[Canuck]

Somewhere in the articles its stated that the downfall of GM started when the marketers took over from the Engineers.
I would not repeat that to Jim Wangers face. The downfall started when the bean counters decided how many brands they could squeeze out of a platform (circa 1980 Citation,Firenza,T2000,Cimeron and whatever Buick had).It became known as badge engineering.
Yes ,we all have brand Loyalty and as a 38 year Oldsmobile Man we feel the pain as much as Pontiac followers may now.
All the Us automakers have had their share of poorly thought out products or too fast to market.Each (foreign and domestic)manufacturer can hang their head in shame on trying to pass of some junk on us over the years.
I find some irony in the fact that its Washington that the car co's are looking to for help. It was Washington that GM feared in the 70's when they had 60% market share and were concerned that the Government would force GM to break up because it was monopolozing the market.
Who is the group that told the car manufactures to put on bigger bumpers,get better fuel mileage, use more plastic,find alternative fuels.
As for bailouts, why arn't the unions pension fund offering financing, why arn't the oil companies offering financing?
The car co's have to look at their lineups and see what is selling and make some hard decisions on the rest, that is a fact of life in products and marketing. The Packard,Edsel,Desoto,Rambler,Studebaker,Oldsmobile and Plymouth are all gone and their will be others.

Paul