From the San Jose Mercury-News:
General Motors Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Rick Wagoner is stepping down after being asked by the Obama administration to relinquish his position at the helm of the largest American automaker, people familiar with the situation said Sunday.
Wagoner's departure comes on the eve of President Barack Obama's scheduled presentation of his strategy for the U.S. auto industry. The president has said he wants to help the struggling industry and is providing fresh short-term aid but faces mounting opposition to bailouts of businesses and industries.
GM did not confirm the news or comment on who might succeed Wagoner, 56, a GM lifer who became the company's chief executive in 2000 and chairman in 2003.
But Obama told four Michigan members of Congress on a conference call Sunday that GM President and Chief Operating Officer Frederick Henderson would run the company for the time being, according to a source familiar with the situation. Henderson has been carrying out the company's restructuring on a day-to-day basis and knows the task force leaders.
While his cabinet appointments and his Treasury department have been an embarrassment, Obama, who has no experience whatsoever in running a private business, let alone one so large as GM, thinks he can put GM in the black.
Obama said earlier on Sunday he believed Detroit's automakers could become competitive. "We think we can have a successful U.S. auto industry," he said on CBS's news show "Face the Nation."
"But it's got to be one that's realistically designed to weather this storm and to emerge at the other end much more lean and mean and competitive than it currently is. And that's going to mean a set of sacrifices from all parties —- management, labor, shareholders, creditors, suppliers, dealers," Obama said.
While there may be a public shaming of some high-level officials, such as Wagoner, the two groups most likely to pay in the long run are a. the taxpayers and b. the car-buying public. On this last group, what incentive does the federal government have to provide the sorts of automobiles that customers want and, moreover, what makes them so smart that they can run the entire American auto assembly industry in an efficient manner (as well as the health care industry, the education industry, etc.)? Methinks that these smart people need to read I, Pencil.