no not really, i mean sure some guys become multi millionaires adn those same guys ran the company into the ground- but how did they run it into the ground, imo you can dumb it down to this:
- GM signed union contracts for years promising healthcare and pensions that they couldn’t afford but had to since they had production models set up relying on unions.
- the price of their cars (production costs and sales price) went up to counter effect the balooning debt, profit margins went down
- excluding some models, for the most part their competition made much better cars for less money
- gm became less competitive, uh oh…
- gm flooded the market to try to increase market share ‘if we can’t make the best cars for a good price, let’s just make a billion shitty ones’
- the union was ok with this, it extended their contracts
… at this point the writing was on the walls - that bullshit kept them alive for a while, the economy was doing well so it was easy to ignore that both the company and union had dug their own graves
- the economy crumbled
- their business model is entirely based on cheap money coming in bc nothing good or unique was coming out of GM to make ‘new’ money for them
- the whole thing shit canned
- obama for yo momma HOPE! CHANGE! :boink
- que the force feeding media shit that the GM is now leaner and smarter
- last i checked the same guys who caused the problem (union bosses and GM management) are still there
- the company is in deep deep shit
to sonny’s point (?) it’s not impossible to build cars in the US- toyota and honda do it- they just don’t let the union or union states kill their profit margins. unions have kinda run their course for the most part with machines doing so much work they really aren’t necessary liek they used to be. they’re a nice bonus, but shit- i don’t have a pension or a cake contract that sets my hours.