Dear Fritz,

The consequences of being “almost as good” or "almost as cost-competitive" are not unlike a plane flying blind with the nose down 1 degree. If Washington just keeps propping the company up, we will in ten years be producing American Yugos.

The issue of labor costs could be solved by telling Washington to take a hike, dissolving GM and selling it off in pieces to real businesses - parts suppliers and start-ups (i.e. Saturn style). The start-ups will cope with the labor market on the same basis as their competition.

The issue of engineering competitiveness can be solved by the same action - the start-ups can attract world-class engineers with stock options and financial inducements having potential value that GM and Obama couldn't begin to equal.

If you let GM dissolve this way and if present GM stock holders and creditors accept start-up shares as payment for the assets, then American innovation will have a chance to rise to the challenge as it has in other fields. If you don’t, you may as well close the doors right now and save us taxpayers $100B+.

Remember your job is to run the company for the sole benefit of the stockholders and creditors. Your job is not to generate or maintain as much lucrative employment as possible (although that may be a result), nor is it your job to please Washington. 

Sell all GM operations for stock in the buying entities. American ingenuity and free-enterprise (remember that?) will take it from there.

Perhaps you and GM have the guts and foresight to do this.