Curtains For GM?
GM has been in decline for a long time. In the scope of corporate life cycles, GM may be in the final decline. Getting hammered in the domestic market, the world’s largest auto maker was outsold by Toyota. An aging workforce, huge pension debts, and UAW woes have all but ruined the balance sheets and it still faces four more years before nearly half its hourly workforce will be retired.
Now if a $39 billion tax related loss in the news is not even enough to kill share prices more than a few percent, nothing will. This is not the first time GM has had to declare losses in this industry and each time, they have dumped their losses, watched share prices dive only to come back in the ring swinging. I do not think that will be the case this time. Sure, a fighter may come back into the ring with a few final gasps, but most of them do not make the big comeback. GM will probably be the same. They will shed more divisions in fire sales and spin-offs, maybe even do some more cost-cutting (which seems to be a never ending battle to begin with), but after all is said and done will GM still be the same company?
What can be said of a company who has been outsold in their own domestic market by a foreign competitor? Then GM has the guts to compete with the Asians in their own markets? I think its time the GM management and the US Congress think about this: come back home and work on getting things straight here and let the world worry about its own problems.
