a sense of limits? When does Growth-is-good become Growth-at-any-cost? How does I-wouldn't-sink-to-that-level become Oh-yes-I-would-if-it-helps-me-"win"?
How does ideology ("The market is always right.") screw up straight thinking ("..except when it's not.")? I expect our new president will set a different moral tone for the country, from fauz-religious piety to sincere we-are-in-fact-all-in-this-together. That's the basis for all ethics.

Worrying about how much money you can make between now and next week Thursday will eventually cost you the farm.

"Say goodnight, Gracie."

Don't confuse leadership with competitiveness. The number of actual leaders in executive suites is far eclipsed by the masses of competitors.

They might be brilliant, aggressive, skilled, and talented, but they are not leaders. They are trained to compete and that is what they do. Against rival companies and against each other. They use the bottom line as their only gauge of success, both for the companies they helm and themselves personally.

They are trained to extract as much value as they can as quickly as they can. And to have no remorse in doing so.

If they are something more the competitors, how can the demands for bonuses and premium salaries during times of extreme fiscal hardship be explained? Why do they need PR firms to tell them what any one or their employees could?

Leaders are well familiar with the concept of personal sacrifice, why it is needed and how it will be perceived. Leaders know what it takes to motivate their subordinates, beyond the base items such as fear and greed, and push a team to perform even under incredible duress. Leaders have the respect and loyalty of their teams, even when things go wrong. Leaders lead by example.

Can the above be said of most executives? Do our business schools even teach the concepts of leadership?

I would say not. Our society puts a high value on competitiveness and we reap what we sow.

So we use the TARP money for the Auto manufacturers -- what good will that do? Can we afford to keep them on life support until they come up with cars that consumers want to buy?

Who will buy the cars made by the big three in 2009? Let's face it, a new car bought in 2009 or 2010 will be obsolete long before it is paid for. Three or four years from now, cars will be so different from what they are today, old ones will have virtually no trade-in value -- who wants a gasoline-powered car in a hybrid world?

If I needed a car right now, I would buy a good used one, figuring to drive it for three years and write it off. Then I could look at a new, green, fuel efficient car to keep for a long time.

Steve, first, congrats on creating a post on leadership. Long overdue. I look forward to interacting as much as possible.

Leadership is still a very misunderstood word especially in today's business world. It is not just the person at the front of the pack but rather the person who can stand up for what they passionately believe regardless of the consequences.

I think there were many people who were trying to voice their opinions on the current mess long before it became the mess that it is. Much like many similar situations in the past, they were silenced or shunned or made to seem like such naysayers.

Please do what you can to keep the pressure as intense as possible. Posts such as these can make a difference.

Cheers, Robert Thompson, author of The Offsite: A Leadership Challenge Fable.

What they did was too late and too little.They could have sat together with a group of engineers designers and lateral thinkers to come up with solutions for the future instead of coming with salary and benefit cuts(which were badly needed too)The could have come up with fresh ideas on urban public transport(they could make inexpensive cofriedly buses)and a great shift from the present practices in transport They could have put together a team of young forward looking managers/ thinkers/ designers who could have provided a completely new vision for the transport business.Unfortunately they seemed to lacked in vision,high integrity, and a sense of obligation to the society and its future. A system of education which teaches skills (engineering or management )but not ethics(the study of classics or history or the liberal arts is afflicting the US starting with President Bush(an MBA) Clearly deep introspection is called for!And not just in the US!

The question of what more they could have
done is meaningless, all of this talk is
a eulogy. We are attending a funeral and when it is over, we will need a leader, that's right a leader, someone who talks sense to the situation. I don't
honestly believe that anyone that we see or
will see at these services is that person.
I don't know who they are, but I hope they come soon.