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The problems that are facing GM today are of their own doings not the bankers in this case.

If you follow the history of GM the start of the decline began when Roger Smith became CEO of GM around 1981. Before Smith became CEO GM was decentralized in its decision making. Roger put all decision making under one roof were the decision making became bogged down under a centralized system.

The biggest mistake made by Smith was starting Saturn, which during the time took much needed money from r&d from the core brands of GM.Saturn only turn a profit one year in the 20 that it has been in production. GM in keeping Saturn afloat dumped many billions of dollars down a black hole.

The bottom line is that CM with all the brands they have been trying to support just became to dam big to support it self and make a profit.

Roger Smith without a doubt has to be the one of the worst GEO"S that GM ever had with the exception of Billy Durant.

John F. Shireman

I agree.The U.S. Auto makers made their share of mistakes,but I wonder how well they could do with the Billions of Dollars that we are pumping into the banks and AIG.They produce nothing but bad debt.At least the Auto makers employ people who make something useful.It is sad.The U.S. has become a Third world "has been" that hasn't figured it out yet.

I'm not quite willing to call America a "third world" has been yet. I think there has been alot of smoke & mirrors going on regarding the just how bad the economic turmoil is. Some people like taking advantage of diasater. Some see it as an opporotunity to "Change" the way things are done that in normal conditions would seem crazy.

People living beyond their means, businesses living beyond their means, and Greed caused this.

Feeding more money to Government Motors (GM) will not fix this.

Also, The President says that the Government will back GM's Warrantees on their cars. I think he might be biting off more of this than we can chew.

The President asked the President of GM to Resign, why didn't he ask the Head of the Union to resign as well, they have alot to do the failure & future of GM?

No doubt management has a lot to answer for. But so has the government. They have been socking the auto industry over the head every chance they got since the 60s. The unions have been milking the industry since they got the upper hand in the 50s.

I never saw such teamwork. All bleeding the goose that lays the golden eggs as hard as they can.

This bankruptcy should not surprise anyone. GM peaked in 1965. They have been losing market share ever since.

Well at least Ralph Nader, Mike Moore, the unions and the government will be happy. They finally won the fight and got what they always wanted.

Note: European car sales during the month of March (with the help of incentives to the consumer) are up rather nicely :

http://www.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idUSTRE5302LA20090401?feedType=RSS&feedName=businessNews

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"No doubt management has a lot to answer for. But so has the government. They have been socking the auto industry over the head every chance they got since the 60s. The unions have been milking the industry since they got the upper hand in the 50s."

Would someone explain how European and Japanese manufacturers do it? They also have tough CAFE and safety standards, difficult unions, and workers have all kinds of rights and privileges... and yet they seem to do OK.

"No doubt management has a lot to answer for. But so has the government. They have been socking the auto industry over the head every chance they got since the 60s. The unions have been milking the industry since they got the upper hand in the 50s."

Amen Rusty, the only thing the unions have been good for since then is supplying the mob with pension fund money.

The Japanese government and the people regard industry and manufacturing as a key element in the country's power and prosperity. Therefore they go out of their way to cooperate and support industry.

Industry, government, and workers work together and all prosper. In our system we all fight each other and go broke together.

As others have pointed out there is enough blame to go around. It didn't happen overnight and I'd also agree it started many years ago

Designers and engineers that made some interesting and questionable decisions resulting in less than ideal products.
Bean counters that required those decisions be made out of even cheaper materials resulting in product that was less than stellar.
Management that milked a cow for too long failing to anticipate changing tastes and times, then always playing catch-up & after that market had moved on, then playing catch up again.
I don't know if government was "socking the industry" but sure came up with an inconsistent attitude, making --then forgetting about any rule or regulations requiring obvious changes. If a mfg didn't want to spend money, said they couldn't do something. Govt said OK and had the rule relaxed while the rest of the world went ahead and did them. We had no product again when need was there.
Unions that demanded and got the moon.

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And the ironic thing is Japanese industry was demolished after the war and an American with some innovative ideas presented his ideas and to a large part set up almost their entire auto manufacturing industry again from scratch. When he tried to interest the US manufacturers in the same ideas, he was turned down because they saw no need. It was only when the Japanese started setting up plants here did the US mfg start to copy their/his ideas.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_Average_Fuel_Economy