Senate Banking Committee Chairman Dodd Tells GM CEO To Move On. Maybe Dodd Should Move On.

I have questioned for years on here whether Rick Wagoner, the CEO of GM, has the ability to navigate the final phases of GM's turnaround but Wagoner is far from the absolutely awful CEOs that have destroyed the banking system. Most of whom are still employed and even collecting piggish bonuses courtesy of taxpayers. It's not even close. In fact, the issue GM deals with at this very minute has little to do with its long term viability and is almost entirely the result of a collapse of the economy due to the credit crunch. That has absolutely nothing to do with Rick Wagoner. That is exclusively the fault of the banksters who have destroyed our savings and stolen our money while doing so. GM does have a long term management issue it needs to deal with but let's keep the issues in focus. This issue before us is one that is going to bankrupt every major auto maker around the globe without some type of intervention by their respective governments or by some miraculous economic turnaround. In fact, before this mess unfolded we wrote that luxury auto brands will likely suffer the greatest hits. That means European auto makers are going to likely feel disproportionately more pain as this environment unfolds.

It might seem totally implausible today but without cash injections there could come a point in time where auto makers must sell excess auto capacity at losses of some substance simply to free up the cash flow they need to keep the doors open. That capacity could be inventory or it could be brands. You remember the game?

Since Senator Dodd has served on the Senate Banking Committee for quite some period of time and oversaw the deregulation and resulting collapse of our banking system, Dodd has substantially more direct responsibility for this crisis at GM than Wagoner. Maybe Senator Dodd should do the right thing and resign since he is calling for Wagoner's ousting. In fact, I vote that the banking and finance committee membership in both houses of Congress resign.