Gm's Argumentative Essay

It is the instinctive wish of most American businesspeople, even those unlikely to be directly affected, that General Motors not go bankrupt. True, some people will say, "They had it coming to them." But the majority will be more practical, telling themselves that the company is so central to the economy, so sprawling in its commercial reach, that bankruptcy--"going into chapter," as restructuring folks say--is ominous almost beyond contemplation. And yet the evidence points, with increasing certitude, to bankruptcy. Rick Wagoner, GM's 53-year-old chairman and CEO, may say, as he did in a January interview with FORTUNE in his aerie of an office high above the Detroit River, "I know that things will turn around." But he cannot know that. He may not, deep down, even believe it himself.
Bankruptcy isn't going to occur next week. But down the road--say, past 2006 --its probability is high. That point of view seems supported by the
Describing the company as a "sclerotic bureaucracy," he says a good remedy might be firing the top five people and replacing them with outsiders. A less acid form of criticism has been laid on by the camp of Kirk Kerkorian, whose Tracinda Corp. owns just under 10% of GM's stock. In January, Kerkorian's advisor Jerry York, a turnaround veteran himself (at Iacocca's Chrysler and Lou Gerstner's IBM), gave a long luncheon speech at the Detroit auto show that accused GM's executives of lacking "urgency" and "sense of purpose." York's reason for growling: Kerkorian's losses, about $172 million of them realized at this point, with the rest--another $223 million--sitting as unrealized losses on his books. York and Wagoner have talked about York's going on the GM board, but--as of early February, at least--they had not had a meeting of the minds. Maybe, one might guess, the Kerkorian camp has wanted both board representation and complete freedom to sell its