As I was opening my mail yesterday I discovered a rather ominous looking envelope from the United States Bankruptcy court which upon opening included some rather more ominous looking “orders” that I was to follow to the letter, or else….. Beyond being completely dumbfounded by the jargon describing what I was supposedly being ordered to do, or not to do, it struck me for the first time that as an owner of a few hundred shares of GM stock I have some responsibility for the direction the company took and the casualties of this economic disaster. I bought the shares about a year ago, so I can’t take responsibility for the decades of mistakes the company has made, but nonwithstanding the forgoing (since I’m totally into legalese right now), I do think that as an owner of GM I owe a lot of people an apology. So here’s something you probably won’t hear from any GM executives or board members, but wouldn’t it be great if any of them were willing to chime in and join me in this apology? To the world, and certain specific groups mentioned below:
I’m sorry that GM failed to develop transportation that people and the planet needed, instead focusing on short-term profits and selfish foolishness, building SUVs and trucks which GM then had to use image-marketing to convince people that they wanted.