Instead of spending an extra $30billion in addition to the $20billion already wasted on Government Motors and  Chrysis Cars, Obama and his new found car experts should have given the money to Toyota and Honda, handed them the parts of GM and Chrysler that they wanted for free, and sat back and admired industry leaders and managers who know how to make cars profitably. Instead we all have to sit back and worry for the next few years as Government Motors and Chrysis Cars go slowly down the drain.

Remember back in the 1950’s and 1960’s when Japanese Cars were rubbish? Then you will remember that it was mainly American Quality Management Guru’s who became missionaries to the Japanese Auto Sector and taught them about World-Class Quality Management, Just-In-Time Manufacturing and World-Class Customer Service. Well the Guru’s succeeded – the Japanese learnt and set about creating cars that were well made and relevant to their markets. Within a generation Japanese Cars became leaders in the Auto Industry. Their leadership, management ability and quality improved to such an extent that their market share grew to a level where they became dominant in every market in the world. All because they learnt.

But did Government Motors or Chrysis Cars learn?

Now GM and Chrysler are not exactly small beer – they have large resources and not so long ago GM was the world’s largest company. Isn’t it amazing how some people learn and others do not? The majority of leaders and managers in Toyota and Honda are NOT Japanese! So what made them learn and what makes Team Obama think that they know more about cars than successful car-makers do? Because this is what he has done – Obama has sent a message to Toyota and Honda that he and his Team know more about making a success of car-making than the market leaders do. Arrogance is the Waterloo of Common Sense. Of course Team Obama do not think that they know better – they simply see the pathetic and failed management of GM and Chrysler as vehicles (sorry about the pun) for their own political ends.

I wonder if anyone from Team Obama asked the CEO’s of Toyota and Honda to go away and come up with a plan that included awarding Toyota and Honda an interest free loan of $50billion of American Taxpayers money plus the bits of GM and Chrysler that they liked – provided they returned the money with interest within 10 years?

I bet nobody asked them! I am sure that making great cars profitably was the last thing on Team Obama’s minds when they Nationalised Government Motors and Chrysis Cars.

With all humility – Sidewalk Solutions could do more for the US Auto Industry with the $50billion – than Team Obama ever will. You see we would simply want to use the money to make substantial profits by designing, manufacturing and selling great cars that people want to buy – full stop!

The latest financial performance from BA simply underlines what has been obvious to almost everyone else – that they are not competitive, are over-staffed and are way too employee focused at the cost of what passengers want. Like KODAK wakening up 10 years too late to the digital revolution and trying to sell us film when the demand for film had long gone,  BA missed their flight many years ago. The future of passenger airways was led by Southwest Airlines back in the 1972.  Peanuts and smiles all round, they declared that their main competitor was the car. So Southwest set about structuring their costs and performance to compete with the car.

37 years later Southwest Airlines have led the way in low cost air travel, world-class customer service and consistent profits. Read their latest website message from their CEO Gary Kelly http://www.southwest.com/about_swa/?ref=abtsw_fgn does this sound like Willie Walsh or the nasty Michael O’Leary of Ryanair? If BA want to survive they should go and ask Gary Kelly to please move from the USA to the UK to sort out BA. The result would be a British Airways with an O’Leary type cost base but with a smile and passenger focus that only Southwest have finely tuned. O’Leary copied Southwest’s business model, but not their performance for passengers. British Airways think they can buck the trend – so did KODAK!