Wagoner’s out at GM, essentially pushed out by the Obama administration without consult from the rest of the policy makers in Washington (i.e. Congress) as a condition of new government loans.

This serves as nothing more than strengthened evidence of how screwed up our government really is.  At no point in history has a CEO ever been forced to leave through direct consult of the President of the United States.  A company board of directors reigns supreme over the function of the company, and last I checked no one from the Obama administration sits on the GM board of directors.

This is not how capitalism works.  This is not how free markets work.  This is not how a publicly traded company works.

If the Obama administration wanted authoritative power over who holds what position in a company, they should have bought stock and run the CEO and the board of directors straight out of Detroit.  Instead, the government gave the company a loan, which at last check, does not come with any voting rights.

To be sure, Wagoner needed to leave. His leadership was and has been ineffective for the last 5 years with no forward thinking and a complete lack of influence from the corner office.  But to be run out of town by the Government is preposterous.

The punchline to all this came from the joker himself:  “The government does not wish to run an auto company.”

Furthermore, if bankruptcy is an option, as Mr. Obama now states, then why did all that taxpayer money get dumped into the company in the first place?

The next joke will come at the conclusion of the bankruptcy hearings; as repayment of taxpayer money will be forgiven as debt is erased and creditors are shooed away.  All in the name of a stronger and healthier General Motors.

Meanwhile, Ford hasn’t taken a dime.

Business, Finance, Politics bankruptcy, GM, Rick Wagoner