Quote Originally Posted by preferredduck
i do realize the effects.several parts makers/distributors are filing chapter 11, and a lot of work is tied to the auto industry.the thing i don't like is that they did it to themselves. they cut a lot of corners and made some crappy cars, rammed the SUV(Hummer) down our throats that got 8mpg, and only recently have their cars been getting better mpg. im my opinion the company execs gotta go for them to even work. they made tons of money off v8's until gas hit $4.00 a gallon and sales plumetted. and now they are asking for help to stay afloat b/c they rode the wave too long. chrysler is a privately owned company(you cannot buy stock in it) so what do we get if they fail. sounds like they need to be restructed from the ground up and the big fellas at the top gotta go. we have known af global warming for a while now and until recently nobody cared and they pumped out suv after suv. so as i stated a better business model and r&D would have gone a long way a couple of years ago, but greed got the best of them. i do feel sorry for the workers for sure, but the workers can also try to influence the product and bring forth new ideas.
This is kind of accurate, but not completely. GM went through a horrid period of crap cars in the 80's and that hurt their reputation. That era is over now and a car made by GM is the same quality as anyone else. What is really killing GM right now is the costs of RETIRED employees. I read at some point that cutting the retirement down to 80% would free up more than 50B in yearly revenue. That revenue would quickly put GM back on the correct road to recovery.