Okay, but isn't it fair to say that making the unions too powerful was a key part of the story? That ultimately greatly damaged Detroit's ability to compete on

Okay, but isn't it fair to say that making the unions too powerful was a key part of the story? That ultimately greatly damaged Detroit's ability to compete on the world stage. Not to say that the automakers weren't also badly run -- they were. There's an NPR piece about NUMMI that puts some great color on the situation -- ah, here it is [0]. See especially "Act Two", where GM completely muffs bringing the NUMMI success to the rest of the company. [0] http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/561/transcript http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/561/t...