[quote name='CaseyRyback']I really hope it isn't because of the government support and has to do with something else. If it is because of the government support you really should look into how these other companies operate. People love to blame GM for a lot of their own problems when most of their problem is that they compete on an unfair market.[/quote]
That unfair market conditions you describe are the government's fault.
[quote name='CaseyRyback']Japanese car companies have gotten massive tax breaks on cars they build here and they don't have an aging workforce. On cars they develop domestically the import tax is incredibly low and over there they don't have to worry about things like healthcare costs.[/quote]Import costs for GM are zero. As they should be for the Japanese corporations.
[quote name='CaseyRyback']They also have a system that allows for communal cooperation between their corperations which allows for the burdens of advancement to be shared. Anything like that over here would never work because of monopoly legislation. This is a reason why they dominate the electronics industry and American companies all went belly up.[/quote]But that (from how you describe it--I hadn't heard of it before) happens in Japan. That's how things are there; it's still GM's fault for not being able to compete.
[quote name='CaseyRyback']European companies also get around from the significant health care costs and they have had emerging markets, lowering trade barriers, and numerous other factors to help their growth. That being said many of them ended up having to sell to American companies because of bad economic situations over there during the past few years. [/quote]Second time you mentioned healthcare. What does that they're foreign companies have to do with healthcare costs? I thought that (at least for now...) it was a company's prerogative to decide whether or not to provide healthcare.
If you're talking about the absolutely DISGUSTING power UAW has over the company, I'll point you to the government again. They are the ones that gave them all that leverage.
[quote name='CaseyRyback']GM may not be perfect, but they do make quality cars and it is a shame that people love to heap blame on them. Most of the shit that does cause them problems are the government regulations that require them to make so many small cars that get high fuel mileage. No one wants these kind of cars but to get under CAFE they have to make them. That means they have shit cars no one wants to buy.[/QUOTE]
The quality of the cars is irrelevant in this situation. I just will never support a company that's been nationalized. Sure, GM may have been destroyed by the government, which is really rather unfortunate, but their collapse should have been mediated with a bankruptcy court rather than with 50+ billion of our dollars and a bankruptcy court.