Look, I'll be honest, the real reason President Obama fired Rick Wagoner was because Obama wasn't invited to fellow Chicagoan Henry Warnimont's birthday party. This stuff happens. See my Carlos Zambrano review. President Obama had been waiting for the call all day long, and when it finally rang, and he was told the news that he couldn't go to the party, Rick Wagoner stepped in. He essentially told him to 'get the fuck out.' Turns out President Obama's allegiance to the White Sox had something to do w/this. See Warnimont goes w/the Cubs.

Obama overstepped his bounds once again. Any firing of any CEO is the job of the Board of Directors and Stockholders not Barry Obama. Since Obama arrived inflation is up,foreclosures are up, unemployment is up . Obama needs to get his own act together before lecturing anyone else.

So Rick Wagoner was a bad CEO and that explains all of this? That excuses socialism and Obama's trampling of the Constitution?
Good....then this new Obama lemming at GM, who is only making 1.3 million/ year at tax payer expense, should be the answer.
The problem with the big 3 is and has been a combination of profane union greed and government interference. What has happened to the U.S. auto industry since CAFE standards were first imposed by big brother in 1975? Fast-forwarding to the future, some Disagree-happy troll tell me what sacrifices the unions are making now that his lordship, our Emperor, Obama has taken over GM?
Yet, the answer, according to some here, is that we didn't have enough regulation. Amazing...truly amazing.
As to Wagoner....yeah...GM was really kicking ass before him huh? Now he has been replaced according to the dictates of Obama and his cabinet- a group of wanna-be's who couldn't put water in a radiator; yet they know what is best for GM.
And Chrysler...if they will just agree to merge with Fiat, then that foreign company is guaranteed 6 billion dollars of our hard-earned money.
Geeeez.....thank god for his lordship...Barack Hussein Obama.

As I predicted, Obama is doing what his corporate owners tell him to do.

In Wagoner's defense, GM cars are much better than they used to be, but the public is still convinced Japanese cars are a better buy, even though they cost more.

It will take time for perception to catch up to reality, and if it's OK for our tax money to be used to bail out failing businesses, then why shouldn't there be some strings attached?

(I personally think the whole thing is a boondoggle... another capitalist wealth re-distribution scheme... designed to take money from the working class and give it to the ruling class.)

(slightly off-topic) UPDATE:

http://tinyurl.com/c39zof

There used to be an old saying, back during GM's better days; "as GM goes, so does the nation". What does it say, then, about our country, that the President of the United States has asked GM's CEO to step down for the good of the company? Given this event, it seems as if our nation is headed towards more top-down control of our economy. Our country (and GM) is in very bad shape.

Look, there's no doubt that GM's business model is a failure. In 1980, GM had 46% of the market share in the automobile industry. Today it's down to only 19%. What caused this? Poor product quality, labor unrest, and poor cash management practices all contributed to GM's ultimate downfall. Everyone wants to blame Rick Waggoner for this, but the reality is that this has been a trend that has been gaining steam since at least the 1970's, when the American auto industry started feeling competition from foreign competitors who offered higher quality and more affordable products.

In a management course I once took, I read an article that discussed the differences between the big automakers production methods. One American manufacturer, I believe it was Ford, claimed that their goal was to reduce the incidence of faulty parts in their inventory down to 25%. When a Japanese competitor heard of this, they claimed that there goal was to reduce their inventory of defective parts down to 1 or 2% and that they were reasonably close to that goal. It's that emphasis on quality that differentiates American car producers from the foreign competition. It's going to require significant investments in new production methods just to get GM and the others competitive again. Considering how cash-strapped GM is at the moment, and how difficult it is to get capital for such an ambitious goal, it probably would be smarter to put the company into bankruptcy protection, thus allowing them to reorganize and get the capital they need at a decent interest rate to rearrange their operations. Doing this would make them more leaner, with higher production standards.

The first problem that needs to be overcome at GM is a corporate culture that's sort of resistant to change. In this case, necessity might be bringing things to a head. Is Obama the right person to head up this shift in corporate culture? NO! The Board of Directors should have taken the lead with this. That the government is getting involved in GM's operations is yet another troubling development in the nascent Obama Administration. The government simply pumping more money into their operations to satisfy their cash flow needs for the next quarter is not a satisfactory solution to the problem. And not to mention it is fundamentally anti-free market. They need a long term solution that will make them viable again in a reasonable amount of time. That's why bankruptcy protection is the only solution here. It will allow them to reorganize their management fully and get their financial house in order. Doing this would be a lot of cheaper and more effective than bailing them out, like Obama wants.

Great, so they can tax us how they please and now they can fire people, too. Can you tell how thrilled I am about the new direction we're taking?

Poorly phrased listing/question. . .

It would be a bigger story if this guy would've kept his job.

As far as I'm concerned, the Board of Directors should have fired the underachieving, incompetent sonofabitch a while back.

Update: So I guess the disagree voters must think he did a hell of job for the shareholders, losing money every quarter and devaluing their assets. I'd love to hear the defense of this guy's business acumen.

The real shame is Obama had to do it. Most importantly it shows that when you take money from the government you WILL be accountable. GM should have been trying to do something about their situation long before they had to ask the government for our, the tax payers, money. To continue to show the lack of improvement now is unacceptable.

I don't think there are too many people who would argue that GM should have continued with their recent leadership. There probably aren't too many people either who want to see the President of the United States making decisions for private businesses either. However, if GM is going to request and accept funds from the federal government, then I think it is definitely reasonable for there to be conditions as part of that kind of deal. Hell...back in September(Republican administration) the Secretary of the Treasury insisted that AIG's CEO step down as part of their bailout deal. I don't see what the difference here is.
Barack Obama didn't "fire" Rick Wagoner. GM could have kept him on, although they would have hurt their chances of receiving more federal funds.

This is big. This is noteworthy. Who figured that the POTUS would have the same authority as Chairman Mao, Brezhnev, Krushchev and the rest of the central planners?

"O, wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in't!"

That it took the President of the United States to dislodge this guy from his career of losing billions of dollars every quarter is a testament to the weak oversight the board of directors really has in most multinational corporations.

Since Obama took office, we've seen one heavy handed government action against the private sector after another, this move today is not surprising whats so ever.

Liberal dumb asses view these power grabs as separate actions (Obama's just trying to fix the economy), one can't possibly tie them all together and conclude that something else is going on here.

Obama and the federal government signed off on a bill (without reading it-or applied any oversight) that handed over hundreds of billions of dollars to AIG and other financial institution's. The automotive industry, (OEM's workers, suppliers, dealers) who in the last 100 years have paid nearly 60 trillion dollars in taxes to this sorry excuse for a government... were asking for a (LOAN)

The sad part about this for me is...now I'm working for Obama :(

All hysteria aside, a major creditor that was stepping in to realize on their security, or a trustee that was appointed to oversee on a default would probably have taken the same measure. If he and the board and the executive staff didn't see it coming, I guess that would be be part of the story right there.

I dont like the idea of the government and or the president taking control of auto makers and banks (if that happens). In all of history I never heard of a president taking that kind of action on a coroporation or company himself? Seemed like a power trip thing. On the other hand I feel like the CEO of GM should be fired. We can't just keep thowing money to GM and other companies and they have not been showing results. Maybe this will teach other struggling auto makers GMs that their days are numbered if they dont take more action and shake things up to start profiting again. Get rid of the cars you been designing. Lower interest rates, make better deals, Create newer and better models that look good and get about 40 miles to the gallon at around 15,000-20,000 a pop. They would start selling like hot cakes. What ever he was doing, it wasnt working.

It doesn't surprise me to see investors attach conditions to their investment - and a leadership change is often the first condition on the list, especially for a company in as dire straights as GM.

OK, I was nervous and scared before. Now, I am outraged. The Community Organizer-in-Chief just fired the CEO of GM. If you don't think you'll see more of this incredibly audacious sabotaging of private US companies, you are kidding yourself or a pom-pom pumper for socialism. Who, in the entire US government, is qualified to replace Rick Wagoner at the helm of what was once the Holy Grail of Ameican free enterprise?

Whoever voted for this fearless yet clueless dim bulb should be the first to lose their jobs as the American economy spirals down to a grinding halt. I know it won't work out that way, but it certainly should if there were any justice in the world. Tell me again he knows what he's doing and that you trust his judgment.