Their self-interest certainly played a part, but they're not the sole reason. Management hubris first towards off-shore competition and later with planned obsolescence are equally at fault. I've got news for you, we're already well above 10% unemployment. The only reason the numbers don't show it is because government doesn't count part-timers looking for full-time jobs or "discouraged" workers, the one's who've exhausted their UI.
I remember when they bailed out chrysler. After that, Iacoca was talking about how great the new plymouth horizon was. Many a morning, my 10 year old son had to go across the street and start the neighbors car. The bastard across the street was a radiologist and lots of times he couldn't even start it by himself. My barber said that someone stole his horizon and then collected from his insurance company. I guessed he sold it to a chop shop because who in their right mind would steal a piece of junk like that. These people are going broke because they are rotten businessmen. They should go out of business.
J....I agree we are well above 10% in unemployment. The gov. fudges numbers as it is. I mean , look at their revisions for unemployment numbers. There are only a few key industries that will survive this downward motion.
If America is no longer making automobiles anymore why don't we just hand the 'keys' to the kingdom over to Asia?
The US automakers were hurting well before this economy even slowed, there is no way they come out of this bigger and stronger, this is a different economy this time around, if they cannot make it through this challenge why should they be given any money at all, how many years and how far has GM come to turn their company around, how much cost cutting can you do to a company before you realize that maybe this company isnt worth trying to prop up anymore. Enough is enough...
Not that our leaders (cough) are asking for our opinion, but we were screwed about 30 years ago with globalism. The factories were outpriced a lonnnnnnnng time ago when we bought into free trade and aceepted that our people would be out of work so that other nations could be at work, and that the same people would own the factories in the foreign nations as here, so their profits would rise. That's the deal in a nutshell. Auto factories closing, along with their related supporting industries here at home, is just the next step. Short of a takeover, nothing you can do about it.
Correct. Pizza, pawn shops and pornography! Really, it should be interesting to see who survives this depression, since the rules for business have changed so much in the last 80 years.
No different than what Nixon did in the late 60's when they handed over the production of televisions to Japan. It was "too expensive" to produce them here in the states by then compared to what Japan could make them for. Only problem was that the knock-on effect of forfeiting the entire future consumer electronics industry to them as well. Video cameras, VCRs, calculators, stereo, boom boxes, Walkman, etc. All in the interest of "free" trade, which in the end is never free, someone always ends up paying for it. But, now that it's another sacred cow, first it was the steel industry, now it's the auto industry, they say HELL NO!!! The sad fact is that it's already too late. It's a classic case of the brain dead patient; the body is too stupid to know it's supposed to quit so we waste more money hooking it up to life support knowing full well that it's never going to get up and walk again.
The name GM deserves to die..... But it has plenty of organs that are still good.... .............................................................................. Firms are going to buy these organs for cheap....and they are going to be wanting to sell electric cars to you.....hiring lots of the same employees..... Look...you want to pay $15,000 for an electric car....or $38,000 for a gasoline car ? Case closed....