Americans ‘Don’t Care’ About GM, Bankruptcy-Stung Detroit Says

June 2 (Bloomberg) -- General Motor Corp.’s reign as the world’s largest automaker made Detroit a proud city, said Ted Dobski, a retired GM executive from nearby Beverly Hills.

With its filing for bankruptcy yesterday, GM means something else to its hometown, he said.

“Bankruptcy is an incredible stigma,” said Dobski, 65. “I hate to see GM connected with that. GM is such an icon. GM is this area. It’s Detroit.”

Detroit residents are struggling to come to grips with what would have been unthinkable as recently as 2004, when GM was completing a 10-year run in which it earned $41 billion, milking profits out of jumbo sport-utility vehicles like the Chevrolet Suburban and Silverado pickup trucks.

From the GM gift shop at the airport, the Automotive Hall of Fame near Ford Motor Co.’s headquarters in Dearborn to Diego Rivera’s 1930s “Detroit Industry” murals at the art museum, autos and Detroit became synonymous, and making cars more than just a way of getting a paycheck.

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No one wanted GM to go bankrupt.

Now I would like to lop off the heads of the executives who led it down the path to bankruptcy. But GM makes the Camaro and the Corvette, two cars that are really part of the American mystique and iconography.

When the GM execs started making decisions to cheapen their cars in the 1970s so that the Japanese automakers got a strong foothold in the quality market, and as of late jumped way under the covers with the oil bidness to bring us shit like the gas-guzzling Hummer, the execs are the ones who showed they didn't care about GM.

It wasn't the U.S. It was the corporate goldhats that took that company down.

Japan was way ahead in quality because of the regulation that country put on manufacturing and the safety of autos. Japan didn't build gas guzzling cars because they taxed gas up to 6 bucks years ago. Strict government controls and super high taxes, or socialism if you want to call it that, help their auto companies become world a success.
When you hear some "capitalist" talking about how the market weeded out the inefficient American company. Please tell them that buying any foreign built car supports socialism in the country that it is built in. Only American built cars support capitalism. Japan and Germany with their high quality have socialized medical systems. Mexico, nationalizes large industries like oil. Canada has that terrible medical system you are worried sick about coming here. Then South Korea is protective of it's markets. IF YOU BUY A FOREIGN CAR YOU ARE A SOCIALIST(COMMY), at least you don't support our way of life.
I don't agree with anything I've said, but it is great to use on libertarians.

and the little whore politicians do what the big money wants

If he loved Detroit so much - what the fuck is this HYPOCRITE doing in BEVERLY HILLS?!!!

Another repuke with a huge case of cognitive dissconnect...

competition do you have to encounter before you GET the message?!! GM has taken themselves/reputation, their employees, and the U.S. taxpayer all the way to bankruptcy court!-while the CEOs keep counting their $.

the merchandise they want to sell here at prices unfair to u.s. makers.

GM had Flint, until it destroyed it.

They are but one diseased Kidney that needed to go in order to save the organism as a whole.

to do anything about it except dig a deeper hole. They were terribly managed, made terrible mistakes and were saved only because they made slightly better than average cars and generated some brand loyalty for a while.
They should be glad to still be around and to have a chance to come back and they better be smart enough to take it.

mark