No one should take investment advice from me. My interest in the stock market is mostly confined to manufacturing industries, but my real interest in the business world is in the way it influences or shapes human behavior. The once celebrated Alan Greenspan established the term "irrational exuberance" to characterize the people's attitudes about business of the late 1990s, and I often think that a little more exuberance would do us a lot of good now — if only we could find something about which to be upbeat.

Well, let's try to be upbeat about General Motors as it works to break free of government control and re-establish itself as reliable, creative, manufacturing enterprise. The automaker is tentatively moving toward an initial public offering (IPO), and I can't think of a better way for GM to signal to its customers, its suppliers, as well as its investors, that its recent past is long gone.

I doubt that the IPO will be the end of all GM's problems, but it should be a boost to what once was a vast and diversified chain of manufacturers supplying GM that it is moving with determination to get off the dole. Because of the increasingly dubious stimulative effects of last year's $862-million federal stimulus program, there should be more confidence in GM as a public company than as a government holding.

It seems to be particularly encouraging that GM has decided against re-establishing a financing arm; some investors may have been excited by the prospect a new capital services firm, but suppliers will appreciate that the organization they're working with is as focused on its manufactured goods as it expects its partners to be.

The manufacturing sector needs indicators that the future is brighter than the present, and a commitment from General Motors to assume the same risks and eye the same rewards can't come soon enough.