Actually, I'm fine that Obama's forcing Rick Wagoner to leave as a condition of further Washington aid to GM. But I'm totally with Barry Ritholtz: how come Obama gets tough with GM's management, but does nothing to force out CEOs of banks and other recipients of TARP money, which costs taxpayers vastly more than the auto industry bailouts? Why does Vikram Pandit (or Ken Lewis, or [fill in the blank] still have his job, but Rick Wagoner doesn't?
Tells you who runs the country, doesn't it? Over to you, Simon Johnson.

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You should be FAR more exercised that we're bailing all these companies out, that have no plan to survive on their own, like GM, and the government then trying to micromanage.
Government or politicians looking unfair, unwise, exhibiting poor judgement? Wow, that's like, THE PRECISE NATURE OF GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS. Why be surprised? Focus on what's real... That we've had 4 decades of runamok government, and now that it's destroyed the country, we should... you know, like... UNDO IT. No matter how the lefties whine and cry and scream about the "poor". All this runamok government and its meddling in myriad things brought this calamity upon us... why should we listen or, or even ACKNOWLEDGE the ones who even now insist that more of the same poison is the cure?
Oh, and lest you think that I'm defending Wagoner... Ummm... He can join the soup lines for all I care. As far as I'm concerned, both GM and Ford's management have been rushing for the cliff for years.
Don't let anyone fool you. Ford has been making noises about "not needing a bailout", but the fact that they HAD cash in the bank was due solely to them borrowing like a fiend before the credit crunch hit home. They're in debt up to their eyeballs. And warning they're seeing their cash cushion evaporate, too.
The only one even close to being in a sane position at this moment, is Chrysler, who started re-structuring themselves not quite two years ago, after being split off from Daimler. Neither they, nor their management company Cerberus, saw the credit crunch coming like it did.
Obama needs to make a direct statement about the "why" because it all the media is talking about.
Maybe Obama is learning from the bank bailout mistakes. A large portion was under Bush and Paulson. For example:
Merrill Lynch Bonuses 22 Times The Size Of AIG
Dennis Kucinich sent letters to top Treasury officials today, questioning how much they knew about bonuses paid to Merrill Lynch executives that totaled $3.62 billion.
Kucinich points out that unlike AIG, the bonuses were not locked in by preexisting contracts and were performance bonuses, as opposed to retention bonuses.
The Merrill bonuses were the equivalent of 36.2% of TARP monies Treasury allocated to Merrill and awarded to Bank of America after their merger.
The bonuses, awarded mostly as cash, were made only to top management at Merrill. To be eligible for the bonuses, Merrill employees had to have a salary of at least $300,000 and attained the title of Vice President or higher.
BOA did not disclose the details it possessed about the Merrill bonuses and the unusualness of the timing of those bonuses to its shareholders prior to their vote on the merger.
GM's Rick Wagoner is leaving with $20M Retirement
Well, it should concern us all that Obama is far exceeding his presidential authority in telling a company who can work there and in forcing someone out. And also creating a position for a 'pay czar' his words not mine.. So the government will now dictate to companies what they can pay their employees?? REALLY???
I have a real problem with the government putting its fingers in all the pies--insurance and car companies, banks, etc. This is a huge power grab and it is leaving us without a Republic form of government, but dropping us into socialism and perhaps further into marxist type government. Which by the way, Europe is slowly waking up and moving AWAY from.
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