As you might expect, the appointment of ex-Home Depot front man Bob Nardellli as Chrysler's new CEO has generated reams of invective amongst all the Usual Suspects in the blogosphere.
It's not just his appointment to the top spot that's forcing members of the Commentariat to keep a spitoon next to their computer monitors, so that they can hawk the bad taste out of their mouths while they type, it's the way that the mainstream business media are going out of their way to laud Cerberus' decision, and write about Nardelli as if he was the second coming of Lee Iaccocca.
Some choice bits of bile:
Gary Weiss: The Media's Nardelli Puffery
Imperious, disgraced, grasping, serially incompetent CEOs apparently are in short supply. Bob Nardelli, who embodied those virtues as CEO of Home Depot, has now re-emerged at the helm of Chrysler. What is even more amazing as the media's ho-hum reaction to this absurdity.
The Street's Marek Fuchs foams at the mouth and chews his keyboard to splinters for three pages in his tirade entitled Reminder: Nardelli Blew It at Home Depot
But you ask, surely of all CEOs, the discredited Nardelli, who did about as bad a job as any modern CEO, would at least garner coverage that accurately put his disastrous tenure at Home Depot in complete perspective, right?
You didn't really ask that, did you?
In the bountiful bubble years that were the American real estate market between 2000 and 2006, every two-bit hustler peddling a mortgage or home improvement product made major dollars. Home Depot shareholders? Not one thin dime.
I have a different perspective.
Cerberus Capital knows that the turnaround at Chrysler is going to be costly and bloody. I think that Cerberus tapped him because a) he does have a marquee pedigree that the business media will eat up, as we have witnessed, b) he was the only CEO in their Rolodex who could start immediately, what with being unemployed and all, and c) he’s the expendable crewmember, and they have every intention of jettisoning him if things don’t work out. Of course, if things go poorly, it will be all his fault.
It's not just his appointment to the top spot that's forcing members of the Commentariat to keep a spitoon next to their computer monitors, so that they can hawk the bad taste out of their mouths while they type, it's the way that the mainstream business media are going out of their way to laud Cerberus' decision, and write about Nardelli as if he was the second coming of Lee Iaccocca.
Some choice bits of bile:
Gary Weiss: The Media's Nardelli Puffery
Imperious, disgraced, grasping, serially incompetent CEOs apparently are in short supply. Bob Nardelli, who embodied those virtues as CEO of Home Depot, has now re-emerged at the helm of Chrysler. What is even more amazing as the media's ho-hum reaction to this absurdity.
The Street's Marek Fuchs foams at the mouth and chews his keyboard to splinters for three pages in his tirade entitled Reminder: Nardelli Blew It at Home Depot
But you ask, surely of all CEOs, the discredited Nardelli, who did about as bad a job as any modern CEO, would at least garner coverage that accurately put his disastrous tenure at Home Depot in complete perspective, right?
You didn't really ask that, did you?
In the bountiful bubble years that were the American real estate market between 2000 and 2006, every two-bit hustler peddling a mortgage or home improvement product made major dollars. Home Depot shareholders? Not one thin dime.
I have a different perspective.
Cerberus Capital knows that the turnaround at Chrysler is going to be costly and bloody. I think that Cerberus tapped him because a) he does have a marquee pedigree that the business media will eat up, as we have witnessed, b) he was the only CEO in their Rolodex who could start immediately, what with being unemployed and all, and c) he’s the expendable crewmember, and they have every intention of jettisoning him if things don’t work out. Of course, if things go poorly, it will be all his fault.
Seeing such cynicism on this blog probably comes as a shock to you faithful readers who usually expect my analyses to be composed of rainbows, candy canes, and puppy dogs, but there you have it.
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1 comment:
"c) he’s the expendable crewmember, and they have every intention of jettisoning him if things don’t work out. "
BINGO!
Nard is akin to the first wave to hit beaches at Normandy. His job will be to be a massive prick (bad cop) and soften up the beaches, probe for weakness and be an all around PITA for the unions and vendors.
Farley has spoken.
It will be a tough sell for him to say that union benefits are excessive for their retirees give that he is a total fucktard.
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