GOVERNMENT MOTORS IN CRISIS – AT 8:59 A.M. ET:  General Motors, "saved" by government money, is in trouble again.  This time is the failure of the company to act quickly to replace a defective part that could produce fatal accidents.  The company is turning to outside help, not to build better cars, but to manage its crisis.  From The New York Times:

As soon as she was excused from a Senate subcommittee hearing on Wednesday, the G.M. chief executive was hustled out the door and into an elevator, surrounded by a cadre of company officials.

It was a hasty retreat from what has become a searing crisis for Ms. Barra and a management team that had hoped the congressional hearings would buy the company time to start its recall of 2.6 million small cars and complete an internal investigation of why it failed to fix a deadly safety defect for more than a decade.

Instead, the hearings showed that G.M.’s strategy to put Ms. Barra front and center, relying on its own team of advisers, has not defused the growing anger among lawmakers and consumers’ disgruntlement with the company.

Now Ms. Barra is increasingly looking outside for help.

On Thursday, G.M. confirmed that it had hired a crisis management adviser, Jeff Eller, who cut his teeth in the Clinton administration and also represented Firestone in its tire recall in 2000. He joins Kenneth Feinberg, a lawyer who specializes in compensation claims for victims of disasters, and Anton R. Valukas, a former United States attorney who is conducting an internal investigation.

COMMENT:  GM's failure to fix a deadly defect is unconscionable.  The company is doing the right thing by bringing in outside experts.  GM has a culture, and it isn't always about cars. 

April 4, 2014