Fool us once, shame on you. But twice? Say it aint so.

 

The Globe and Mail today observes that "accounting issues raise big red flag over reborn GM".

How "reborn" can it be if it's carrying over accounting issues from before its collapse? (discussed, for example, here and here).
Sadly, having previously observed other practices that hearken to their shifty ways, there remains enough bad habits to make any investor pause before trusting GM. 

I've got to ask, having seen them burn through over $60 billion dollars en route to one of the biggest failures in corporate history, and now seeing bad habits resurfacing, why should tax payers be putting ourselves in a position to get burned again?

GM is becoming more transparent...we can see right through them

So, GM is announcing that it has "paid back its government loans, in full, ahead of schedule."

Really? Bnet doesn't count the beans quite that way at all. Apparently, law makers are calling it misleading.

Everything old is new again

On the face of it, the headlines "GM to recall, hire new workers" looks like good news, right? Yeah no. Wrong.

I hate to rain on the parade but GM's old school "let's pump up production to sell as many of these hot units as we can" is a part of their age old problem. "We want our plant running at full capacity" gets workers accustomed to the paycheck but also means they'll be really busy and that's a challenge to quality. Is there a correlation between Porsche's recent accolades and their production numbers? Better yet, is there a correlation between Toyota's production ramp up over the last two years and its quality problems?

Oh no, not another one

David Welch is writing that VW is the car giant to watch, and why is that? Well, because "Volkswagen is bent on displacing Toyota as the world's biggest car company—and it just may succeed."

Part of VW's strategy? Abandon their odd ball attempt to move upscale (which made no sense to me since they already have Audi doing quite well and the entire concept of Volkswagen - "the people's car" - was to be affordable), and move into the entry level cars. So, basically, more volume of low-profit margin vehicles - oy vey!

Hey, Volkswagen, please see

• Toyota production is down - no kidding 
• Hey Toyota, I hate to say "I told you so..."

Toyota production down - no kidding.

Toyota Canada lowers prices on five models.

Let's talk about production, sales, volume - I don't like it (as a business model for a car manufacturer, that is).