BigDaddyCool

I will carry the banner if no one else will...

Well, it’s finally happened.

When I told Wifey the news she gasped, she couldn’t believe it. She thought it was the most terrible thing that could have happened. But I soon told her that all is not lost and that this is another chance for a fresh start. Wifey was skeptical at first but soon saw the confidence in my eyes, and began to see that all was not lost. “Something good can come out of this” she said to me, “and this could be the start of a positive turnaround” I responded.

No, I’m not talking about something happening to us (although nothing has), I’m talking about General Motors filing for Bankruptcy.

All of us pretty much knew this day was coming and were ready for it, but still, now that it is here it is something of a shock. Remember that scene in “Pirates of the Caribbean – Dead Man’s Chest” when Jack Sparrow faced off with the Kraken? Jack turned around on his ship, The Black Pearl to face said monster,only to have the Kraken roar in his face and cover him with this snotty ooze from head to toe. Jack shuttered for a moment when it was done and he wiped some snot from his face to remark “It’s not so bad, ” found his hat, put it on his head, smiled, and faced off with the monster saying “Hello beastie.”

That’s kind of what GM is facing right now.

The news is not all bad however, according to MSNBC “The Obama administration plans to shrink the automaker to a sustainable size and give a majority ownership stake to the federal government — for the price tag of about $50 billion in taxpayer money.” So that’s the good news – they are not going away entirely, they are simply re-structuring themselves so that they can compete with the Toyota’s and Honda’s of the world. They’ve also been able to re-structure their deal with the United Auto Workers into something that will make the process easier. The union recognized that a smaller GM was better for their membership than no GM at all. That and an additional $30.1 billion of funding from the Treasury Department to support the company’s restructuring doesn’t hurt.

The bad news is that Saab and Pontiac are going bye-bye, Hummer is being sold, and a decision on Saturn’s future will be announced in the coming weeks. So those of us who love and are loyal to the Saturn brand will have to work on our powers of attraction so that Roger Penske, or someone else will buy Saturn and keep the company going. More bad news is that jobs are going to be lost as GM shuts down some plants that will become redundant – like the plants in Pontiac, Mich., and Wilmington, Del., while other plants in Spring Hill, Tenn., and Orion, Mich., will be idled but remain on standby. One of the idled plants will be retooled to build a small car that GM had originally planned to build in China, so there is some good news coming out of this.

Not that you would be able to tell by listening to House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio:

Does anyone really believe that politicians and bureaucrats in Washington can successfully steer a multinational corporation to economic viability? It’s time for the administration to fully explain what the exit strategy is to get the U.S. government out of the board room once and for all.

Some people are just never satisfied, are they? I know that throughout the night I’ll be hearing about how Bill O’Riley, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Rick Santelli and Boss Hogg have a problem with the survival of GM on Countdown with Keith Olberman and The Rachel Maddow Show tonight, but I’ll reserve my judgement on what is to be their sure-fire condemnation of the entire idea and comment on it tomorrow. I can’t wait to hear how Conservative Republicans in Congress with foreign auto manufacturing plants in their states have a problem with this. I can’t wait to hear some anti-job tea-bagger whine about how much he hates the American worker and how he shouldn’t have to pay his salary, before he drives away in his brand-new Mercedes-Benz.

You know it’s coming, it’s just a matter of time.

But lest you think that it’s all bad out there there is some positive spin coming out of this. NASCAR had reiterated that it has complete confidence in GM’s ability to survive. Chairman Brian France has come out and said:

Our hope and expectation is that we will fare at the top of the list as to things you would not want to cut. I believe that to be true. They’re still going to be a company that needs to sell cars and trucks. We’re still the best place in the country to do that from a sponsorship standpoint and the related benefits that you receive.

In other words, win on Sunday, sell on Monday…

Car owner Rick Hendrick had this to say:

The products General Motors offers are the highest quality and most fuel efficient in its history, and I have an unwavering faith in the company’s leadership team and our government’s commitment to support this reorganization. After all of the efforts of the past several months, it’s unfortunate that bankruptcy has become the only option, but we at Hendrick Automotive Group and Hendrick Motorsports are certain that GM will emerge from this stronger and better equipped to compete than ever before. Hendrick Automotive Group can say with confidence that the customers of our 27 General Motors franchises can expect the same high level of care and service that our dealerships have always provided, and that the full range of warranties and parts will be available. From a racing perspective, our heritage is with General Motors. In 25 years together, Hendrick Motorsports has won eight Sprint Cup Series titles with Chevrolet, which has more NASCAR championships and wins than any other auto manufacturer. Since I was a kid, Chevy has represented the highest level of performance. I’ve never wanted to race anything else, and I have every confidence that we will continue to celebrate victories together for many more seasons to come. Speaking for the more than 6,000 teammates at Hendrick Automotive Group and Hendrick Motorsports, it has been a great privilege to be a small part of GM’s rich history, and we are looking forward to an even brighter future together.

Even Michael Moore has chimed in with a blog on The Huffington Post:

But you and I and the rest of America now own a car company! I know, I know — who on earth wants to run a car company? Who among us wants $50 billion of our tax dollars thrown down the rat hole of still trying to save GM? Let’s be clear about this: The only way to save GM is to kill GM. Saving our precious industrial infrastructure, though, is another matter and must be a top priority. If we allow the shutting down and tearing down of our auto plants, we will sorely wish we still had them when we realize that those factories could have built the alternative energy systems we now desperately need. And when we realize that the best way to transport ourselves is on light rail and bullet trains and cleaner buses, how will we do this if we’ve allowed our industrial capacity and its skilled workforce to disappear?

Now I’ve read Mr. Moore’s post and I have to say he does have some good ideas about what GM should do next to not only survive but to thrive. They include using GM plants to produce light-rail mass-transit trains that could be used all over the country, giving the $30 billion to GM employees to help them out during this crisis, use GM plants to build hybrid or electric cars as well as windmills and solar panels as part of President Obama’s new Green-collar workforce. I don’t see a $2 tax on every gallon of gasoline though, I think that would be too much to ask of people who won’t have access to these new methods of transportation for many years to come, especially when they are short on cash to put in the gas tank so that they can go out and find a job right now as it is.

I think that we all know that this is not going to be easy. This is going to be a painful process that is going to put more good people out of work and possibly destroy more families, but it is something that has to be done. General Motors will survive, the Recession will recede, the Economy will recover, people will go back to work, Democrats, Independents and reasonable Republicans will all breathe a sigh of relief and roll their eyes at all of the Neo-Conservative republicans who try to take credit for the recovery and try to convince us that they are our saviors - hoping that we would forget that they were the ones who got us into this mess in the first place!

I for one am going to continue to believe in General Motors even if there are some of you out there who would like nothing more than to see it shut down for good. I am going to continue to carry the GM banner proudly and never forget that they have supported many great people in this nation’s history, either as workers on their assembly line, or on the many racetracks that see action on the weekend. Names like Waltrip, Yarbrough, Foyt, Earnhardt, Gordon and Johnson are synonymous with the GM brand. I believe that we can all slay this monster that casts a shadow over our ship of commerce – and we must fight it together if our economy is to survive. So, hoist the colors and say it with me…

“Hello beastie…….”