1265 An Open Letter to Mary Barra

1265 An Open Letter to Mary Barra

Dear Ms. Barra,

First, heartiest congratulations on becoming the CEO-Designate of General Motors.

But you’re already facing mischaracterizations in both the general and the automotive press.

Everyone seems to be saying it’s “great to have another woman”as the head of a fortune 500 company.  They compare you to Meg Whitman at HP, Indra Nooyi at PepsiCo, and Ursula Burns at Xerox. A computer maker, one of many. A soft drink maker, one of many.  A photocopier maker, one of many.

They fail to grasp that you are about to lead the single most important American company in the single most important American industry.

Or are you?

Generally, the title “CEO” is preceded by a phrase, usually “Chairman and…” or “President and…”

You are neither.

The new chairman will be Big Ed “I’m phone guy from Texas, what do I know about the auto Industry?” Whitaker. The new president will be Dan “bolt counter” Ammann, the financial guy.

So, CEO, without one of those pesky traditional titles.

You probably can handle these men, largely because your hands are going to be all over the real stuff: design studios, the engineering labs, the dealer franchise network, the production line.  Probably.

But allow one suggestion?  You have made a point of saying a goal is to not produce “crap cars,” of which you have plenty.  Thirty years ago, Lee Iacocca in taking the reins at Chrysler said “you can’t revive a car company by shipping crap.”

Everyone knows how that worked out.  Or, ask anyone with a Plymouth.

Today, you and Chrysler are in a race to the bottom of the reliability ratings and you won’t get there only because Ford’s touch screens and EcoBoost engines are worse than yours, Smartfortwo cars are still sold here, Fiat… great ads, not so great cars. Mini Coopers. Volkswagens.

Your appearance on Fortune Magazine’s CNN Channel said much more than all of the Blah blah about women on top.

You’re as Midwestern as wheat.  You’re an engineer in a job that should be held by an engineer.  But even more than that, it looks like you know what to do to get this monstrosity of a company back on track, a place it hasn’t been since before you were born.

Some specifics:  

1. Chevy.  When you drive down the Eight Mile and there’s a brand new Malibu coming in the opposite direction with only one headlight on, that has to be unacceptable.  Someone discontinued the Aveo, the worst bucket of welds you made since the Nova.  A welcome mercy killing.   The Volt: Bob Lutz is a great car guy and the technology he promoted will serve you well… some day.  Just not today. The Silverado: half your customers would rather have a Ford F150 but bought your version instead because they don’t like Bill Ford’s support of gay rights.  Others would rather have a Ram, but don’t trust Chrysler/Fiat.  These are not good reasons.

2. Buick: inconsistent. Some are pretty good, or even good. Others, not so much.  Harley Earl’s “doctor’s car” once was nice for people who wanted something like a Cadillac, but not a Cadillac.  These are grandpa cars.  But modern grandpas want simple. And touch screens are not ready for prime time.  Even worse, they’re a terrible distraction.

3. Cadillac. Gorgeous.  But too complicated. Mechanically unsound.  You can’t compete with Benz and Infiniti, Lexus, Audi, Porsche and BMW without being better than they are and you’re not.  Please fix.

4. GMC:  they’re just re-branded Chevys.  Why bother?

5. Dealers: do you really want this bunch of glad handing, plaid jacketed phonies as your link to your customers?

You don’t need focus groups, marketing bull sessions, the endless committees until you have mastered the basics of what we need in transportation:

Every car, every time, should:

1. Start when you tell it to.

2. Go when you tell it to

a. as fast as you tell it to

b. but no faster or more suddenly.

3. Stop when you tell it to.

4. Perform 1-4 thousands of times and for more than a decade per unit.

Ms. Barra, we know you know all this.  Please just remember we do too.

I’m Wes Richards.  My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2013

1264 The Bat Belt, the Sound of Music, Ed Koch Remembered

1264 The Bat Belt

Ever notice what a cop wears around the middle?  It's the nearest thing to Batman's Utility Belt that you can find in the real world.  Gun, baton, ammo, cuffs, two way radio, cell phone, and other secret cop stuff that we don't have clearance (or authority) to tell you about (not even the emergency spare donut case.  Oops.  Told you.  Top that with pockets full of keys, summons books and who knows what-all else, they could send the belt and uniform to the gym to work off some of that weight.

The stuff they carry must weigh a ton.  But we civilians are fast approaching the uniformed police for the carrying of gear.  And while still mostly optional, we're getting big around the middle and all the expansion comes externally. 

Think about it.  We carry a cell phone, maybe even two of them.  After all, you want to separate business and personal calls, don't you?  Many do, hence, two cells. One of them may also be a smartphone, hence, email on the go.  Email at the restaurant.  Email and text messaging in the car. Or on an airplane, or trapped inside a mine shaft. Email, telephones and texting in the bathroom.  (See Wessay #330, "Death Knell for Newspapers," 12/7/07.)  There are computers at the office, computers at home, computers everywhere.  Also at home, you have at least one land line or cable phone.  Back to your belt:  you have an iPod, a set of earbuds for it.  Maybe you even carry a radio or a CD player.  The only thing missing is a TV set, and that's only because your Sony Watchman broke and no one will fix it.

Most of the communication stuff is two way.  The phones, maybe a walkie talkie to keep up with your kids.  We have more, better, cheaper, cleverer stuff than the US Army in World War II.  We have more personal communication gear than the moon-landing Astronauts.  We can "talk" with someone ten thousand miles away as easily as someone around the corner or standing next to us on the subway.

So, how come so few people respond to e-mails anymore?  Or return calls?

Old excuses don't work.  "I never got your message" once was a legit excuse.  Not now.  Voicemail has become technically so efficient that one almost never loses a message.  Email often used to vanish into cyberspace.  It doesn't do that a whole lot anymore.  (You can hit something on the keyboard and an unsent message may explode, but that's a different story.)  

So why?

Because secretly, we all have this stuff just to have this stuff.  It's kind of like smoke alarms.  We hang them up (the new religious icons?) and we hope never to have to use them.   But if the fire inspector comes along and asks if you have one, you have one to display.

Same with the cell phone array and the accompanying chorus of Blackberries.  They're not really tools of communication. They're talismans.

Shrapnel:

-- Fresh from its ratings success for “the Sound of Music,” NBC is planning more live musicals.  Let’s hope they find a better cast for the next show.  Carrie Underwood was abysmal and so was her response to critics, “they need Jesus.”

--Ed Koch as I remember him:And Ed Koch as you remember him:

On the eve of what would have been his 89th birthday, 12/12. (pics LaGuardia Community College; Findagrave.com)

I'm Wes Richards.  My opinions are my own, but you're welcome to them.®

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

an earlier version of this appeared in 2008 and is here now because the staff is either sick or on a holiday break or both.

©WJR 2013

1263 The War on You Know What

1263 The War on You Know What

Here’s an important key to power for all you guys with power envy.

Oh, wait. Before that, let us be the first to wish you a Merry Christmas!

Yes, it’s not for a few weeks yet.  But before the war gets going full blast, let us reflect on two things that are going on around America.

Back to the power trip:  Find a phony fear-fired threat and fight it. We don’t have the Soviet Union anymore.  We don’t have the Communist Party anymore.  So, we find something to make the low i.q. crowd (which is a big chunk of the electorate) quake in their Santa boots.

With more than two thirds of the population identifying Christian, what’s the war about?  It’s about power.  This war includes battles against religious displays on public property.  Only now, it has a name. Used to be the uprising was bumper stickerized “Keep Christ in Christmas.”

A noble thought.

But now those same “keepers” are saying boycott the stores and companies that Keep the Commercialism in Christmas because those places are making war by substituting "happy holiday" for Merry Christmas.

Scratch a Jew, a Muslim, a Hindu or an atheist and do you find a warrior?  No.  You find a Jew, a Muslim, a Hindu or an atheist.  And do we demand that you don’t mention the holiday by name?  

Of course not.

Power in fake victimhood.  Power in stirring the fear that your fruitcake will become an endangered species?

Creches and Menorahs have no place on public land.  But there are worse things that go on at City Hall, more important things that have no place on public property.  Like bad lawmaking.  So for a few days or weeks a year, what’s the problem?  You live with voter i.d.,  you live with “no parking this side.” You elect boatloads of disgraceful incompetent governors, mayors, council members, congressmen, drunks, thieves and such.

You find a big 3-D baby picture offensive?  Look away. Sitting there, inanimate, it will not do you anywhere near the harm of the disgraceful and incompetent.

Shrapnel:

--Turns out that Mandela was on the US terrorist watch list until 2008 because of his militant stand against apartheid.  Let’s see… he was already 90 years old in ‘08.  Must have been one terribly powerful dude, just not powerful enough to carry his dry cleaning home without help.

--Newspapers and websites around the country are on a manners bender.  No more anonymous personal attack comments. Civility is always nice, but the comment sections sure have dulled down.

--The Amazing Susan Boyle recently announced that she has Asperger’s.  That’s unfortunate for her because that’s a difficult condition.  But it has no effect on the beauty and power of her voice, which is fortunate for the rest of us.

Grapeshot:

-Ford Motor must have a new public relations guy because all of a sudden, everyone’s writing about the new Mustang.

-Good PR is good for business, but someone better find a way to fix up Ford’s so- called EcoBoost engine or at least give customers a copy of Get Out and Get Under.

I’m Wes Richards.  My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2013

1262 Where's Our Nelson Mandela

1262  Where’s Our Nelson Mandela?

It was no surprise, but it was a shock, learning Nelson Mandela had died.  You know that reaching the age of 95 is a life threatening condition. But when it actually happens, it stuns.

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We all know his story.  Freedom fighter. Pacifist who turned to violence and spent 27 years in jail for his trouble, emerging in triumph to lead his country from its insane policies, which he called “racialist” with that big rolling R.

Walking from behind bars in a chaotic parade seen ‘round the world, he stood at a fork in the road.  One side led to black-white rioting.  The other to relative peace, equality of opportunity, desegregation and economic recovery.

All he had to do was nod toward one tine of the fork or the other and that’s where South Africa would have followed him.  He picked the correct path.  And if you need any evidence that he did right, you need only look at the crowds in Johannesburg and Cape Town to see that those who mourn are equally composed of black and white.

One term as president and he went from jailbird to rock star.

In the runup to Mandela’s release, much of the world was on a South African pulverization bender.  Sanctions. Boycotts.  And it wasn’t just America.  We had plenty of real allies in that one.

Many European WWII refugees had enormously mixed feelings about the boycott.  While hating the “racialism,” they had found homes in South Africa when much of the western countries were limiting the number of escapees they’d admit.  South Africa’s stand then was “All you have to do is get here and you’ll have a home.”  

But no sane person accepted apartheid as moral or normal or acceptable.  

South Africa is far smaller than the United States.  And it lags behind us in every useful measure.  Except one.  It found a leader who could unite a very divided country and clear a path for people with strong and opposing views to work together in their own interest.

We could use some of that here.

When you look at the United States today, you’re seeing a large and complex country and -- for the moment -- the only superpower, drowning in stubborn petty destructive and unnecessary fights over minutia.

So, where is our Nelson Mandela?  Is there someone out there who can do for us what Mandela did for his country?  Is there anyone among the more than 300-million Americans who can take us away from all this?

Or is that just a pipe dream.  Are we too big, too ungainly and too far down the wrong path to turn this mess around?

A lot of us thought Barack Obama might be that person.  At least we thought so in 2008.  When 2012 rolled around, that thinking had changed dramatically, but we gave him a second chance… probably since the opposition reminded so many of a spoiled, hormonal teenage girl in a business suit.

But Obama is not Nelson Mandela.  Which is our loss.

I’m Wes Richards.  My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2013

1261 What Ever Happened to "Do Not Call"?

1261 What Ever Happened to “Do Not Call?”

We all quickly grew tired of those sales pitch phone calls.  For awhile, it seemed that some NSA-like secret organization knew exactly when you were about to sit down to dinner and rang you.

The “do not call” list was supposed to stop most of that.  It hasn’t.

All those call centers with all those autodialers weren’t going to be stopped by some stupid law.  They just changed the way they pitched things.

So now, you get a lot of calls from people conducting “surveys.”  They’re “not selling anything.”  Yeah, right.

There are and always have been exceptions to the law.  Politicians get a free pass.  So do companies with which you initiate business.

With the surveys, the exceptions and the law breakers, the rate of incoming baloney has slowed but not stopped.

And now they call your cell phones.

Cell numbers are unlisted.  So how do they know your number?  They don’t.  They dial random numbers and may hit more paydirt than they miss.

Tangent:  You used to have to pay extra for an unpublished number.  Now, every wireless phone is unlisted.  No extra charge.

Quiz: why do the phone companies do that?

(a) because it’s too much work to provide a cell phone directory.

(b) because half the cell phones in America are “throw aways?”

(c) because there are just too many phones?

(d) because they’re lazy?

(e) because you can get the numbers from pay-per-use websites?

(f) all of the above.

The correct answer is (f).

Some of the modern callers give you a chance to “opt out.”  They’ll tell you “If you no longer wish to receive these calls, press 2.”

Don’t do that.  What pushing 2 does is tell them that a live body answered the call. Proof that you exist. (I push two, therefore I am.)

Talking Caller I.D. is a beautiful thing.

When your telephone tells you “call from 305-368-8870” and you don’t recognize the number, you can decline to answer.  The caller will not leave a message.

Tolerate this.  Chances are the autodialer will hang up if you don’t answer by the second or third ring.

Sometimes, though, the calls are fun.

A friend received a call for a state office seeker from New Jersey.  The friend does not live in NJ.  And the automated call was made a week after election day.

Shrapnel:

--Jim Lovell was aces and he was one of the four people who died in the derailment of the Metro North train derailment in the Bronx the other day. Besides being aces, he was a husband and father and a union brother. The other three were James Ferrari, Kisook Ahn and Donna Smith.

--We disagree with columnist David Brooks when he says --tongue in cheek -- his three month absence from the pages of the New York Times was “an act of amazing public service.” But we agree with his assertion that politics has become a form of tribalism and occupies too much brain capacity in too many people.  And we agree with him when he analyzes the primary purpose of government and concludes (our words, not his) mental infrastructure.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them.(R)

Please address comments to wesrichrds@gmail.com

© WJR 2013

1260 Unsafe at Every Speed

1260 Unsafe at Every Speed

Let’s think some about safe cars.  

This is a relatively recent concern.  Today, we have ABS brakes, 40 airbags, seat belts (of course) child seats. crumple zones, padded everything.  Most of this is standard equipment.

Go back a few decades to, say, 1956 when Ford built door locks that wouldn’t fling you out of the car in a crash.  Ford had a lousy year in 1956. Safety didn’t sell.

Even earlier, the Tucker Torpedo with all kinds of safety features got torpedoed by inferior competitors that leveled trumped up charges of stock fraud.

But not killing yourself in a wreck has come of age in the “me generation” and there’s something to be said for that.

What you haven’t heard is that your life as a resident of the United States and/or Europe is worth more than a life in, say, Nicaragua or Honduras or Mexico.

The American car manufacturers all have plants south of Texas.

The cars they make there are used there and also are exported all over the world.

They have the same marques. They have the same styles.  They have the same models. Sort of.

The American brand cars made in Mexico and shipped to the US have all the safety features of their Detroit siblings.

The American cars made in Mexico and shipped to Europe meet all the safety requirements there.

The American cars made in Mexico and are offered for sale there and in other south-of-the-border countries do not.

According to a recent Associated Press report, those cars carry “special codes” that mean anti lock brakes, electronic stability controls and most airbags are “not necessary.”

Earth to Mexico:  You have almost no vehicle safety laws.  Your citizens and residents pay approximately the same amount for a car as we do up here.

You are saving the auto companies a fortune as your accident fatality rates shoot up almost as fast as your drug lords and their customers shoot up.

Too much shooting up in Mexico.

It’s obvious you can’t do much about the drug lords and the gang murders.  But while your legislators are hiding under their desks, they still can pass safety regulations.  And the cops can enforce them without the fear that goes with stopping drug traffic or the payoffs that allow that traffic to sail north.

When Ralph Nader wrote “Unsafe at Any Speed,” about the hazards of the Chevy Corvair, GM had already taken steps to stop the car from overturning even when shut down and unoccupied.

But Nader brought attention to the problems of safety and made auto safety a selling point.

You buy the Ford OJ Simpson special in Mexico, chances are it won’t have the same number of airbags as the one you buy in Mylar Springs, Ohio.  It should.

So where is Nader when you need him? Probably off thinking about how he can screw up another presidential election.

Shrapnel:

--At least four killed and dozens injured in a train derailment in the Bronx.  Almost everyone who’s anyone shows up at the scene to be seen and maybe even to answer a question or two.  The governor, the police commissioner, the fire commissioner -- but not the mayor.

I’m Wes Richards.  My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2013