Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Long-term planning

Somebody at GM in the early part of this century had the kind of idea their corporate forebears had perfected in the generations before.

Pretending no one would ever find out about bad stuff.

And that always works well.
General Motors Co Chief Executive Mary Barra said on Tuesday that she did not learn details about defective GM cars linked to 12 deaths until January 31, just two weeks after she took over as CEO and nearly 13 years after GM engineers first documented problems.

The automaker last month recalled more than 1.6 million cars from 2003 to 2007 to replace faulty ignition switches that could cause the engine to shut down and turn off the airbags. The first death linked to the defect occurred in Maryland in July 2005.
I'm sure the always successful legal defense of "whoops" will play out really well with those future juries.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

5 comments:

Montag said...

Catching safety defects early should, in theory, reduce the chance of increasing liability and reduce the overall cost of recalls, and yet, the management decision invariably seems to be that the cost of negligence is less than the cost of interrupting production and revising supply lines.

The only way to convince them otherwise is significant punitive damage awards, which are invariably reduced by appellate courts.

Hell of a system you got there, America.

StonyPillow said...

The legal defense of “whoops” just paid off handsomely for Toyota.

A. Mitchell Holder and his “Justice” Department have just given Toyota the gift of our love, by authorizing a $1.2 billion settlement for blatantly lying to both federal regulators and Congress about issues having to do with their safety recalls. Peanuts.

That, and “deferred prosecution”, which means precisely nothing unless they get caught again over the next couple of years.

Too much dog sh*t, Mr. Ankstrom.

Mitt Romney said...

Whoops! I accidentally forgot to pay millions of dollars in taxes!

pansypoo said...

better living thru technologee.

Brian M said...

Mitt Romney: No problem man. Now, if you shorted the Feds
$500, THEN we will throw the book at you!