| F. George McDuffee 2005-06-23, 12:25 pm |
| <snip>
quote:
>A visit to Newton might provide some insights. Spending a bit of time
>inside Maytag's headquarters, R&D facility, and manufacturing areas
>might leave you wondering why it's taken so long for this to happen.
<snip>
An insightful comment and one I missed the first time I read your
response.
It would be interesting to know how much in deductions the
corporation took on their tax returns over the last 5 or 10 years
for market research and product R&D. Article in Wed. June 22 WSJ
discusses shift in consumer priorities for major appliances from
stolid dependability to flash and glitz, which may help explain
why the "dependability people" are now in deep do-do.
On the other hand, flash and glitz are only skin deep, and how
much can it cost and how long can it take to have a design studio
"re-skin" a washer or drier, and how much can it cost to shoot
metal flake paint in place of white? As an aside, the American
people deserve what they get on this one….
In response to another reply, the questions about the likely
outcomes for senior management were rhetorical, although your
detailed answers were insightful. This helps explain the
"shortage" of engineers and the rapidly declining number of
engineering students. Even the "nerdest" engineer can look
up/around and see that while they (and the rest of the "product"
people) are taking it in the shorts big time, management and
finance are riding off with full boodle bags. While both groups
will have some time off, for the product people it will be a mad
scramble for another job so they can keep the house and the car,
while the management and finance people are resting in Cancun.
Do you happen to know if the Maytag pension plans are fully
funded, or is this another "debt bomb" that will be lobbed into
the PBGC? How about medical care for current retirees? Off
Maytag and onto the taxpayers through Medicare?
We need something more than biased B-school case studies. What do
you think of an economic/financial equivalent to the NTSB that
would investigate major corporate "crash and burn" cases? These
could well be a job for Dr. Kavorikan and not a "crash-cart" and
life-support situation.
In the aggregate the major loss/damage caused by not only Maytag,
but also Enron, Tyco, Ford, EMC, Delta, American, etc., etc., is
a total loss of confidence in the competence and motives of
management by not only their employees, but the majority of
stockholders and the American people.
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