gwdexter's Flickr photostream/Creative Commons

GM CEO Rick Wagoner has been forced to resign by The White House as a condition of the troubled automaker receiving any more government assistance.  Sources said that the head of America’s largest car company had not provided restructuring plans that were aggressive enough for government officials and was subsequently told to leave his post.  Wagoner had worked for GM for over 30 years and had been in charge of the company since 2000.

It is about time this guy  and much of the remaining executive leadership at General Motors packed their bags and hit the road.  GM has been dying a slow death for over 20 years now, with its fortunes only temporarily buoyed by the popularity of gas guzzling SUVs (which, by the way, were subsidized by enormous tax breaks built into the tax code by friends of Big Oil in the Bush Administration).  Unlike even the greedy execs on Wall Street, who did make a ton of money until last year, Detroit has mostly failed to show the creativity and flexibility to  compete.  Hopefully this major move will begin to change all that.   You can takepart in learning more about the sustainable cars of the future by logging onto AutoBlog Green.

LINKS:

Forbes: Why Rick Wagoner Has to Go

AP: GM CEO Wagoner forced out as part of government plan

Business Week: Why Wagoner had to go