Closing auto dealers: Dumb move

[goof2]

Originally Posted by pauldun170

drop in the bucket yes.
the point isn't about expenses.
Its about generating revenue.

GM had a lot of revenue. In 2008 GM had almost $150 billion in revenue (over $175 billion in 2007, their worst year ever). Their problem for the better part of the last decade is that they had even more expenses. Again in 2008 GM had almost $180 billion in expenses (almost $220 billion in 2007).

There are two ways for a company to get out of the red, increase revenues and decrease expenses. Obviously they all need to do both and that holds true for GM as well, but GM's expenses have been way out of control for way too long. Instead of dealing with that when they had the chance they decided to close dealerships to give the appearance of "doing something" rather than actually doing something. It is a shame really because as the organization is currently set up it is no more sustainable than it was 2 years ago.