Rick Wagoner may be presented as having fallen on his sword to secure the rescue of General Motors from terminal insolvency. But he's walking away with more money than much of the world' s population would earn in several lifetimes. It seems that the price of failure is a generous pay-off.

GM has issued the following statement:" There will be no interruptions in GM’s ability to take care of our customers and honor customer programs, warranties and provide replacement parts."

The company formerly known as General Motors Corporation (and now known as Motors Liquidation Company) has transferred "substantially all" of its assets to a new company - called General Motors Company." But some carefully selected liabilities will go along with them.

Can things get any worse? Yes, it seems, they can. Volkswagen's major market is China where its cars are seen as higher quality than most. And imported VWs are more prized than locally made models. So the fact that a large piece of bodywork might fly off its apparently rugged 4WD is not good news for the company.

Reports from Japan say that the government is becoming concerned that some cars are too quiet. Talk about re-inventing the wheel - to solve the problem, all they have to do is ask Lotus.

If your Aston Martin Vantage is too fuel-thirsty for that trip to the shops, or the school run when it never warms up, or if it's too big to thread through the city or those ever-closer pillars in car parks, there's a solution.

When the GM stuff hit the fan, the first brand to go under was SAAB, calling in administrators whilst other units cried for government money to keep them going.

Analysis in BankingInsuranceSecurities.Com shows that banks, finance companies, leasing companies and insurance companies are all exposed to unexpected risk as a result of the deal to save Chrysler.

A US insolvency judge has approved Chrysler signing the death warrant of 789 dealerships in the effort to save the company, or at least part of it. And another court approves the disposal of of some of it to Fiat.

General Motors is breaking up. When this newspaper suggested that US car makers had too many competing brands and not enough direction, plus too many attempts to fill niches which are best filled by specialist manufacturers, that view was not popular. Now that approach is at the core of GM's rescue plan as Hummer and Opel are sold off.

Don't be under any illusions: GM didn't start dying within the last two years. It has been suffering from a terminal illness for thirty years. It is doubtful if the latest operation will bring anything but respite.

Two days ago, the British government told TATA that it would not underwrite loan guarantees without conditions (story). TATA didn't like that - and said the UK Government was putting jobs at risk. Today, TATA owned CORUS, the rump of what was British Steel, says it is mothballing its Teesside plant at a cost of 2,000 jobs.

Ah, LDV. Time was when Leyland Bus and Truck was the global leader in - well, buses and trucks. The Leyland Atlantean and its close sibling the Daimer Fleetline are still the iconic vehicles that underpin (in spirit, at least) the world's public bus transport system even today. Now a mere shadow of its former glory, LDV makes light vans - and does it very well. But it's a highly competitive market.

Having failed in its initial bid to gain support from the British government via Peter Mandelson, TATA is now playing hard-ball with the UK's Labour Party in its bid to get its purchase of Jaguar Land Rover underwritten by the UK taxpayer. It's getting dangerously close to a foreign company playing power broker in UK politics.

It might sound ridiculous but when Ford announced today that it had lost "only" USD 1,400 million people were happy. For they had expected it to lose more.