Quote:Adam & Eric,

You're both right. I followed GM very closely in '08, speculating on the senior debt before the govt bailout . No doubt, the UAW got (dare I say coerced through strikes) GM management to sign off on the "Cadillac" of retirement benefit plans which lead to high labor costs. However, management made blunder after blunder for years regarding auto financing, rebates, inferior products, that the recession was just the proverbial straw.

Kia and Hyundai made cheap junk in mass for decades. Hell Kia built the optima to essentially only run 60-100k miles and then the engine would go well into the 2000's. People bought them because a new Kia was under 10k while a new Chevy or ford starts in the high 20k range.


Toyota made the best manufactured car in the Camry with the 2.2l engine from 98-04 and it was half the cost of anything comparable to pre-2008 domestic manufacturing.


In automotive it's mostly about the price point and until the bailout the big three weren't even in the same ball park.

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