GM’s Rick Wagoner: He Clearly is a Sacrificial Lamb, Says Granholm

Granholm made some great points on the today show — encapsulated in 600,000 Michigan jobs lost — the nation’s highest unemployment rate. “This country needs a manufacturing arm,” she says. It’s 3.5 million jobs — steel, glass, plastic and rubber industry. This industry has to survive if this nation is going to survive. It’s the backbone.”

It’s our opinion that demonizing executives is not the way to go. Those in charge are trying to sort through the fallout of layers of issues, and have an understanding of the complex manufacturing process that goes into building cars and trucks. GM’s structural challenges predate this era, and have propped up the global industry. This is not a distinct American issue.

To bash plans and ask for concessions from struggling Michigan based companies does not bring comfort or confidence to those anxious employees and laid off workers, to the family’s trying to determine what their next steps are going to be. What is noteable about GM and Chysler, is that they make good, safe,fuel-efficient products — and that is to their credit. The biggest issue now is that no one is buying cars this year.

These company leaders are not of the same creed as the Wall Street bankers who take billion dollar bonuses and generally appear to be disconnected from the employees who make up their ranks. Their employees look to them to leadership — and disarming their execs doesn’t bring reassurance that someone with an understanding of the issues has a plan. The automotive industry in the US is not set up much differently than foreign subsidies – they use the same supplier networks and compete neck in new. Therefore, the task to fix the American auto industry is much more complex than faulting a bank that knowingly took on bad assets out of greed.

And the depression in Detroit is real. Obama has that right. As one woman who works as an independent consultant to a car company said, “To live and breathe here everyday….it’s terrible. We are in the eye of the storm here and no one can ever truly appreciate that or “get it” unless you live here or are from here.”

Read the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News for the local perspective. CNN anchors can’t wrap their heads around this one.

Tagged as: Automobile, Automotive industry, Detroit, jennifer granholm, Michigan, rick wagoner, Wall Street