Comments (5)

• Matt

  So the bailouts for GM were an even bigger waste of money then I thought. At the very least, it would make the short term better for America when they did the bailout. I do love how they said how sudden and shocking this all was, and the multiple contradictions. Starting with this was a shocking collapse, to GM had a long and slow decline. Then the focusing too much on profits, then ignoring profits and only caring about market share.

  Indeed humor galore.

  Published: May 31, 2009 10:47 PM

• lukas

  ...which is a bit like deciding to set up a new socialist state in Europe the year that the Berlin Wall fell.

  Actually, the Maastricht Treaty got signed in '92. Didn't take them very long, though.

  Published: June 1, 2009 8:00 AM

• J Cortez

  Strange. I don't think Honda, Toyota or ANY firm has ever suffered for "excessive focus on profits."

  I think the concept that the author should have in mind is that the "excessive focus on profits" ensured that Toyota, Honda and every successful firm in history actually created what the market wanted and made a point to do it efficiently. GM, in contrast, did neither.

  Published: June 1, 2009 9:28 AM

• Andy von Guerard

  I was listening to NPR the other day and the topic of discussion was why the new CAFE standards might be bad for GM because of its history of not making money off of smaller cause. I thought to myself "Ah this should be interesting they will surely address the fact that GM's labor costs are much to high and the only way that they can make money per unit (car) is to put more of other resources in the car (besides labor) and sell it for more (like an SUV)." That didn't even come up once during the entire conversation which is lunacy because that is the main reason GM can't make small cars profitably, Labor costs per unit!

  I know that all of these people in the media and the government at one point in there lives learned basic economics and are generally smart people. So why is it that they can never seem to figure out what the problem is especially when it's staring them in the face.

  Published: June 1, 2009 11:50 AM

• Stephen Yearwood

  to Mr. Guerard:

  The head of the UAW has said that the average unit produced by a company using union labor has about $800 of labor in it. The average selling price of those units is between thirty and forty times that amount. One could assume he is lying, but that would be grossly cynical. The problem with having unions is that remuneration becomes a contest of power between them and 'management', and the only thing a contest of power can achieve is to illustrate the distribution of power. The problem with not having unions is that remuneration is still a contest of power, but completely onesided.

  Published: June 2, 2009 7:52 AM