Rt66, even though we’re on different sides and I think you are too radical in your view, I admire you for taking the time and the detail to defend the Big 2, while the original poster pretty much just sit on the sideline to watch a good fight and only jumping in occasionally. Since you’ve been doing such a good job defending the Big 2, I must challenge you again.
GM, Toyota, VW and Ford all produce 5 million+ vehicles worldwide annually. How is it that Toyota and VW can be very profitable while GM is bankrupt and Ford is barely surviving? GM and Ford combined still have 1/3 of the US market share. According to Wikipedia, GM is #1 in the US, #2 in China, #3 in EU and #4 in South America. Can you think of another company that has such globally dominant market share and still bankrupt? The union argument doesn’t hold water because VW also has very strong union, maybe even stronger and more demanding than UAW. Government subsidies and foreign exchange fluctuation may play a minor factor but do not explain the extremity of these 4 companies’ situation, especially the dire situation of GM.
Every retiring CEO of GM in the last 30 years claimed that the company was in better shape than when they took over and that GM would be in better shape against the competitions moving forward (saw than in a news documentary recently), and yet GM is now bankrupt. Either they all lied blatantly to the consumers and investors or they were too ignorant to face the facts. It’s sad to see that while people like you are fighting hard to drum up support for the Big 2, their management has failed consumers, investors and you time and time again.
