They won't get much sympathy from me. This is the very same thing that happened in the seventies and early eighties. During the energy crisis, the Japanese and European automakers responded with economical cars and they completely restyled them for maximum appeal. Detroit's output was still low on mileage and incredibly ugly. Remember the Ford Grenada? American automakers finally responded (slowly), but then they got fat and lazy again and starting putting out Hummers and muscle cars and incredibly ugly creations.

Actually, I think GM has announced they're ditching the Hummer. Pretty darn late in the game, I'd say.

I disagree that GM is making Stone Age cars. Now this was a classic.

I'd agree with the "fuck GM, they deserve to go down" mantra if I didn't live in Michigan. The problem for us is that "as goes Big Auto, so goes Michigan". We have the highest unemployment rate in the country and the home mortgage crisis is hitting us proportionally higher. It really makes me angry at the auto companies but I have to want them to succeed.

Let me give you an example. My late-30s neighbor, a single guy with a solid education, moved to Michigan a little under 2 years ago from Philly to work as a Purchasing manager for a supplier into the auto industry. His position was down-sized only 3 months later. He simply could not find another job in his field and could not make the payments on his new house.

He has a new job now, finally, after 14 months of looking but the mortgage company which is actually in Florida and does not have any real humans answering the phones is foreclosing on him anyway. If they waited, they'd get their money but they simply will not work with him.

Nothing in any of this was his fault. He simply got fucked by the slumping auto market. He hasn't been home in several weeks, the grass is a foot tall and now their essentially an abandoned house next to me and a really great, smart guy out there with a destroyed credit history.

their = there is.