On Topic: It’s personal

Some hardships, like a nagging lower-back pain, or agonizing over what Cedar Rapids could have done differently to win the favors of the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission, just won't fade away, no matter much we wish it were so.

A writer for Al-Yawm Al-Sabi', an Egyptian daily newspaper, as recently as this past month, for example, called for Israel to pay reparations to Cairo for the Plagues. He means the troubles detailed in the Book Exodus that brought about locusts, frogs, darkness and the deaths of firstborn offspring.

He also called for compensation from the French (as led by Napoleon), the Turks (during the Ottoman Empire) and the British for their individual occupations of his country over the millennia, according to Israel National News.

So it seems a little early for General Motors to expect all the commotion to quiet down over the ongoing investigations coming connected to its defective ignition switches.

Thirteen deaths and 31 crashes have been attributed to faulty switches in Saturn Ions, Chevrolet Cobalts, Pontiac Solstices and other models. The automaker admitted a few weeks ago that it was aware of 'several hundred complaints” of keys coming out of the ignition.

That could cause the cars to shut off while in motion, thus knocking out power steering and brakes as well as disabling air bags.

Some 2.6 million cars are part of a recall that began in February, and the Detroit automaker has said it reckons it'll take some $750 million to repair those automobiles and cover loaners.

As of this writing, a couple GM engineers got sent home.

The big headache for GM, though, continues to be coping with how it's handled what it knew and when it knew it.

Possible answers seem to include a redesign of the switches back in 2006 - and without a change of the part number, which U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., suggested was intentional so as to hide the problem.

GM CEO Mary Barra noted at the New York International Auto Show earlier this month that the company was continuing with its internal fact finding into what went wrong. GM also has created product-integrity division, which includes a vice president of global vehicle safety.

'… We are trying to be (as) responsive as possible,” Barra said, as reported in the Wall Street Journal from the auto show.

GM's website advises owners of affected vehicles to contact their dealership and to 'remove all items from your key ring, leaving only the vehicle key.” An restricted key, Barra says in a video on the site, makes the car safe to drive.

But the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and members of Congress - not to mention family and friends of the people in the cars that shut off - still want to know why GM and Delphi Automotive, the Troy, Mich., maker of the switches, didn't act sooner.

No sensible person, of course, expects Barra to know everything about each nook and cranny of the multinational corporation she heads. And, sadly, this is not the first occasion of what appears to be corporate neglect that's resulted in tragic outcomes.

Maybe, though, this seems more personal. After all, it's been only four months since 'Government Motors,” as some called the bankrupt multinational, got clear of its 2009 bailout.

I don't mean to contend that the rescue of one of this nation's most iconic businesses and major employers was a bad idea. But that was $49.5 billion of taxpayers money we put up.

Bloomberg News reported at the time that the federal government calculated we lost about $10.5 billion on that deal. So we came out ahead, right?

It's just that we should receive better from a company to whom we extended so much trust.

Michael Chevy Castranova is Sunday editor of The Gazette. (319) 398-5873; michael.castranova@sourcemedia.net