Corporate Integrity Project

It is mostly unanimous that Clint Eastwood’s Super Bowl ad appearance was a stirring and emotional tribute to America and Detroit. The ad was heartfelt, despite the fact that bailed out Italian-owned auto company, Chrysler, paid for it. Unless NBC offered some significant discounts to their ad rates, the ad cost Chrysler about $14 million. Considering the political nature of the ad and the fact that Chrysler vehicles were not touted in the ad, I must ask the cynical question; what’s in it for Italian-owned Chrysler?

Chrysler CEO, Sergio Marchionne, is a pretty smart guy. I don’t think he would cavalierly spend $14 million just to pay tribute to America and Detroit. An article in Businessweek touches on one possible ulterior motive when it states, “Chrysler continues to seek low-interest loans from the U.S. Energy Department to develop and produce fuel-efficient cars. The company sought $3.5 billion in such loans … Read More ➡ “What’s Behind Eastwood’s Super Bowl Ad?”

Some very humorous (if not cost-effective) ads were exhibited by General Motors during this year’s Super Bowl game. GM continues to freely spend its stockpile of taxpayer supplied cash reserve as it even aired a spot touting the Chevy Volt. At a cost of $3.5 million for a 30 second spot the expense equals about 15% of the total revenues GM brought in during the entire month of January for the Volt when sales fell to a dismal level of 603. What is the reasoning behind spending so much to advertise a vehicle that sells in such small numbers and is not profitable if not political? But the ad that may lead to more controversy than the Volt folly was the one in which GM claims their trucks are more dependable than Ford’s; a claim that is highly debatable and not backed by studies at Consumers Reports (CR).

The ad … Read More ➡ “GM’s Dubious Super Bowl Ad Claims”

Back during the days of General Motors’ bankruptcy proceedings, media reports cited the many “sacrifices” made by the politically favored UAW. I have long wondered what these many sacrifices were, as UAW members seem to be doing pretty well since the GM bankruptcy. One such “sacrifice” was a supposed agreement that the UAW could not go on strike at GM until after 2015, as mentioned in this Bloomberg piece, and accepted as fact by all media sources. I questioned this assertion in a piece I wrote in December of 2010, but as has been the case with much of the coverage of GM, the potential GM deception was left unchallenged by auto journalists and the mainstream media. Recent reports of a strike authorized by GM UAW workers in Kansas now raise the question of if my suspicions were correct that there are no binding agreements to prevent strikes at … Read More ➡ “Was UAW No-Strike Clause Another GM Bailout Deception?”

Last week the Detroit News reported that NHTSA claimed that the White House had nothing to do with the agency’s delay in disclosing its Chevy Volt fires to the public. Supposedly, NHTSA contacted the White House three months after the Volt fires and waited another two months before releasing the information to the public. Whether or not the Obama Administration is being honest about its involvement in NHTSA’s Chevy Volt investigation, it is clear that we are in an unprecedented situation with the President of the US having his reelection chances largely tied to the success of General Motors, which was once an icon of American industry but now epitomizes taxpayer bailouts, crony capitalism and political theater.

President Obama has been campaigning on a platform that touts the Administrations’ intrusion into the American auto industry as a bold success that saved millions of jobs. GM takes center stage as the … Read More ➡ “As Goes GM, So Goes Obama Reelection”