Economy

Founding Fathers of Failure – Update

Following up on my Manhattan Magazine essay, there's this atrocity:

DETROIT (AP) — Former General Motors Corp. Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner will retire Aug. 1 with a benefit package the automaker valued at more than $10 million.

A Securities and Exchange Commission filing says the package includes a pension payout of $1.64 million for each of the next five years.

Wagoner can also choose to cash out his company provided life insurance policy at $2.6 million. He also receives $74,030 a year for the rest of his life.

And how many GM workers have been laid off? How deep in the hole is GM?

After decades of closing factories, laying off workers and shifting production overseas, the company now finds itself with $172.8 billion in debt. [...] the "New GM" will close down as many as 20 factories in Michigan, Indiana, Ohio and Delaware. Additional plants in Tennessee and Michigan will be put on "standby," for probable closing. At least 21,000 family-supporting jobs will be lost, as the corporation shifts production to new facilities in China and other foreign countries.

I have nothing delicate to say here. No nuanced analysis. So you'll forgive me when I say:

Yo Wagoner. Up yours.