According to the WSJ account of CEO Fritz Henderson's conference call , New GM! is meeting its goals ... except for the one about getting people to buy its cars. ( Matthew DeBord , please note.)

GM lost two percentage points of market share in the critical U.S. market. Mr. Henderson said GM's market share remains slightly ahead of the conservative estimates the company made early this year when laying out its restructuring. ... [snip]
 
Mr. Henderson faces intense pressure from GM's new chairman and the U.S. government--the company's new majority owner--to stem the sales slide and improve GM's financial performance.

The company has responded by getting rid of its sales chief (who had failed in his goal "to reverse the decline in GM's U.S. market share") and replacing him with a GM lifer--or as the Truth About Cars puts it , "a lifer [who] owes her career to the timid, inept culture Henderson is simultaneously a product of and ostensibly bent on breaking." She may have a short tenure. But the next exec to go is much more likely to be Henderson himself , as must be by now clear to everyone (including Henderson).

There's also this advance Thanksgiving card:

However, GM has about 10,000 more U.S. workers than it plans to have by the end of 2009 after buyout programs for hourly and salaried programs fell short. GM aims to have 64,000 workers and isn't as far along toward that goal as it expected by this point.

So they let Henderson take the bad press for the layoffs, then they fire him! The bad news goes out the door, and the new CEO gets to do something more popular. ... Maybe it really is all going according to plan.

P.S.: Ten thousand new layoffs would provide a test of whether Congress and the White House can refrain from intervening to stop them, I suppose. Wouldn't it be better for the UAW to take a small cut in hourly pay and save some of the jobs? And attract more production in the future? ... But I forget: Hourly pay cuts hurt all union members. Layoffs only hurt the laid off. If you are an elected UAW official, the course is clear. ... 6:50 P.M.

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What is wrong with our democracy that it is losing the service of legislative giants like Mel Martinez ? We shall not see his like again. ...  8:56 P.M.

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