Ed Whitacre disagreed with Fritz Henderson’s decision to terminate dealers. It will be interesting to see if Henderson’s departure makes any difference in this matter.

The Cash for Clunkers program also had major implications for GM Canada. Sure, more vehicles were sold in the U.S., but at what cost? This program gave discounts to anyone that was already going to be buying a new vehicle and ate up the future demand of people that would have been looking to buy a car within the following year; this will result in a slack in demand going forward. How does this effect GM Canada? This means less production required going forward, which will lead to more production cuts throughout North America.

The government of Canada did not participate in Cash for Clunkers programs because they knew it was nonsense. From an economic stand point, you are only shifting demand in the short term and as a result, providing a benefit today comes at a cost to future demand. The estimates released in the U.S. were that around $30,000 per vehicle sold was provided for each extra auto sold that would not have through the course of real demand. Further, GM Canada did not file for bankruptcy protection in Canada because they wanted to see how things went in U.S. first since the bulk of the company’s assets are U.S. based.