E-M8 Entrepreneurial Management for Eternal Mission

I am all in favor of support for big three US Automotives, to help them design more efficient cars. Except, the big three are Honda, Nissan and Toyota. And they already make efficient cars. They manufacture more cars in US and use more American made parts than GM, Chrysler and Ford, who have been offshoring the production for quite some time. A typical “Jap” is 75%+ American made, whereas a GM often has less than 50% in American components. So, if we are serious about supporting American production and American jobs, we should avoid giving money to General Motors for sure.

General Motors, with its history of mismanagement, employees who care more about their benefits than about producing quality product, expansive and ineficient processes, complete misunedrstanding of market needs, disregard for their obligations to society and lack of purpose, is a dinasaur that should be allowed to die. There are a few areas of GM that are worth salvaging, like Volt and Vue, but in reality, most of the organization is a rotting corpse that encaurages bad practices and mismanagement throughout American industry.

Let’s face it, GM will never create any more jobs, no matter how much money is poured in to that organization. If we want to support GM’s employees, we can create a bailout program that would pay to retrain many of them to work in industries like healthcare, nanotechnologies, bioengineering, robotics, heavy machinery. I am even OK with the bailout money being used by the individual plants to buy themselves out and operate as independent businesses. Since the individual plants may be able to survive, where the whole company fails.

On the other hand, companies that are startups that develop better technologies, such as Indian TATA (air powered car) or San Francisco based XP Vehicle (inflatable low weight car), or Honda (hydrogen powered fuel cell) would create more jobs than proping up the old dying giant.

 A comprehansive redevelopment plan for Michigan would do more to revive their economy than all the cash injections in to the Big (but quickly shrinking) Three.

I just hope I don’t have to write the same article about Harley Davidson 10 years from now. They yet have plenty of time to get their act together and start building the motorcycles that people don’t have to chop.

What are your thoughts? I’d love to hear some suggestions that will actually help the rust belt reinvent itself.

P.S. The domestic produced car sales in October is GM: 69k; Toyota: 65k; Ford: 41k; Honda: 34k; Nissan: 34k; Chrysler: 25k; according to Wall Street Journal. Since Japanese (due to emplying TPS) are more likely to use American made parts, the actually represent an even larger segment of American employment. The numbers for Trucks do boost Ford and Chrysler, but in a grand sceme of things, it’s time to recognize that the big three are no longer three.