>>28112862
> By all accounts, these zombies should definitely be dead if they needed bailouts.
Auto industry is an extremely capital intense industry due to its low sales margins, long turnover times for stock, high competition, importance of scale, dependence on external financing and slowness of retooling factory lines. If an external shock - say, a housing crisis - destroys the short term market, all car markets are in big financial trouble in short term. This is by no means an attribute unique to American big three. Thats the rationale for government loans to stipulate operations of these manufacturers.

Also, its not like the three had done nothing in 2000s. GM was scaling its China game like crazy and killing least profitable parts of its portfolio, Chrysler had just divorced with Mercedes and Ford had secured a very good finance package in 2006 with new well selling models like Mustang and Edge + sales of Jaguar, Aston and Land Rover.

If the package wouldn't have been cobbled together for GM and Chrysler, US would have lost 200 000 manufacturing jobs and probably around a million jobs to support those instantly. In future, US market would be dominated by Asian mass market cars and European luxuries. Chinese cars would be welcomed with open arms. Michigan would be a VW style collapsed economy.

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How would the auto industry look today if the big three went under in 2008? By all accounts, these zombies should definitely be dead if they…

How would the auto industry look today if the big three went under in 2008?
By all accounts, these zombies should definitely be dead if they…