They should be kicked out. What other companies can continue to give un-sustainable wages and benefits, come to Washington begging for help because they are almost OUT of money, and have NO BUSINESS plan, could remain in the DOW ?
GM has lost an astonishing $72 billion in the past four years on Wagoner’s watch – including $51 billion before the crisis hit in 2008.
What other country pay their workers nearly $100/hr (pay & benefits), laze about without impunity, retire in their 40’s or 50’s?
WHERE?
TAKE A !#$@* PAY CUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!
IS THAT SO HARD? THE AUTO COMPANIES ARE NEAR BANKRUPT.
There are alot more important people than those auto execs that don’t fly around in private jets. !#@$!
This is why I am against BAILOUTS. These people don’t get it! There’s no compromise with these people. No logic or sense. They only want!
They’re the one’s that show up starring at the bolted gates of the closed plant, wondering what happened and crying about their years of service.
No one owes you nothing. The company is not your daddy to take care of you. Grow up! Be an integral part of the company and mind the store.
WAKE UP! BUILD A BETTER PRODUCT and the american public will come, wholeheartedly. We do not want to subsidize your ineptness.
DON’T BLAME THE AMERICAN PUBLIC FOR THE DEMISE OF THE AUTO PLANTS. THE BLAME BELONGS SQUARELY ON THE BACKS OF MANAGEMENT, UNION, and WORKERS.
They can’t see the forest for their STUPIDITY and GREED!
How can we possibly save the financial industry & not to want to do the same for a manufacturing co. that’s been a part of our landscape for over 150 yrs. Where’s our pride in Made In America. GM was on the right track before the gas & tight credit market turned all car companies into a tail spin.
Only in America would we destroy a multi billion dollar industry and hand it over to the a foreign nation.
When 3 million Americans lose their jobs, they should look at their foreign car driving neighbors.
Anywhere else on the planet the people would be quite angry slashing foreign car tires if not torching them outright.
I am TIRED of the BELLY-ACHING!
THIS AIN’T WELFARE! I am not responsible for maintaining the generous lifestyle of UAW employees and their families or anyone else.
Tell that to your UNION. In fact, instead of pleading for more pay and benefits, you should have pleaded for a better ran companies TO PROTECT YOUR JOBS.
The UAW RANK AND FILE SHOULD HAVE INVOLVE THEMSELVES AND INSISTED ON COMPETITIVE CARS! When you see employees or management doing the wrong thing, benefits out of control; SPEAK-UP!
Job protection is more than pay and benefits. There is no us vs them (management vs. employees). It should have been about the COMPANY! What’s good for the company is good for ALL!
THE UNIONS AND MANAGEMENT NEED TO PRESENT A PLAN TO THE COUNTRY ON HOW THEY WILL COME TOGETHER TO FIX THEIR MESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Otherwise, let bankruptcy fix it or not!
I am not talking to those regular employees, I am talking about those CEO, Managers and all engineers and UAW. I wondering why those people knew they are facing with a tough compititive with foreign cars for many years and they have not done anything about it. Folks, please ask for yourself if you do enough homework like foreign engineers does or you folks just lazy and waiting for your pay check every 2 weeks and don’t care about your children future ? Do you ever ask yourself why Toyota, Honda cost more than American cars but the customers keep comes back and buy more and more everyday ? Are those employees needs the Union in order to make a good car? how much they get pay? You folks knew the answer, Right? I think you folks needs to sit down and find a better way to get out of this mess, remember to work harder that the bottom line.
I am a contract employee of GM going on 7 years. Ive seen a lot in my short time here. Its the same old good ol boy syndrome around here. People get hired because of who they know, how long theyve known them etc. I see people sleeping on the job in the plants. Hi lo drivers drinking beer in a dark corner and hopping back on the equipment. People sent to rehab only to get their jobs back because they are Union protected. On the other hand – my dad gave GM close to 40 years of his life. He relies on his pension. He relies on benefits to keep him healthy and refill his pain meds from injuries sustained on the job. My feelings are 50/50. GM fed my family my entire life. I provide a service to them and in return I feed myself. Do I think the entire economy should suffer? No. But I think the govt should step up. Hold them accountable. Demand action plans and long term goals of how they aim to become profitable, build fuel efficient cars so when I drive an hour to work one way my pay check is not lost in my gas tank, and preserve our environment. And when they dont deliver – make them pay for their short comings. If the govt is willing to allow the economy to go downstream, then they need to give us some hope and tell us what they are going to do to put us back to work and the plan needs to work. The problem is: time. It all takes time. time to fail and time to rebuild. Everyone needs to take a bit of the blame here. From the auto industry CEOs,the govt, the assembly line worker.. We all have short comings. At the end of the day – whats the right thing to do for the country. Not for one individual. For everyone.
I personally know a guy who worked for Ford. He retired 10 years ago in his 40s. (shameful) He brags he receives almost his entire pay and benefits sitting on his butt. Before that, he spent more time off-work due his manipulatins of union job-protection benefits.
Currently, he is a fat-cat, laughing all the way to the bank.
I would love to see his benefits eliminated. He young enough to work. I do. These benefits are ridiculous. I do not want my tax dollars going to shore-up these outrageous benefits of tired, overburden dinosaurs (companies) who act more like a great welfare fraud ring than a business.
KICK THE BUMS OUT!!!
Failed leadership in the free market shouldn’t be supported with taxpayer’s dollars. The auto industry should fall. Out of the ashes of their ruin, like the phenoix rising, others will step up to claim the market share.
Removing GM today is the obvious thing to say. But replacing it with Toyota does not make sense for two reasons. #1 America is not Toyota’s number one market for cars as compared to the rest fo the world. #2 you talk about level playing fields. Although never really proven it has been hoghly speculated that the japanese governments supports Toyota. If the US gov’t took a stake with a bail-out you would want to remove GM how can you replace with a company that most observers believes already receives Government support.
Speaking of governemnt support, it was announced today that Citi got a $25B injuection from the Fed’s. At it’s closing price of $4.71 that left it with a market cap of $25B. How much of a stake did the governemnt receive for its injection?
I don’t believe it wise to be making adjustments to the Dow when basically the entire American market is suffering. Picking out one company seems to be a difficult thing today in today’s reality.
I think the big 3 should file Bankruptcy all on the same day and put America on it’s hands and knees and get it’s ATTENTION!
WAKE UP our nation is TANKING can’t you people see this!
Cut the CRAP Washington: WE NEED LEADERSHIP…NOW! That’s NOW!!!!!!!
You to UAW… you had a good run but it’s time for REALITY!
Enough is ENOUGH! We don’t have much time left We are right at the BRINK!
of a total collapse!
The DOW should represent U.S. industry and should therefore be made up of major components of the U.S. economy. GM supports over 2 million jobs, and therefore shoudl stay. You can’t keep pulling bad companies out of the DOW, otherwise it will just be a beauty pageant for successful U.S. companies and have no relevance to how the U.S. economy is functioning (this assumes that share price is a good indicator of corporate worth)
No Gm should not be removed from the DOW! GM will be back and be back strong. With the measures GM has put in place that will take effect over the next year will make GM the major force in the autombile industry again and other companies will be changing to be like GM. Everyone talks about how great Toyota is, do some research and see how good they are or not. Chevrolet (23.36 mpg) as a whole is numer 3 (this includes their trucks and suv’s) in the nation behind only Mini (27.66) and Honda (23.81) for fuel economy in the nation. Toyota was number 10 (21.6 mpg). So much for being the best. This is based on the EPA and Department of Energy data. The person who wrote this article should do some research about the the car business before he jumps to a conclusion like this. If GM goes away or Ford either this recession will turn into a long depression.
Reading these comments by the public and articles by media conveys an important aspect of today’s landscape – that there is a strong lack of understanding, loyalty and sense of nationalism regarding the economic climate. What is the intention of this article? Is this the real concern, whether GM is part of DOW? The last time I checked, we are all on the this ship together. Those that choose to take a superiority stance on the condition fail to grasp the real concept, that we as a country are on the brink of a very difficult, potentially irreparable diversion to the way of life we’ve come to enjoy. Joining together, conveying optimism, loyalty, strength and seeking to fully understanding the underlying issues may not solve the problem, but certainly opens the path for a more productive discussion of how we can keep this powerful ship afloat.
No ~ it should stay there. It is indicative of the actual state of US economy. Removing it is just a denial of our financial crisis right now, cause by those greedy companies who prey on the greedy and ignorant people who lived way, way beyond their means. Now, even the innocent ones are victimized by these greed. NO TO BAILOUT. Let the greedy ones (companies & individuals alike) fall and fall hard!
Brilliant! The solution is more of the same. Change the perception rather than the reality…it’s so much easier. Heck, we should do this for our public schools also. Take all the lowest performing children and kick them out of school and **tada** we have a competent public school system! This idea has been the cornerstone of the Bush Administration and look how well that has worked out. Just because you don’t have any answers to a problem doesn’t mean that the answer is to alter the question.
Hopefully, this economic downturn will “displace” people with ideas like these that has sent the country into a “confident” downward spiral.
Yes — GM should be removed from the Dow — GM should file bankruptcy and start reorganization for the future. If they emerge and become a viable company again they could be added back.
You can polish and shine a terd up to your heart’s content, but the bottom line is it’s still a terd.
Remove it from the Dow, Shoot… I say remove it as a JUNK stock, period. You don’t invest money in failures…and the US auto makers have all became just that, failures. When you have to say, our cars are just as good…let me repeat that, JUST AS GOOD, as a Toyota… then common sense says to buy the Toyota to start with. Superior products, survive the free market, mismanaged companies that produce products, JUST AS GOOD AS, die out. It’s the free market, it’s the way it’s SUPPOSED to be.
well, … no.
GM is representative of what is happening in the US economy, now isn’t it?
just because we don’t like what is happening is no reason to ignore the inconvenient truth that some portions of the American economy have BIG troubles.
Keep GM in ! It’s a true indication of how sick the US economy is. Or maybe we can just replace it with a stock that may be up (if you can find one), and we can “make beleive” we’re all doing real well. Wake up !
Bush’s press secretary says Bush isn’t responsible for the Auto Industry’s predicament. It is another ingenuous remark from the White House. The Foxes (Financial Institutions) who raided the ‘Hen House’ (USA Wealth) have left the crippled hen (GM) in the hen house and now will not lend money for that hen to recover. These are all policies that the Bush Team including Paulson have promoted to make themselves personally wealthy! I say, support the Auto industry and make the Foxes bring back the stolen wealth!
Ken got it right! And it is just that simple.
Right or wrong, we look at the Dow to get a quick and easy look at how the overall stock market is doing. GM is dying and so is the stock market, thus the Dow NEEDS GM to correctly indicate what is happening in the stock market.
So now Dow 7K is the new target- Wow. I have a theory about the bottom. We have reached a bottom when Paul turns bearish!
A major American corporation is about to fail and your main concern is… to get it kicked out of the Dow of course! As long as we make the numbers look good, who cares about reality, right? You’re not even going far enough. Why not kick every single Dow component out and replace them with companies that thrive during recessions? Let’s fill the index with pawn shops, liquor stores, gun makers, card box manufacturers, and so on… Dow 36,000 here we come!
It doesn’t matter who is a component of the DJIA. It is a horrible index that doesn’t accurately depict America’s economic, even now. The subject of this article proves my point! What happens to comapanies when they don’t deliver earnings or are looking weak? They are kicked out of the Dow and replaced! If we still had the Dow Jones components of 20 years ago, we would already know we are in a depression and potentially headed for economic collapse. Look at what they did when AIG when bankrupt, they replaced it with Kraft foods! That’s right, Macaroni & Cheese now defines the industrial might of the U.S. Economy. The Dow is going to go below 5,000 and then some for anyone searching for the truth. This country is finished and a global and financial superpower, the next crises that evolves over the next 5 years will be a treasury bond market massacre and a serious devaluation of the dollar in the foreign exchange markets. As an american, I hold the Federal Reserve responsible for inflicting irreparable damage to our country. And I blame neo-con liberals for hollowing out the industrial might of America in the name of Free Trade.
Abolished the Fed before it’s too late!
Peace,
Of course Paul is ready to bail on anything real. DJIA should reflect the overall economy not just the happy news but your all about spin not substance.
Yeah La Monica, let’s cover up the whole stinking, white-collar gambling system with less disclosure and less transparency. Americans, especially wealthy ones, deserve to have a Dow that moves up only. Risk in capitalism? Please, that’s so passe a notion. Thanks for keeping the rich and powerful happy with your pandering journalism. If GM is not a leader in US auto manufacturing, which of the big three are? C’mon Paul, don’t you read the news? The US Media is screaming that the Big Three US auto manufacturers (including GM) are so vitally important to US economic health that if US taxpayers do not immediately bail them out, Americans (who?) are toast! Go drink some more coffee.
Interesting that many arguments before congress suggest that the auto industry is a major and important part of the US economy, and so should be bailed out, and now we come to terms with the fact that they may not be worthy of being in the DOW.
Seems kind of like a drug company replacing study participants who are not doing well in drug trials with healthier ones, “to better represent the potential” of the drug under investigation.
What does a psychology major with a bachelor’s degree from an Ivy school who lives in Brooklyn know about General Motors let alone business. Looks like the writer has spent his entire career writing about business. Let’s hear from someone who has real business experience instead of these Ivy League pundits and prognosticators who want to see the extermination of the Industrial/Manufacturing base of this country,
Isn’t making the rules up as we go along what got us into this mess? The news might not be good, but the index needs that indication if the overall economy is not good, and GM is as large a component of our economy as any othter. Until they are in bankruptcy or bailout mode – they operate today as they did 10 years ago and should be reported on accordingly. If we stop shielding ourselves from bad news until there is no where else to run, maybe we can address these matters earlier in the cycle and prevent some of these losses from being so catastrophic.
Hmmmmmmmmmm, this is a tough call huh? I must be set in my ways, but I do believe we can not ahng on to aging markets, and certainly Autos are not going to be something the average American will be able to afford in the next decade. Us poor people will keep fixing the ones we already have, this was part of the plan long ago, most people will need some form of mass transit and soon, this is where your emerging market will be. Trains and personel transporters will be the new way to get around.
But for GM too soon to drop them from the listing, lets see where they are come 2nd quarter 2009.
(Do you have a job? Well a lot of people do not, help someone down on their luck and donate to your community food bank.)
I would like to say this as nice as I can and also get my point across. GM has had their head in the sand for a long time, did they not see the competition coming in and eating their lunch. If I run my company in the way that they have I would deserve to go broke.
9ML a year in salary factored in with a number of unions wolfs, what do you expect? Let them restructure to become profitable, let them show us that they do in fact know what they are doing. I WOULD NOT GIVE THEM A DIME
How can you people be saying that the automotive manufacturers are an irrelevant sector of the US economy?
How many cars do you have in your garage? Or better yet, why do we still build houses with garages if the auto industry still isn’t an integral part of everyday life and the American economy?
I agree with Ken from MO. The Dow is supposed to represent the US economy, not some fantastical delusion of reality.
So your solution to replace GM, a US automaker which is STILL the market leader in its sector, is Toyota, a foreign company which is still number 2 in its sector, in the DOW which only includes US companies that are leaders in their segments? Seems like terrible logic to me. Market capitalization be damned, GM is still the world’s number one producer and seller of automobiles. Until it gets toppled from that position by another company that meets the DOW’s entry requirements, it deserves that spot on the DJIA.
GM has become an anachronism, obsolete, and should be out of business. Manufacturing in general is NOT what the US should be doing–let other countries do that, and we will lead in all other arenas.
Remove GM from the DJIA and replace it with something relevant to the US economy today – definitely not a car manufacturer since it is clear that US car companies are no longer leaders in the automotive field.
Toyota is a poor idea for a choice simply because the DJIA is supposed to be an indicator of the US economy, although it’s not a very good one.
I’m not sure what to pick to replace GM, but it’s time to acknowledge the truth that the auto industry is becoming increasingly irrelevant and will continue to do so. Perhaps pick up a major publicly traded hotel/hospitality firm?
I think the idea that the DOW does not need to be “US based companies only” is severely wrong headed. Part of what the DOW tells us is how market/equity positions are doing for US companies.
Why do we need to take GM out of the DOW other then because we don’t like the low numbers? Why do we want someone like Toyota other then because they are healthy and look like they might help pull the DOW up?
Leave GM in until they actually stop existing. Leave the DOW to reflect how business is doing in the US. And if what it says is that US manufacturing is in the toilet, then listen to what it says. And try to change the fact that it represents. Not change how it looks.
Oh yes, we are talking US Corporate structure. It isn’t who you are, its how you look.
Make it look better and we will all have our confidence restored and everything will all be ok again. After all, it was never about real health of manufacturing, it was only about confidence anyway.
ack ptooy!
Yes please. There are several stock more worthy to the Dow. I think they don’t do that yet because they’re affraid the stocks will crash
No, they represent the true economy, not the pie in the sky, make believe, fantasy economy financial writers are always harping about.
I’m gonna go with No, it shouldn’t be removed. Why? Because, even given its current turmoil, what happens at GM is still rather indicative of what happens in the rest of the US economy. Remember that for the last century, the US economy has focused on manufacturing, particularly of automobiles. Without that industry included, you would no longer have a good indication on the total standing of the US economy.
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NO, NO BAIL OUT FOR GM, AND WITH THE ADDED MARKET SHARE, FORD WILL PICK UP A HUGE MARKET SHARE AND WILL HAVE THIER PROBLEMS SOLVED WITHOUT A BAILOUT OR THEY MAY NEED A SMALL BRIDGE LOAN TO BE READY FOR THE INCREASE IN DEMAND, BUT THE TAXPAYER’S MONEY WOULD BE SAFE AT LEAST.