 Enron
Its not unlike the Enron story. As time went on, the CEO's of companies like Enron, GM, Ford, WorldCom, etc. stopped being leaders of companies, and became brokers in a high stakes gambling enterprise.
And like all gamblers, they are heroes when they win...
And villains when they lose.
No one wins all the time.
There is a correlary to this analogy, in which the gambler, having lost, needs to recoup his losses - so he doubles up his next bet, hoping to get even.
Companies like Enron at the end had lost themselves completely in the gamble, to where the substance that had been at the core of the company was utterly washed away in gambling losses. This is the point at which criminal behavior set in, and where so many people were damaged.
GM has never (quite) gone this far, chiefly because some transparency has been maintained in their day-to-day operations. Even such debacles as the Fiat Affaire, which cost GM billions of dollars they could not afford, was played out in the open. If there is anything that ultimately saves GM, it will be that its management, though engaging in wild gambles and losing streaks, did so where the stockholders could see the goings on.
Ford is less transparent, particularly since much of what transpires occurs "within the family", or at best, behind an interlocking series of Chinese walls orchestrated by Bill Ford and the Board of Directors. Ford's gambles have been equally disastorous, with billions blown on failed electric cars, poorly conceived product lines, and a bunker mentality in dealing with their own workers.
Now its down to borrowing money at loan-shark rates, and doubling down on lost bets.
Not to say its impossible to win - just that there is a real danger that the game has reached a set of poor odds.
__________________ tripleblack
"You can never be free until you let yourself go." | 
