Rick Wagoner Great Quotations

If I look at our priority list on the things we need to do to get cost-competitive, wage rates are nowhere near the top for us. We have a far greater burden in legacy costs, in flexibility of using our work force, in jobs banks than we do in wage rates.

Stan O'Neal has been a great asset on the GM Board and to General Motors management over his 5 years of service as a director. We are grateful for his many positive contributions to General Motors and wish him the best.

This is a difficult but necessary decision, and it was made only after the greatest deliberation. A number of other U.S. companies have already taken similar action in the face of these rising costs and increasing global competition. In particular, U.S. health-care costs continue to rise at high rates. When these benefits were conceived decades ago, no one could have foreseen the explosive cost inflation that we have been experiencing in recent years. These costs are simply not sustainable.

I'm like Sergeant Schultz, I know nothing. We are trying to share ideas around the world. We don't just come up with a great idea in Brazil and ignore it in the rest of the world.