From "a highly theoretical point of view," the right decision might have been to "let Chrysler go," Rattner said
Peter Whoriskey -
WASHINGTONPOST - Oct 22, 2009
Will GM and Chrysler get off life support? --Ed.
The loss of GM and Chrysler would have cost more than a million jobs in the short run and pushed unemployment rates in several states above 20 percent, Rattner said. Moreover, because GM was a global company with the second-largest market share in the United States, "we soon could not imagine this country without an automaker of the scale and scope of General Motors."
"Everyone knew Detroit's reputation for insular, slow-moving cultures," Rattner wrote in Fortune magazine, in a piece also published on Wednesday. "Even by that low standard, I was shocked by the stunningly poor management that we found, particularly at GM, where we encountered, among other things, perhaps the weakest finance operation any of us had ever seen in a major company."
Making matters worse, the company's business plan "evinced a state of denial," the board was "utterly docile in the face of looming disaster," and the company's leaders blamed everyone but themselves for the automaker's quagmire, Rattner said....
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