Anyone who's followed the news over the past couple of years couldn't help but notice the disaster that was the auto industry and in particular the mess at GM, Chrysler and Ford. Paul Ingrassia's Crash Course - The American Automobile Industry's Road from Glory to Disaster traces the history of the auto industry and the missteps that led up to the bankruptcies at Chrysler and GM and how the failure to read the marketplace and adjust to changing circumstances led to mistakes time and time again. In fact, the book could have been named Crash and Burn and it would have been completely on target.
The problems are numerous, but they include union contracts that consistently demanded more and more and allowed featherbedding and pension and health obligations that soon exceeded the value of the workers who were actually producing cars, foreign competition, a product line that was ill-suited for the times, mechanical and technical difficulties, bad politics, antagonism between the union and management, and killing innovation in the crib.
What's truly sad is that any series of tiny mistakes multiplied and accelerated the demise of the American automakers, but it just as easily could have turned out differently with any number of alternative decisions.
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