Fortune Mag Opinion: For GM, Bad News May be Good

Washington DC November 4, 2008; The AIADA newsletter reported that the bad news bearing down on General Motors may be just what the automaker wants as it struggles to stay in business.

Perhaps Charles Dickens and P.T. Barnum best expressed the sentiment: every cloud has a silver lining. First, the cloud: The Treasury Department was reported Monday to have turned down a request for up to $10 billion in additional financial aid to help GM finance a hookup with Chrysler.

On Monday afternoon, GM confessed to its worst month in memory. Car and truck sales in October plunged 45 percent from a year earlier. So where's the silver lining?

According to Fortune magazine, whoever is elected president today will want to make a big splash to restore confidence and create a sense of forward progress. If the next president, whether Obama or McCain, really wants to make a statement, he would allow GM to file for bankruptcy.

Tired old brands, and with them tired old dealers, would disappear, and remaining resources would be focused on those products and dealers with the greatest strength and staying power.

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