I'll Tumble 4 Ya

Oh Boy George.....errrr...I mean, oh boy, George.  What a mess you left for us.....

The stock market fell sharply again today, and, as I read the news from Wall Street this afternoon, the music and lyrics from the BG classic just popped it into my head, a comical rejoinder to more bad news from downtown.

Then, shock of shocks, it turns out that Rick Wagoner, the now-deposed chair at GM, was a Harvard B-School classmate of mine (so says the NYTimes).  Thus, my closest known contact yet to The Catastrophe!  Can't say that I remember Rick (or he, me) or ever attended a class with him.  Sounds as though he was on the corporate finance track while I was twiddling my thumbs in marketing, production management, and such.   Does this bring shame or distinction to our class?  Not sure.  Let's go with distinction......

The Obamites get muchos kudos in my book for trying to do something constructive about the auto biz, this festering sore on the American landscape.  Firing Rick?  Well, I've suggested in previous posts that the guys who brought us to the brink may be just the ones whose inside knowledge is helpful to achieve the turnaround we want.  But, if firing is the order of the day, how about asking the head of the UAW to take a tumble 4 ya, too.  This dance unto near death that we have seen in Detroit is a product of decades of collaboration and collusion between Big Auto and Big Labor insofar as the cost structure is concerned. 

Today's announcements included the news that the IRS is drafting new tax rules to allow for the deductibility of certain kinds of auto purchases.  Hooray!  BobOnARoll has been blogging about this idea for months.