An Excerpt

"Let us make no mistake. The structural flaws we have begun to confront in the last year have endured for decades across expansions and contractions alike. The only variable has been their visibility. Our industry has destroyed billions of dollars in value, and we have been at that task year after year. The financial crisis that peaked in the last 12 months did not cause the problems we face. It unmasked them-laid them bare-and deprived us of any pretense for denial. The grave danger of this moment is that we retreat into denial once more-that we mistake a better economic climate for better business models.
The cliché is correct. A rising tide lifts all boats. But if only temporarily, a rising tide lifts sinking boats too-and if it deludes their captains into believing their vessels are seaworthy, a rising sea can be even more dangerous than a raging storm. If we succumb to that delusion, the tragedy will be a double one-for not only will we hasten the automotive industry’s decline, we will also deprive the substantial suffering our industry has endured of any purpose.
The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once said that “what really arouses indignation against suffering is not suffering as such but the
senselessness of suffering. And a crisis that does not result in enduring changes, in fundamental changes, will have been very senseless indeed.
That is the peril of this moment. The crisis compelled us onto a path of restructuring and reform. And if we persist, I am convinced it will be a path of rebirth as well.
That is the choice-a temporary uptick that defers our demise, or an enduring renaissance that delivers value to customers and shareholders alike. And that choice, in turn, depends on the choices we make in several key areas that are now in flux. They begin with what can be, in times of recovery, a seductive temptation-growth on paper rather than growth for a purpose-growth that inflates numbers rather than growth that drives value. The choice is this: Automakers can get bigger in order to look better. Or we can get bigger because we are better.
Consumers have told us bigger isn’t necessarily better for cars. It’s true for companies too. Growth must create value rather than attempting to be a substitute for it. That’s a simple fact of which our industry lost sight years ago. Our industry has embarked on M&A sprees and excursions into other businesses. We have consolidated brands and consolidated companies and consolidated the consolidations. Yet most of these efforts were geared toward size alone-which is precisely why they’ve failed. They made automakers into rambling ranch houses onto which one room after another was added-with no rational architecture uniting the whole. Our industry got into businesses we did not know how to run, and in doing so, we created clumsy bureaucracies that impeded innovation in what should have been our core expertise: making cars that consumers want to buy."

Sounds a lot like Lee Iacocca.

The very first things he did at Chrysler was sell off the subsidiary companies that didn't build cars.
Then he focused the best assets of Chrysler on producing saleable products.
This is how you produce profits, yes. But is is also how you create jobs. Real Jobs.

Very encouraging news. Thanks for posting



roadster with a stick