Many people have railed about General Motors management over the years, including me. Their management sins,however, pale beside those of the state of California. Try these on:
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- What if the UAW contributed millions of dollars each year to the personal account of the GM CEO, and/or to the personal accounts of the CEO candidates, right before contract negotiation season? (jail time) Yet the California prison guards union does exactly that. They contribute--to candidates for Governor--millions of dollars per campaign, and then that Governor negotiates their labor contract. Wonder why the pay and pensions for prison guards are double (triple?) what they should be? Wonder why the cost of the prison system in California is one of the many budget breakers?
- There's more; read on:
- What if GM reported revenues for FY 2009 for shipments that actually occurred in 2010? (jail time) Yet the new California proposed budget-fix does exactly that; delays payments from the 31st of one month to the 1st of the next and calls it savings; the media calls it a gimmick--it's not a gimmick it's fraud.
- What if GM had a bank covenant that required it to have $10M earnings in a given period, but instead they broke even and made up the difference by borrowing $10M and called it earnings? (jail time, bank default). Yet California does that; balances its budget (a constitutional covenant) via a loan-debenture and declares it a day.
- What if GM was in a declining revenue state and burning cash faster than they could even count it, but had one division that, while already being a cash sink hole was still spending like a drunken sailor? (fire the CEO-did that; go into bankruptcy-did that). Yet California's state university system has a $50+M bureaucracy in Oakland and a Board of Regents large enough to choke a T-Rex, overseeing individual campuses that are fully self sufficient on their own. And one campus, UCLA, knowing for years that cash was being drained launches a highly expensive NYTimes and LATimes (dozens of repetitions, full pages) ad campaign with absolutely no discernible purpose.
- There's more; lots more
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