An Offer of Assistance to Senator Claire McCaskill in her Investigation of GM

By William K. Black

“‘I won’t be letting G.M. leadership, or federal regulators, escape accountability for these tragedies,’ Senator Claire McCaskill, the Missouri Democrat who is chairwoman of a Senate subcommittee on consumer protection, said in a statement.”

Senator McCaskill’s statement makes the correct points.  GM’s leadership and the federal regulators have, to date, “escape[d] accountability.”  I want to extend an offer of assistance to Senator McCaskill.  The key to understanding GM’s otherwise incomprehensible actions is to understand the perverse effects of the compensation system that GM’s leadership designed.  This is one of our areas of expertise.

I have explained in some detail how the Valukas report ignored or misinterpreted GM’s compensation system and why his failures led him to adopt an untenable theory of GM’s problems that purports that GM’s leadership was not culpable and that there was no cover up at GM.

If Congress wants to hear a logically coherent explanation of what really happened at GM and why it happened we stand ready to testify.  We have the relevant expertise that comes from decades of study of white-collar criminology (which focuses on executive compensation), regulation, economics, and law.

If you would like to tell Senator McCaskill that you support inviting our testimony about GM you can send her an email through this link*.

Senator McCaskill represents Missouri, so she knows where to find us.

* Revised 6/6/14 at 13:50 Central with corrected link to contact Senator McCaskill

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