anyone notice that honda and toyota are still turning profits?
the big 3 have had years if not decades to pull their heads out of their collective asses and restructure themselves in order to maintain a level of viable competition on a global market. they CHOSE not to. no amount of bob seger tunes is going to convince people to buy an expensive gas guzzling box of detroit steel anymore.
this is very much at catch-22 situation though. the people who are going to suffer most from the downfall of the big3 would be the unionized workers who ended up costing the big3 their profitability. i don't believe anyone who only has a high school education should make the better part of $20-$30 an hour for turning a wrench. hell the average labour cost per hour at GM is $69/hour. WTF? why do we get told to go to college when we could have just taken a factory job instead and hauled in mad cash.
take a look at these numbers...
Macleans.ca - The car industry crash, by the numbers
it's not like the big3 are the only ones taking a hit but yet toyota still manages to turn a profit on every car they sell....
this is going to be a VERY ugly situation when those companies fail and a prime example of corporate hubris that many smaller enterprises can and should learn from. whether or not that actually happens is yet to be seen.
why should the oil companies bail them out? i really don't see why the mismanagement of the big3 should fall on another industry's shoulders.