[427TJ]

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Please explain the success of BMW... Or Honda or Toyota for that matter.

Two words for each company mentioned-- Innovative Products.

GM will be all but gone within 10 years.

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I agree, the Germans and Japanese know the American market better than GM. They also know the cost of American labor and appear to be willing to pay the price. Same thing's happening in the airline business. In the post-9/11 collapse of the U.S. airline industry Southwest's CEO said that "to go to labor for concessions at this time would be a failure of management." You sure as hell won't hear that from many U.S. CEOs. Management at Southwest, BMW, and Toyota, all seem to know the cost of doing business in the U.S. and they seem willing to pay that cost. I would also argue that those companies have a happy and satisfied labor force eager to come to work and do well. GM seems to be rotting from within--from the top down--and perhaps might not be around much longer. Ford's in a similar situation.

We destroyed German and Japanese industry in WWII. After the war America was the only functioning industrial giant on earth and we remained so well into the 1960s. The Germans and Japanese rebuilt, with U.S. aid, and gradually chipped away at American industrial dominance. American managers sat by and watched (and got fat) as the Germans and Japanese out-innovated the U.S. and now we see our beloved GM and Ford on their knees and the Germans trying to dump Chrysler.

(Remember Lee Iacocca being the tough-guy manager in TV ads back in the '80s? "If you can find a better-built car, buy it." Well, Americans did find better-built cars and bought them. I never read Iacocca's book--did he ever thank President Carter for his help in bailing-out Chrysler?)

The Japanese have a saying: Business is war. In a way, maybe the Big Three will end up having lost WWII to the Germans and Japanese decades after the shooting stopped. They will have had considerable help from American corporate managers.