Ingrassia On GM's Bankruptcy

On Tuesday, I wrote this post commenting on Paul Ingrassia's revealing book review in the Wall Street Journal. On a related note, yesterday's Wall Street Journal featured a long editorial by Paul, an old squash partner of mine, and Journal veteran, entitled The Lessons of the GM Bankruptcy.

In the piece, Paul wrote,

"Yet there were plenty of warnings. A dramatic one came in a January 2006 speech by Jerome B. York, who represented the company's largest individual shareholder at the time, Kirk Kerkorian. Unless GM undertook drastic reforms "the unthinkable could happen" within 1,000 days, predicted York (who died recently). As things turned out he was a mere 30 days off."

Well, if being early on predicting GM's demise is remarkable, consider this post from October of the prior year, in which I wrote,

"Judging from where GM and Ford appear to be putting much of their energies these days, I’d say we’re going to be shy at least one major US-based car manufacturer before the decade is out. It may involve a merger among onshore rivals, if Congress is afraid to let so many UAW workers lose their jobs at once through a total financial failure of GM or Ford. But I'm willing to bet there will be one less automotive CEO in Detroit when 2010 dawns."

I admit to not having fingered GM by name, but I believe I was more sanguine, earlier, about a bankruptcy of one of the two, with GM the more likely candidate.

Then I wrote this post in July of 2008, in which I penned a sample letter of resignation and closure of GM by then-CEO Rick Wagoner.

It's not clear to me that you had to be Jerry York to see that GM was heading for real corporate death at accelerating speed. I think Ford was right there with them, except that they had the luck and courage to hire Alan Mullaly before they followed GM into Chapter 11.