Every year retired workers’ health care and pension cost GM billions of dollars

Every year retired workers’ health care and pension cost GM billions of dollars. Developing new models of cars and trucks added $1,400 to the cost of each car. GM had little choice but to generate cash in an attempt to resolve its apparent money issues. This meant doing whatever it took to keep up production and sustain sales. The best way to accomplish this would be with costly dealer incentives, heavily discounted sales, and cheap credit. These moves terribly damaged GM’s brands. It is easy to say that CEO Mr Wagoner could have done more to prevent this. But had a more confrontational manager forced an earlier showdown with the union, downsized faster or tried to hack back a sprawling dealer network protected by state franchise laws, he might merely have hastened bankruptcy. It may be fairer to say that, dealt a rotten hand, Mr Wagoner tried to do many of the right things, but ran out of luck and time.