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GM CEO Barra Lied To Congress: Docs Reveal She Knew About Steering Problem Years Ago
Despite her vehement denial of knowing anything about the ignition switch problems at GM (until late December, early January), documents revealed by the Energy and Commerce Department show:
- *GM'S BARRA TOLD OF STEERING PROBLEM IN 2011, DOCUMENTS SHOW
- *DEGIORGIO SAYS COST FOR ALL COBALT MODELS WOULD BE $10 EACH
We are sure the lawyers will be carefully crafting her PR response to this disaster but as Chairman Fred Upton notes, "There is still much left to examine and we will continue to
follow the facts... These initial documents revealed failures within the system." It seems this was the last straw for the hedge funds (GM is the most widely held) as the stock is dumping.
As Forbes noted,
A recurring theme in the investigation into General Motors delayed response to a safety risk associated with faulty ignition switches is why the chief executive, Mary Barra, didn’t know about the problem earlier and do something about it.
She was, after all, the head of global product development before she was CEO, and held a series of engineering and staff jobs before that.
“You’re a very important person in this company,” Sen. Barbara Boxer, sounding incredulous, told Barra after reading portions of her resume at a hearing this week. “Something is very strange that you don’t know about these things,” said the California Democrat.
And now...Bloomberg reports,
“These initial documents revealed failures within the system,” House Energy and Commerce Committee Cmte Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mi., says in statement.
- “There is still much left to examine and we will continue to follow the facts”
- GM CEO Mary Barra told of steering problem in 2011, according to documents released by cmte
- NHTSA sought investigation of Cobalts for airbags in 2007
- GM engineer Ray DeGiorgio said it was “impossible” to modify switch
- *GM IN 2005 SAID IT SAW NO ISSUE WITH COBALT AIRBAGS: DOCUMENTS
- *GM IN '07 SAID IT SAW `NO SPECIFIC PROBLEM' WITH COBALT AIRBAGS
- *COBALT AIRBAG WARRANTY RATE MORE THAN 9%; FORD RATE WAS 2%
- *NHTSA SAID IT SAW A PATTERN OF AIRBAG NON-DEPLOYMENTS
- *DEGIORGIO SIGNED OFF ON NEW IGNITION PART IN 2006
- *DEGIORGIO APPROVED NEW GM PART WITHOUT NEW NUMBER: DOCUMENTS
NHTSA...
- *NHTSA INVESTIGATOR SAID GM WAS `SLOW TO ACT' VS OTHER COS.
- *NHTSA INVESTIGATOR SAID IN 2013 GM IS `SLOW TO COMMUNICATE'
Here is the email that shows Barra knew of the problems in 2011...
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Everyone lies to congress.
Congress is a flaccid and impotent institution.
US taxpayers already own GM via Obummer. Do you really think he will stop golfing to care?
She lied? So what, she has a vuhgina!
That will be the standard response when Hillary is President!
She is now easily replaced.
Now this is some tech I can really get behind (or in front of).
"Scientists grow viable vaginas from cells"http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/4/11/scientists-grow-viableva...
Damn. I could have just had a scientist grow one for me. Would have saved a lot of my life and money with one of those over marriage.
"What difference does it make!"
- Billary 2016
You only get in trouble for lying if it is about steroids. Duh, everyone knows that.
pods
That's right. Only the most important things are focused on when it comes to lies. Gotta keep the circuses honest and all.
“You’re a very important person in this country Sen. Boxer, Something is very strange that you don’t know about these things,”
Good movie.. even considering the libs…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emKcqBql4rs
The real question is how many Congressmen knew of this problem and said nothing when GM was still owned by The Empire.
Q: How many GM executives does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A: I'll get back to you on that...
She lied!?! To CONGRESS!!?!? It cost people their lives???!!!!???
No worries, Eric Holder will have her behind bars in hours!
Er..., no, wait a minute...
A harsh $25 fine and new lobbying position await.
I used to (half-jokingly) pump Hyundai cars here, also in part to provide some verbal support for our Korean bearing suppliers -- and so stability for them (and us) if Hyundai prospers.
Now I wonder, will Hyundai come and pound the snot out of GM?
Hyundais are fine automobiles. If anyone buys a Hyundai, they will not be sorry. They are a good value.
GM makes nothing I want to own or drive and as Fred Sanford said, "There ain't nuthin uglier than an old white woman."
GM makes nothing I want to die in.
(1) The US has sold its entire position in GM, so the premise of your comment (and its 13 upvotes at the present) is wrong.
(2) I thought it was an ignition switch problem she was testifying to Congress about?
She was in charge of the 3 divisions in old GM where the problem was smoothed over and ironically 2 of those 3 groups are now bankrupt. 1979 GM all over again, all we need is a politico (carl ??) to go all Ralph Nader on their ass.
At best ? GM gets to settle and she resigns
At worst ? GM please guilty to criminal intent and a class action RICO is thrown forward which puts GM back into ch 11.
Your 'at worst' is actually best.
Well that was a short career.
Gotta blame someone for this whole fiasco. Welcome to the CEO revolving door Ms. Barra, now go ahead and take one for the team.
Then sit back and enjoy the scenery as you float down on your golden parachute.
Short career? Why, I'll bet she receives a bonus for this!
I am thinking that if she were to walk into IHOP, they would probably even give her a free pancake.
Exactly, hell even the US Attorney General admittedly lied to congress; just think about that a minute.
Congress lies to everyone too!! So there!!
"Everything the state says is a lie, and everything it has it has stolen." — Friedrich Nietzsche
Uh oh, she's a female too.
Jail time !
She and Blythe can be bunk mates.
No, I think Large Marge would be better.
Miffed;-)
If she donated to O-bomb's campaign, she should be good to go.
Engineers keep notes, and everything.Stupid to scapegoat them.
Re: Engineers keep notes, and everything.
She'll just say she never reads e-mail from engineers in the Trash Class because she has "people" who do that.
In one of my favorite jobs, I was required to keep an Engineering notebook, in case I came up with a patentable idea...
When in Rome...
yeah but, isn't she in a tax bracket that allows her to lie to congress?
That depends on the deductions listed from her campaign contributions...
BARRA, MARY
NOVI,MI 48375 GENERAL MOTORS COMPANY 4/22/11 $1,000 Stabenow, Debbie (D)
BARRA, MARY
NOVI,MI 48375 GENERAL MOTORS/SENIOR VP 9/30/11 $1,000 Camp, Dave (R)
BARRA, MARY
DETROIT,MI 48265 GENERAL MOTORS COMPANY 8/30/10 $500 Dingell, John D (D)
BARRA, MARY
NOVI,MI 48375 GENERAL MOTORS COMPANY 7/27/10 $500 Stabenow, Debbie (D)
BARRA, MARY T
NORTHVILLE,MI 48168 GENERAL MOTORS 9/26/13 $1,000 Peters, Gary (D)
And another $15,000 to the GM PAC
+ 1, sleuthing!
Those are some cheap bastards from Michigan.
Introducing the bipartisan Camp-Stabenow "Protection of Domestic Auto Company Executives from Unfair Questioning Act".
Is she Lerner's BFF?
So far thats 13 counts of murder one.
So when is Michael Moore going to call for her to face the death penalty?
Right after he goes to Cuba for stomach-bypass surgery.
Michael Moore debut My Little Pinto
"At this point, what difference does it make?"
lying is the new american diplomatic policy
She should have just blamed the weather
Question of the day;
Why is it so god damn hard for the people that inhabit this level of society(private & public) to tell the truth?
There is not a day that goes by that at least one article on ZH makes me shake my head.
The secret of success is duplicity, the secret of happiness is self-delusion about your own duplicity.
Morals are for the children. The people who make it to the top have to have enough duplicity to get there, which makes them adults.
Duplicity or psychopathy ?
psychopathy. It's rampant.
http://www.fastcompany.com/53247/your-boss-psychopath
Well, those born lucky have both.
<-- barra unda da bus
<-- free corzine
it's okay, she's on her learner's permit. She's still in training.
GM should have hired a more sympathetic victim to throw under the bus.
Like Kermit the Frog.
A female black toad would have been enough.
Anyone who thought she wasn't lying at the time has not been paying attention.
You know that funny thing truth?
According to a few fucking idiots posting on the Telegraph UK, you lot are unverified, unchecked, of no value targets for the establishment.
Especially one cunt by the user name of Paul Weighwell.
Make me laugh.
You lot arent hitting a nerve, you are braying the fucker with a sledge hammer.
Keep the fucker up.
:-)
Her lawyers need to talk to the ones that defend big banks and government execs. Every statement is NOT 'I did not know anything" and insread it is "I don't recall anything". Likewise, if she received 500 emails a day, and it was mentioned once, it doesn't hold much weight.
You can launch a war nowadays costing trillion$ and sending thousands to their deaths without needing to be bothered with any Congressional approval. Of course, you can lie to Congress after you start the war if they demand to know anything.
So, CEOs lying to Congress seems pretty minor in the grand scheme of Congressional irrelevance.
Maybe, she's just an Idiot? At any rate, HANG THE BITCH!
The Chinese know just how to handle these issues.
If they all have NO worries lying to Congress, ain't no problem lying way down here on the Totem pole.
Of course she was told of the problem. However she didn't know about the problem because she wasn't listening.
There was an easy fix for the switch, but it would have broken a contract with a union supplier. I have a cousin that worked for Delphi. They would find problems with parts but they would always get used anyway. It was too hard to change the orders after the fact. The union contracts were always shipped complete and if a part was bad they would have to cancel the entire contract with everything else on it. So a bad o-ring gets sent out to keep the order for a brake controller.
Wow..... it's a wonder they don't go bankrupt.
Oh wait, they did.
And then the Government picked them up, patted them on the back with a full bailout.
That was a watershed moment in US history as far as I'm concerned. That combined with the whole TARP scam brought a level of corruption not seen since- well, forever.
This reminded me of the Ford Pinto recall. Internal records showed the car would likely burst into flames and kill people. The fix was to prevent the differential mounting bolts from rupturing the gas tank which was estimated at the time to cost $1/ car. This kind of shit has been going on for some time and of course she knew about it. If she truly didn't, it may have been someone purposefully getting her to take the fall. I'd be interested who takes the job if she is forced out.
Miffed;-)
The ford pinto thing is a myth.
The ford pinto was no worse than any other car of its class in that era.
http://www.pointoflaw.com/articles/archives/000023.php
Less then three months ago the headlines were:
http://qz.com/171529/why-gm-ceo-mary-barra-is-obamas-perfect-state-of-th...
heheheheheheheh
Look at that adoring smile....
Face it, the typical piece of shit GM choomwagon has thousands of defects, so how can anyone be aware of each and every defect?
Next.
barra, blythe, and lois can open a boutique consulting firm, the sisters of mendacity....how to lie through your treeth without paying fines or jail time....perjury without purgatory....bitches of a feather lie together.
Female integrity? HA!
Who cares? Folks dive off in their GM POS, so what if they fall apart and you die in the process. Gubmint Motors does not, the engineers do not, the workers do not, the managment certainly does not. One thing they all know for sure... they will not be held accountable, ever. If and only if one of these lying peice of shit assholes is thrown in jail or hopefully shot there will never be any change in the process, period!
If she can get a job as CEO of NSA fast enough she'll be fine.
Otherwise that's a stiff $5,000 fine.
"I'm sorry Senator, I should have been more clear. What I meant was that I didn't know that I would be caught lying."
Wonder if Terry is one of the engineers on paid administrative leave? LOL
Some lawyer's gonna go off on her arse with a class action lawsuit.
Wow, Barra could end up with the shortest tenure of any CEO in GM's history.
But, don't worry, she will still get her golden parachute, then probably run for Congress or start a government consulting firm or something.
I don't remember breakfast.....let alone an email from years ago. In fact, I might only read 30% of my emails due to the flood of crap arriving in my inbox daily. Sucks for everybody to have GM's actions years ago tarnish a company's image on it's way to rehabilitation. FTW.
Hey, Obama lies
Biden lies
the NSA dudes lie in front of congress
Holder lies
...anyone see a pattern here?
Naaawwwww didn't think so.
How many 20 year old government motors vehicles do you see on the road these days?
How many 1994 camaros? How many 1994 cavaliers? How many 1994 caprices? How many 1994 astros?
These cars are epic pieces of shit. Yet, the dumbtards keep gobling up the shit hook, line, and sinker.
I see 1994 Hondas everywhere, yet government motors outsells Honda by a wide margin.
My Lexus (fancy Toyota) is nearly 20 years old, 190K miles. Runs like a top, smooth and quiet, everything still works, and it doesn't use or leak a drop of oil/transmission fluid.
A buddy of mine bought a '09 Dodge Caliber a couple of years ago, tranny went out three times in two months (warranteed, luckily). After the third time, he took it back to the dealer and told them to shove it up their ass. At my recommendation, he went and bought a '09 Camry. He's very happy with that decision. I hate to say it, but compared with Japanese/Korean cars, American cars are junk, and have been since the early 70s.
The only thing left that the American companies produce that is even kind of worth a shit is full-size pickups. Lookout if Toyota and Nissan ever start offering 3/4 and 1 ton full-size diesel pickups here.
I lied to congress and congress lied back.
We need more women in leadership roles. Sarc tags superfluous.
So the CEO before her who the Treasury put in place retired because his wife is sick, she assumes control, then the part problem surfaces after the govt sells its' stake.
Nothing fishy about that..carry on.
She belongs in jail.
Fred Upton? Is that Kate Upton's uncle... yes it is! (-) (-)
Since when is lying to Congress (and supposedly by extension, the American people) a crime?
Barra is merely following in the footsteps of hundreds of other government and corporate hacks, and the chances of her getting in any real trouble are next to nil.
A big time auto exec lies to Congress?
This is news? Please!
Some bad girl is about to get a real good over-the-knee panties down bare bottom spankin' I tink!
Only question is what government agency is blacked out in the document. Means they are culpable also as far as the problem goes and also means some congress people are too most likely since GM received a government bailout a taxpayer funded bailout I might add for a company covering up problems that caused the death of people while still owing the government money. Whoever's oversight committee that agency falls under probably knew also.
Bring back the gallows.
Throw this fucking cunt in jail along with that IRS twat - Lerner - these two bitches can eat twat for the rest of their lives.
Who ever said that lying and crime do not pay?
In my life, I have seen more corruption, lying and scandals than I ever care to.
So what are the children supposed to think. If they pay attention to the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world, they will see Politicians, Billionaires and Police, lying, stealing, drug running, gun running, bullying other countries, beating and murdering people to sucess!
NEVER DO THESE PEOPLE GO TO JAIL
No wonder there is bullying and thefts and murders all over America. These kids are learning it from their Piers.
Good job, Even Obomba himself gives a speach where he jokes about being really good at killing pepole. He is a fuc**** discrace to the the entire planet.
If the American people would wake up and through out these corrupt People and demand a real investigation about 911. Take all of these people to Alcatraz and torture them until some truth comes out about 911.
I think there is no doubt that it was an inside job.
Can you say "FALSE FLAG"
She simply misspoke..
That scumbag who runs the NSA lied to congress, nothing happened. Eric Holder lied to congress, nothing happened. Jon Corzine lied to congress, nothing happened.
So who gives a fuck anyways?
What I dislike about these reports is they are selectively quoted by reporters who don't know shit about product development.
Released without new part number is meaningless unless we know GM's system. Many companies only change the revision of a part. Some change the number, some will do one or the other depending on the situation. Some companies have engineering part numbers and service part numbers. The engineering part number may change but the service part number may stay the same. The service part number then is updated to link to the new engineering part number. I could go on with the different variants of engineering documentation there exist in the world, but I think that's enough to show that 'released without a new part number' doesn't mean squat by itself.
If the journo didn't know anything about it, the fact that part number remained wouldn't be mentioned.
If she was a new employee, it's believable she wouldn't know. When you work there for decades and up the ladder, you know exactly what goes on.
I bet GM lobbied for the new regulations adding a 3rd tailight, and now a backup camera and monitor requirement.