A block from my apartment GM just built an enormous grand new showroom and a huge car lot that takes up almost an entire city block filled with SUVs. I don't understand.

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didn't find themselves behind the curve and trying to catch up....as usual.

Honestly, couldn't they see this coming?

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I believe that GM has finally gotten the excuse it needed (and probably planned for) to close down a bunch of its domestic plants because they want to do the Wal-Mart thing and move more operations overseas to much cheaper, less safe, and less regulated countries. I seriously doubt that the American consumer will see an equivalent reduction in the cost of the GM automobiles, but hundreds of thousands of American workers will either lose their jobs or have to settle for a serious degradation in their standard of living so the GM executives and their "preferred" stock holders will get their coveted bonuses and dividends.

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What you are witnessing is demand destruction at work. Even the overly inbred will no longer feed the monsters at $4/gallon. Like was said above, the sad part is the loss of good jobs for so many, but GM is to blame. They have missed and and not been ready for any of the oil shocks that have hit the US since the Oil Embargo back in 1974.

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..the people that owned and bought pickup trucks were people that had a reason to own one, like farmers and contractors. Heck, you can say that the SUV was born when the new Ford Explorers debuted in the movie "Jurassic Park". It is totally ridiculous to see these "Urban Assault Vehicles" parked at the mall and at Starbucks.

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DUMB AND DUMBER HAVE BEEN RUNNING THE AMERICAN CAR INDUSTRY FOR YEARS, WHY IS ANYONE SURPRISED. sheeeeesh !!! A HUMMER, couldn't EVERYONE have seen that coming ???

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The Big 3 have reached the end of their Rope.
Let them hang themselves high.

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The "big" three will move offshore as thousands of other companies have, and continue to build vehicles in China at 80 cents an hour with no pensions or bothersome enviromental laws or regulations.
Then ship them to America virtually duty free and make billions more for themselves.
When will America start waging heavy import fees on all companies who closed shop in America and fled offshore?
Untill those companies and industries are hit with heavy import fees the bleeding will not stop.
Pittsburgh has gone from 1 million people to 300,000 with about 70,000 abandoned homes, Cleveland and other heavy industry cities are in the same poor condition.
Any hope in new industies for these cities have been dashed by the huge speculative runup in oil, heating oil, diesel, propane, gasoline, natural gas and electrical costs.
Seniors, the disabled, the poor and the unemployed are worried sick about how to pay for cooling and transportation this summer and heating this coming winter.
I hear no talk of how these people will be helped.
Bush has cut subsidies for all programs to help the poor and aged every year for the last four years to help pay for his wars.
I expect more deaths due to heat and cold this Summer and Winter.
The cancer of the rust belt is rapidly spreading nationwide, we are all vulnerable.
I do not know why there are no mass protests, what happened to us Americans?
I'm a Nam vet and i protested that war, after seeing it was another lie.
The degree to which we are free is the degree to which we fight for those freedoms.

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Reports that there was an earth quake at the cemetary where the late & unlamented GM exec, cabinet member, loud mouth, buck passer Charlie Wilson was planted are false; engine Charle is just turning in his grave. The Japanese firms are displacing GM & the USA's auto & truck industries at the top of the heap.

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I would make the frame Aluminum, the body light weight composite, yank the engine and tranny, fill it with lithium batteries, add an electric motor, drop the center of gravity and all wheel drive and have a dandy electric.
Add regenative downhill coasting and braking.
Maybe a hybrid with a 20 HP engine which could run on methane and/or hydrogen, as a side model for extended range.
Anyways you get the point, almost any vehicle can be made into a greenie with enough bucks and tinkering.
That is my problem and most everyone else stuck with a gas guzzler, the required moola.
I cannot sell my gas guzzling SUV and do not have the income to buy a Prius or anything else which gets better fuel mileage.
We are Senior citizens on a fixed disability income. There is nothing left in our "budget" to cut.

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On so many levels,this is good news,Hummers are big,ugly,extremeely wasteful ,and make the driver appear arrogant.A more reductivist, Freudian analysis would point to male impotence fears (and certainly this looks accurate,when applied to a famous UK motoring-loving, "personality").However for me,thats just another unfair stick,with which to beat the Hummer..which is a really fun activity.
Without the Hummer,and its ilk,would the US and it's lackey's have gone to war in Iraq ?...maybe,but not until at least 2050.
The only downside to the switch from the Ug-mobile ,is the loss of work,for the employees.However history shows,that when one outdated industry closes,new industries take their place.The employers usually use this as a chance to erode the wages,skills and benefits which the workers of former industries fought for.
In the US,which,is pretty ropey,when it comes to fairness,this is a danger,for workers, their families and communities.If a bit of social planning was allowed (i'll be branded a Maoist for that suggestion),then a switch to a new sector could be managed with training,mutual co-operation and investment in people.
Investment in greener vehicles,green technology,greener services would be a logical step forward.I don't know if Emporer Murdoch and the other US rulers, will allow it though?

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.....where we might be now if both the car industry and consumers followed through with the design and purchase of smaller, fuel-efficient cars in the 1970's. Perhaps we would not now be facing an oil crisis. Perhaps we would not be in Iraq. Perhaps we would not be contemplating the destruction of our wilderness areas.

We really do reap what we sow.

Diane

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" I LIKE TO THINK THERE CALLED HUMMERS.....CAUSE THATS HOW THOSE PEOPLE PAID FOR THEM !........I GUESS BLOW JOB ON WHEELS WAS ALLREADY TAKEN ! ? "

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The CEO'S of GM are a bunch of idiots. They should have been building better gas saving vehicles 30 years ago for the general American public. But hell no, they build a gas guzzling giants for the Elite to drive. That's the same kind of thinking the Bush administration has.
Do everything for the rich and the hell with the rest of us.

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We know who they are.They are family, coworkers, friends, associates.They are the SUV drivers
probably nice people who love to drive big gas hogs to compensate for their feelings of fear , impotence and inadequacy in the face of the current dictatorship.

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They will simply do more of their cut price badge engineering and import smaller, more economical cars from the various Japanese and Korean car manufacturers they have part ownership in already rebadged as Chevys or Dodges.

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GM OUGHT TO TRADE THEIR WORTHLESS HUMMERS TO THE ARABS FOR OIL

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GM had ANYONE in their upper executive offices who had brains and, perhaps, lived thru the 1970s and that decade's gas crisis... Perhaps they would have wisely passed up the chance to buy the Hummer production line in the first place, and instead decided to continue and expand production and marketing of the EV-1, a perfectly useful and popular electric vehicle....
(Check out the documentary, "Who Killed the Electric Car?")

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