Nardelli and You....

I got this email from my friend Bill today. Bill worked many years for his father's company that was sold to Home Depot a few years ago, and now spends his days trading the money he got from the buyout. He doesn't think much of HD or it's management....and he probably didn't think this would show up on my blog, so he didn't spend much time on spelling, caps or punctuation. He is referring to Robert Nardelli, current CEO of Chrysler and former CEO of HD.

What a success story- passed over for CEO at GE because of being a moron BUT!- becomes ceo of hd and spends 39 billion in acquisitions which are sold 3 years later at 8 billion-shit canned at hd with a package of 168 million to walk out the door. becomes ceo of Daimler and us as taxpayers are being asked for 10 billion (on top of the 25billion loan from congress) so they can marry up with gm who has had a failed business model for 50 years and he will walk with another 76 million

The bailout of the financial industry is an unfortunate necessity, forced on us because the entire economy is dependent on a functioning financial system. To bail out GM and Chrysler is just plain pissing away money. These loser companies, badly managed for years, lacking in leadership, creativity and innovation, want our money in hope that combining the two of them will somehow turn around their decline. While the financial crisis may be driving the final nails in their coffins, they have been headed for bankruptcy for about 4 years, since the price of gas hit $2.

The US auto industry has been run by chimpanzees for years (that is probably not fair to chimpanzees!). These guys all think the same, and still have not changed their mindset of 40 years ago: that big cars are the only cars worth building, and that foreign car companies are just interlopers they can get their friends in the government to drive off. Funny, but those foreign companies may have lower profits this year, but they are not on the brink.

Bankruptcy was created for companies to re-create themselves, and that is where we should let these dinosaurs go. Only then will they take the measures necessary to turn themselves into 21st century companies....or, go extinct. Either way, giving them taxpayer money is wrong on every level.