MMR: GM & The Star Tribune

A quick Monday rant. Two rhetorical questions: 1. Why does GM suck so badly? 2. Why does the revised Minneapolis Star Tribune (print edition) seem like it’s one Ranger Rick shy of being a copy of Highlights? Signs that America is burning...how are we coming with the lead linging in the aquaducts?

General Motors is a national embarrassment, much like our current president. Do I sound unpatriotic? I think Jefferson said something about the blood of patriots must be drawn if rants are to be leveled against institutions that dilute the American dream. Am I even close? Where was I going with this one? Oh yeah, GM has become a dark joke. General Motors is still years behind design, quality and price standards set by other automakers (primarily Japanese). Saturn, which was to become the modern, break-all-the-standards car company turned out to be little more than the outlet/off-the-rack shop for poor GM designs.

The execs, product mangers and designers should be embarrassed by the way they have diluted US pride and patriotism over the past thirty years. From Andy Rooney (yes the goofy old guy from 60 Minutes) "Consumer Reports tested a lot of cars and gave their highest reliability rating to 31 of them. Of those 31 most reliable cars, just two were American. The other 29 were Japanese. Of the cars that were least reliable, 22 were American made." God bless America!! Mission Accomplished. A light on the top of the factory.

At almost every turn, a company that was once great, lost its vision, its purpose and lost touch with customers. As a fan of the true free market (not the corporate welfare, good-old boy entitled economy that drives the US economy) I love this lesson. As a fan of cars and of America, I’m embarrassed. GM, clearly demonstrating that they had little to offer other than some faux emotional appeal to buy American (or the terrorists will lose…something like that.). FU, GM. I wish that the execs would get what they deserve, but unfortunately, they’ll continue to spread bad business practices elsewhere. So, the market is shaking out some dead weight. The GM model could be very similar to the airline models. I wonder if MBA students are still allowed to have hard-ons for the captains of industry that have floundered in the US auto and airline industries. For the record, case studies are over-rated. Both industries became bloated, lost touch with customer needs and had no ability to predict trends.

As a side note, the advert in the Yahoo article (linked in the title), based on my cookies and settings called up the Chevy Red Tag sale ad. That’s funny. While our company is going down the shitter, you may consider one of these finely tuned vehicles.

Regarding the Minneapolis Star Tribune, what’s up with its new, easier format? I was reading a print copy on the bus today and was afraid that folks would think "oh, how endearing that retarded guy is trying to read." The paper seems that it is geared for second-graders. Anyone in charge of marketing at the Strib, please tell me why you’re trying to drive away customers. As a consultant, I’d love to take your money to make you do sillier things with your paper.