General Motors announced today that it would be closing four North American plants. One in Canada, tow in the United States and one in Mexico. Looking at our streets lately I didn't know there were Mexicans left in Mexico.

Anyway, the company said today that it is considering dumping the Hummer line all together. Rick Wagoner, GM's CEO said: “These prices are changing consumer behaviour and changing it rapidly. We don’t believe it’s a spike or a temporary shift. We believe it is, by and large, permanent.” What prices were those? Steel, Rubber, Plastic? No, of course it was Gasoline prices he spoke of.

In two years GM is slated to offer an electric car called the VOLT. Great idea I'd say. What I like a more about this entire plan is that our government has has little to do with it. I have no problem with people going Green so long as they do it for themselves and not with some misguided idea that they can single handily save Mother Earth from her bastard children namely us.  This is a response to people's buying habits and that is what should motivate GM to change. Sure I know CAFE standards were raised, but not by much. GM could have introduce the Volt and probably stayed the same on most everything else and been OK. The new line-up of small cars gets better the 30 per gallon anyway and Aveo gets like a million. (OK I exaggerated there a hair)

I am not happy about this, don't get me wrong. If they dump Hummer my Tahoe might not be far behind save for the fact that the new Hybrid Tahoe gets incredible mileage for a full sized SUV with a V-8 engine in it. I will be buying another one soon and it may well be this Hybrid version of my preferred set of wheels.

But it's the fundamental shift in the way they do business, the product they are creating and the optimism with which they are doing so that excites me as an American the most.
"While some of the actions ... are very difficult, they are necessary to adjust to changing market and economic conditions and to keep GM's US turnaround on track and moving forward,". You see that, moving forward. Not, "Oh God, if we don't do this it's all over for us and America!" They may be thinking that, but this is how a leader leads, with optimism and a stance that we will succeed, we shall overcome, and we will make it through our issue du jour.
Contrast this with what Tim Ghriskey, chief investment officer with Solaris Asset Management said, "This is total capitulation by GM management to the price of oil. GM believes that the high price of oil is permanent and therefore they are making dramatic cuts in their low-mileage vehicles." Well what the hell does he want them to do, keep the union members employed so they can rearrange the deck chairs? Capitulation? Should Mr. wagoner ignore that the buying public is going another direction? Oh, he's capitulating alright, to his customer base, not the price of oil. His customers are capitulating to that.

But what would I know; I'm just an Average American.