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"Brutally Callous" Emails Show GM Ordered New Ignition Switches Months Before Alerting Regulators
Despite testifying that she wasn’t informed of the deadly ignition-switch problem until late December 2013, The Wall Street Journal reports that, according to emails it has obtained, GM ordered a half-million replacement ignition switches almost two months before it alerted federal safety regulators to any problems. Who was in charge of GM purchasing at this time? Mary Barra. As WSJ concludes, the switch order, nearly two months before GM told NHTSA of the need for recall in early February, suggests the company took initial concrete action to address the defect, but outside of scrutiny by regulators and vehicle owners.
As The Wall Street Journal reports,
General Motors Co. ordered a half-million replacement ignition switches to fix Chevrolet Cobalts and other small cars almost two months before it alerted federal safety regulators to the problem, according to emails viewed by The Wall Street Journal.
The emails indicate GM placed a Dec. 18 “urgent” order for 500,000 replacement switches one day after a meeting of senior executives. GM and an outside report it commissioned have said the executives discussed the Cobalt at the Dec. 17 meeting but didn’t decide on a recall.
Ms. Barra has said she wasn’t informed of the ignition-switch problem until late December. At the time she was head of global product development and purchasing and supply and had been picked to be the next CEO.
...
The emails show Delphi was asked to draw up an aggressive plan of action to produce and ship the parts at the time. In the months that followed, the size of the recall announced Feb. 7 would balloon and spark an auto-safety crisis, casting a shadow over the industry and leading to widespread calls for faster action by auto makers addressing safety concerns.
...
The switch order, nearly two months before GM told NHTSA of the need for recall in early February, suggests the company took initial concrete action to address the defect, but outside of scrutiny by regulators and vehicle owners.
Attorney Hilliard described the emails as a “brutally callous” display of indifference on GM’s part. “GM, on an emergency basis, orders a half a million ignitions switches and tells no one?” he said.
...
“This order for 500,000 parts raises deeply disturbing questions about the validity of the Valukas report,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal , “but more important, the timeline of GM’s effort to protect its car owners. The question is why the delay and how many lives were put at risk since GM waited at least two months before issuing a recall even though it had already decided to order parts?”
...
* * *
Still - what does any of this matter - a few deaths here or there? As long as GM can keep producing cars and sell them to subprimest of subprime buyers then the US economy is good to go and fines for malfeasance, lying, and cover-ups are 'costs of doing business' - just as everyone learned from the financials.
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Listen Zero's.
This is why ISIL prefers Ford F-150's.
The Islamic State actually prefers Toyota trucks, avoiding the uncomfortable problem of recalls.
I thought it was the Taliban that liked Toyotas? ISIS seems to prefer Fords, especially since they're like, free and all.
what's a few dead sheep among friends
Off-topic, but I think I found the first NOT police shooting of a dog in US history.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=03f_1415333387
Oh whoops, it's in Poland, my bad. Actually let the owner tie up the dog to a post before arresting him. No one gets hurt. A miracle!
Lighten up, guys. After all, she's a girl trying to make it in a man's businees in a man's world. It's tough out there and sometimes some people need a little slack.
The automobile as we know it....just another failed gubmint program.
http://www.aeromobil.com/
Time to update Nietzsche, "Everything the government and GM say is a lie."
Is GM TBTF?.......Fuck yeah!
GM was deemed a national asset back in the 1940's, in the 60's the GM plant network (and Delphi) were concluded to be essential to a total war effort, ditto with Boeing. Strategically speaking, there are about 10 companies which will never be sold off, their factories bailed out, and their workers paid to operate the lathes & tools. GM is one of them. Sadly, GM knows this also, which is why, like a deadbeat trust fund kiddie, they will continue to throw in the most marginal effort and claim each basic restructuring effort places them in league with VW & F. Which to the rest of the world, is pure bullshit.
At this stage, everyone, including shareholders in GM, BAC, C have accepted the unlimited liabilities and off balance sheet opaque structures make simple GAPP growth model analysis of these companies impossible. So despite a MSCI benchmark of 21x forward (vs the 25 top), if you net out the gross reductions in plant shutdowns & legal fees owed, after assuming 1 in 4 GM cars is a liability or recall waiting to happen (as per Edmund's recent tables), then GM is actually pretty fairly valued: Assuming they have about 7b in lawsuits waiting to happen between now and 2020.
How do I get to 7b? Well, there are plenty of blogs around the internet which have documented how little Mary has changed things inside GM. I'm also dying (ha) for someone to take a look at their most recent breakout of sales mix. Given their large fleet sales to US gov, I wonder if anyone has ever bothered to ask those state departments if they are getting a fair price or if there is a little bit of marking-up going on between Gov & GM quarter stuffing. Nary a peep from sell side on how this mix has changed since the IPO documents, but it'll come out someday.
Can you say NEGLIGENT HOMICIDE and Misprison of a FELONY?
Merck kept the truth about vioxx causing fatal heart attacks a secret because it was such a successful drug. Noone goes to jail if they have nough grease for the pols. Ah, campaign financing, legalized kickbacks. Gotta love that. It's not a crime. Neither is civil asset seizure theft. You guys need to read up on the LAW!
You guys are being too hard on the girl.
Over at Government Motors, the new business model is based on the 3-letter-agency model of 'compartmentalization'. She ordered a half-million switches, but she wasn't told WHY; she was simply following orders (mein Fuhrer). Two words; PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY.
<sarc>
tip of the iceberg...no doubt they will find moar
spinning-off what were previously vertically integrated suppliers has apparently created discoverable evidence that is beyond GM's control
a bit surprising it took this long for them to find.
Erik “Fast & Furious” Holder still has a few weeks to show he can lock at least one top criminal up in jail even at the end of his 6 year TBTP [ ‘Too Big To Prosecute’ ] tenure.
Will he do it ?
What will he do? Launch a civil rights probe about it.
Will this CEO be compelled to testify before the same "Brutal and Callous" Congressreptiles who demanded that the CEO of Toyota take the podium and get raked over the coals 4 years ago, grilling him, making him crawl and weep, following a weeks-long 24-hr-a-day 7-day-a-week controlled-mass-media SMEAR CAMPAIGN?
Early Tests Pin Toyota Accidents on Drivers
Toyota Found Not At Fault in 2009 Unintended Acceleration Death Case
It wasn't faulty electronics - it was drivers pressing the wrong pedal: Shock report declares human error behind Toyota acceleration problems
It's All Your Own Fault: The DOT Renders Its Verdict on Toyota's Unintended-Acceleration Scare
Pssh. Just Government. To argue that GM, and Xler are not government programs, only demonstrates the infectious disease known as cognitive dissonance.
Same story as Lois Lerner when she committed a felony (and arguably treason to a democratic system) and was protected by our idiot in chief and his administrative branch?
The dog ate her hardrive. And everyone else who received those emails harddrives too. What don't you understand about that?
Maybe she can get a job after on YelpTrade - apparently everybodies sister can work from home make $80 / hr for a few hours of work a week and make like $800,000 a month.
One of my favorite quotes from Fight Club...
"Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one. "
Was limited liability "factored in?"
Business woman on plane: Are there a lot of these kinds of accidents?
Narrator: You wouldn't believe.
Business woman on plane: Which car company do you work for?
Narrator: A major one.
Insurance companies did the actuarial stuff and would pay for mammograms every third year rather than every other. The lawsuits were paid fromt he cost savings and they ended up ahead. I suppose we should expect the corporate person to be a sociopath.
Look how much GM cares about it's customers. They were ready to fix the problem before the government even told them they had to.
I, for one, am really glad we spent all that taxpayer money to save that company. It would have been a real shame if they went down.
Just because SCOTUS ruled that corporations qualify as 'people' don't assume they possess any of the emotional baggage which inflicts real people. The corporate entity was constructed to limit liability, and any proactive efforts in this instance to remediate this engineering faux pas is simply an effort to reduce overall long-term legal costs.
I know!!! Thank goodness the Obama administration doled out a $6 Billion bailout so they could move a good portion of their factories to BRAZIL and CHINA.
Thanks Obama!
yah, you really want to avoid ignition switch problems with a car bomm .... that could be a real embarrassing moment ....
better get a toyota if you want to blow yourself to hell
Do it old skool; get a Pinto. Better hurry, though, there are only four left on ebay.
I want the most elegantly crafted automobile known to man: Pontiac Aztec.
The ...... Vega
My first car. Dad bought it for Mom, but she would not drive it, no power steering. It went to me, at 16, in high school. It was a station wagon.
It used more oil than gas. But I did get my cherry popped on the back, at a ......dum da dum.....drive in movie theatre. You gotta be old to know them.
I married her. 34 years and counting. Bad ju ju ?
Sold that piece of shit to her dad. He used it to go to work in the city. Did not worry about it being stolen. He was driving over a bridge, on the way to work one morning, hit a pothole, and the driver door fell the fuck off! The whole fucking door! I'm laughing as I write this. Thanks GM, for the memories.
USA! USA. Baseball, Apple Pie and Chevrolet.
Your cherry popped? Do you have a vagina?
Seeing how you MUST be the Expert, I'll remind you the term is used both ways.
Good dig though. You did good to seek that one out. And you HAD to comment!
Edit, Bat and balls, still no pension.
Hey, you posted it. I don't wake up in the morning and read ZH to just read your comments. I just found yours interesting. I did'nt know it went both ways.
Maybe I'm still a semi-virgin and don't know it..
Check out the Top Gear episode called Killing a Toyota...
Nothing spells Jihadi Snack Bar like a anti-aircraft gun bolted in the back of a rustic Toyota Land Cruiser.
Toyota should feature them in ads. Sales would be magnificent. In the lands of the beauty goat pageant who wouldn't want a rustic Toyota Land Cruiser with an anti-aircraft gun mounted in it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNH7WU6swGM&noredirect=1
But you gotta give the CIA credit they did pick nice uniforms for IS/ISI/ISIL/ICIA.. whatever the label of the week is...
my roomate's sister makes $80 hourly on the internet . She has been fired from work for 6 months but last month her paycheck was $14750 just working on the internet for a few hours. check it out... www.yelptrade.com
Your roommates sister is a whore and either swallows, spits or receives free day after ObamaCare supplements.
Go fuck yourself and website bullshit.
Don't hold back like that. Tell her how you really feel. :)
Give her credit. Swallowing is worth at least $20/hr more than spitting!
I think its probably you and not your room mate's sister that makes 80$ an hour getting her asshole reamed and throat stretched by very big black dudes waiting in a line that winds around the block....
Her vagina must be floppier than Dumbo the Elephant's ears after that many hookups...
Guess that's why they call it 'YelpTrade'
Dodge Rams is trying to enter that 70% market share with zero down and USD 8,000 Rebate. Chrysler plans to remake losses in aftermarket sales.
/ lol
PS: they stopped making Lincoln Mark LT in America. Still one of the most dependable glorified F150 you can buy. One sits in my garage. You can safety run drugs, illegal immigrants and fast and furious armament without a breakdown.
Just joking, too bad Ford doesn't sell them here. It's a great truck.
2015 Lincoln Mark LT new autohttp://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-8wDNoFm-ik
BTW, it still needs to be a 5.4l with a 30 gallon tank. That eco version of a F150 is a piece of shit. Raptor edition has more balls than my Mark LT.
Winks
Just got the ram ecodiesel and really like it. Runs strong and is averaging 25 mpg overall driving.
I thought they were transitioning to Tata Nanos.
Soon to be renamed the Nono.
They should make a car that looks like tatas, tho.
Gummint Motors makes nuthin i want to own, drive or rent.h
Gummint Motors makes nuthin i want to own, drive or rent.h
Government Motors.
Generating Malfunctions
This is what huge, multi-national corporations do. Profit is all that matters, and if they think they can cover something up at a cost less than a recall (even if it means people die), that's what they do. The fact that GM received taxpayer money makes it all the more offensive, but its nothing new or different. If I as a private citizen recklessly put lives at risk for profit, guess what happens. If Giant Company, Inc., does it, not so much. Exactly the same double standard that applies to fraud by big banks.
"Cost of doing business," bitchez!
No matter how big the lawsuits and penalties get, they don't give a shit as long as the taxpay-funded government slush fund pays for it.
Or the shareholders, or some combination. The executives don't care. The executives who make the decision never pay, and they know it. And that's the problem.
Government has become the enforcement actor of the ultra elite.
In my present view, the primary threat faced by humanity is hyper-over-centralizatation of (illegitimate) authority.
Central planning is antithetical to individual dignity and natural rights.
The operations of our universe favor free will and a spirit of honesty.
'Government' is presently a criminal enterprise. The legitimate facts establish in stark and ultimately irrefutable terms that humanity is presently being subjected to literally deranged contortions of failed attempts at 'managing' or 'creating' 'societies'.
A paradigm shift is very clearly underway.
Always was.
Detroit to Chicago is only a 4hr drive.
That's the beauty of crony relations with DC, you know there will never be any consequences for your failures, US taxpayer backstop and an AG that doesn't want to destroy our "trust"of in corporate masters.
Appears the AG doesn't want to destroy our "trust" of politically correct afilliated political entities as well.
The execs needed to run through the corporate analysis on the death lawsuits vs recalls costs before they made a decision
Cocksuckers
This is what happens when you have regulatory capture and the government picks a winner in a product sector. GM was a gift to the unions from the corruptocrats. The regulatory abc's were likely told to turn a blind eye to any "roadblocks" to GM's performance once they were bailed out.
Not to worry though, all those stalwart UAW members are still gettting stoned and hammered during their shifts.
And this is what having a weaponized IRS and NSA is good for. THe NSA can pry into GM competitors and find flaws and/or advantages and then pass that info on to the bureau that has the most power to punish and reward.
The bad ignitions were made in Mexico and China by outside suppliers. GM detected the defect years ago, but did not conduct a recall due to cost. I'm pretty sure the unions didn't make that choice, nor the government. And the cars would be on the road even had GM failed.
Be disgusted with the bailout all you want, but this particular cluster fuck is the result of corporate greed.
The UAW only bargains for its part of the lucre.
--> Bean counters really care
--> No, really, bean counters care
"The question is why the delay and how many lives were put at risk since GM waited at least two months before issuing a recall even though it had already decided to order parts?”
ANY PRESS WHO READS THIS: The "sexy" on this issue is FAR from gone.
The Valukas Report was commissioned by GM to be presented to the GM Board of Directors as to why the iginition switch problem occurred. It has as much integrity as the toilet paper in the bathroom, and in fact, is obviously intended to only move shit from place to place without seriously considering the forces at work.
The lies start on page 2.
"Although everyone had a responsibility to fix the problem, nobody took responsibility."
EVERYONE HAD A RESPONSIBILITY. EVERYONE. Re-read that a couple dozen times. EVERYONE.
And 15 were fired.
Various committees did take responsibility. Various individuals did take responsibility, AND they decided to do nothing. It's a world of difference. It points to a force at work that forces people to make lethal decisions to the public's detriment.
Blumenthal et al should commission their own report and commit several tens of million dollars to a) seizing Jenner & Block's interviews and documents, b) all of the files at the big 4 accounting firms alluded to in the document that have cloned databases of their IS systems, and c) writing their own report about the origins.
It is clear the Valukas report jumps around and around and around just saying "wow, there was this problem", and suddenly committes, investigators, and so forth just keep reflexively abandoning the problem.
Here are the major problems:
a) The "stalls" are defined as a customer convenience issue, not a safety issue. Who forced the writing of the Technical Service Bulletin to reflect that language?
b) Nobody understood the impact of what the key being in the "Accessories" position meant. GM, entirely forgot what the Accessories Position means? Seriously? Either GM has a) the dumbest engineers in the world or b) the most sociopathic legal team repreenting the sociopathic board of directors which hires sociopathic CEO's to carry their bidding forth.
c) Who would believe that Ray DiGiorgio, an engineer who was about 10 years' as GM's go-to ignition switch expert, would suddenly engage in a one-man coverup by not changing a part number though clearly, before-hand, he demonstrated that the ignition switch had a shit-ton of problems relating to the electrical system anyway? In his Jenner and Block testimony he denied every accusation. Maybe he did nothing and they just are pinning it on him. Maybe he did it, but is not saying why. He says too little publicly about the issue.
The lies go on and on and on. If Congress was interested in more than frowning/sad-facing Mary Barra at the congressional hearings, they'd commission their own independent report and come to some real conclusions.
BONUS: Compare FAA funding and mission to NHTSA funding and mission. Hmm, wonder why...
"The 'stalls' are defined as a customer convenience issue..."
How I love corporate Orwell-speak.
The best thing about growing your business ever larger is that you escape the pressure of customer satisfaction the plagues small business. Businessmen everywhere dream of the day they are big enough to tell the customer to fuck themselves. GM is on the top of the pile. All competition is done through paid media and reality no longer exists. GM loves you because their paid advertisements say so.
"The best thing about growing your business ever larger is that you escape the pressure of customer satisfaction the plagues small business."
Great thought.
I copied and forwarded this to my dad, as I once tried to explain that to him about the cable and phone companies, and was way too wordy. Your description is perfect.
An American, not US subject.
Looks like Mary is bucking for a cabinet position on the Jeb Bush team.
Probably too much to ask that the Liberals ever figure out what the meaning of is is (Bill Clinton... the original ISIS member). Because if they did, they might then figure out what the meaning of Perjury is.
Where exactly are the Republicans on this? Right, doing nothing useful as well. Protecting Big Banks & Big Corp.
Not an enema big enough for what we need.
GM has already killed more Americans than ISIS ever will.
@ americanspirit
HOPE NOT!
( no personal offence intended )
When cost cutting trumps all considerations, safety and reliability are obsolete.
In our current neoliberal world buyer beware. It's every man for himself.
Nobody has any responsibility to anyone else. Mary Barra's only concern is her career and her big salary.
Besides, GM's big team of lawyers can dispute all claims for years. By the time a payout is required Mary will be long gone doing her dirty deeds somewhere else.
Fuck, I think Trabants were more reliable than today's GM cars.
A 1975 Austin Princess would be appropriate competition.
And people wonder why the japanese took over British manufacturing...
The prosecutors office and the CEO's office are the minor leagues for future political hacks. This is bush league stuff.
Despite 4,800 consumer complaints and more than 30,000 warranty repairs, GM waited until 2014 to disclose this defect
That says it all.
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/10/17/genm-o17.html
Who famously said: "Bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive?"
It’s a bad situation when a recall has to be recalled. Now after having recalled 15.3 million cars to remedy defective ignition switches and keys, General Motors is recalling some of them again, because they may have had new defective switches installed in the course of the original recall. Some cars may even have had good ignition switches replaced with bad ones when they were first recalled.
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2014/08/gm-recall-puts-bad-ignit...
GM replaced the new ignition but forgot to make the replacement key.
Lying under oath. Just a wild guess she won't be facing perjury charges anytime soon.
Gee M speechless.
Why need ISIS when you can have faulty ignition switch?
they should have let this company die in 2008!!
~DipshitmiddleclassWhiteKid
As per usual, the market knew better than the government, and the UAW goons!
Another in the endless stream of examples of corporate crime that loudly states: There is always a self-serving consideration of "what can we get away with?" Sad fact: There are no decent human beings in positions of power, only those who have varying degrees of ability to acertain, from their cushy zones of detachment from reality that their golden cocoons of stolen wealth provide them, what may or may not pass as believable. Mary just turns out to be one of the low IQ psychopaths, just enough detached that she has, in effect, nominated herself for a Darwin Award.
Fortunately for GM, they're beyond prosecution because they're a union shop, and now with a female CEO, they can write their ticket to do whatever they want. JUst don't be so stupid as get exposed forcing politicians to fine them $10,000 or so.
Will she charged with contempt of Congress? Probably not. That is reserved for steroid investigations.
edit: sorry, perjury, not contempt. Confused eric holder for roger clemens.
"What difference does it make."
An American, not US subject.
Fine them..... then have USG loan them the money to pay the fine...
You should be a central banker!
Yesterday I found out my 2006 Nissan Sentra has been recalled for airbags; gases of some kind killing people. Then, 5 minutes later, my son found out that his 2003 Honda Civic has been recalled for airbags shooting shrapnel!
Yesterday I found out my 2006 Nissan Sentra has been recalled for airbags; gases of some kind killing people. Then, 5 minutes later, my son found out that his 2003 Honda Civic has been recalled for airbags shooting shrapnel!
GM pretty much sums up what the USSA stands for today; There is NO getting away from that!
Just the "new normal". Why is anyone surprised?
Lol @ that small picture of Princess Mary. Reminds me of this: http://imgur.com/DiIcb3g
Just so ya'll are aware, remedial measures such as the order of new ignition switches cannot be used as evidence of liability under current US tort interpretation. This is because the courts want to encourage self-remedy. If you think about it, that makes sense. At the time, they might have been unsure of the extent of the problem. Courts don't want to punish companies as this would create a disincentive to fix problems they think that they might have found. Think about it at a local shop - if you screw up and knew that fixing your mistake would make you liable, mistakes would just sit there hidden forever. The only reason you're hearing about this is precisely because it won't hurt them in court.
That's fine. The courts will sort out liability. Looks to me like admissable evidence of criminal malfeasance by executives. If executives were ever prosecuted, that is. Put the lying bitch in prison.
I am shocked... Shocked !
Seriously. 2 months in a corporation is like lightning fast.
Monopoly is the business of big business and the government has always been their enforcement mechanism. Whether inside the U.S. or around the world.
http://www.warisaracket.org/
There is simply no way that this bitch didn't know about an urgent order for something as expensive as 500,000 complex switch assemblies (plus the far greater related recall expenses), especially if they had figured out that it's a deadly safety issue.
Accessory to murder.
"Hey Eric, we'll give you a lifetime board seat if you don't fuck with us."
IRS emails get lost forever. GM emails appear with a few keystrokes.
At least GM emails are reliable.
They really are screwed up over at GM, aren't they?
They need to hire a .gov IT manager.
Endeavor to persevere..... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsL6mKxtOlQ
Tsk, tsk. You naughty corporation. You're going to have to pay a few hours' profit as punishment for this. But I know you're busy, so send the check when you can. /scold
Google "US sells remaining shares of gm" and let me know the timing. Can you say December?
she should have Lois Lerner'd her hard drive