They're also the reason GM won't be bought. No one will take on the nebulous liabilities they got GM to agree to. Those liabilities wouldn't have been a probl

They're also the reason GM won't be bought. No one will take on the nebulous liabilities they got GM to agree to. Those liabilities wouldn't have been a problem had the auto industry remained an oligopoly, but with (closer to) real competition, GM and the like couldn't extort consumers as much. Before, GM and others could simply pass the gouging on to customers. The fact is that GM will never be profitable in the future because its labor costs are so much higher. Does anyone think GM can become 3x as efficient as Honda, Toyota, etc.? It's a credit to American ingenuity that they've held on for this long. Many people like the idea of institutionalizing things. Like, I've done this and I work hard, therefore I should be set. That happens a lot in Europe (although it's lessening as EU laws become more competition-friendly). It sounds great and works for a while, but then this happens and you're left with two options: the poor-house or convincing people actually producing value to support you in a welfare-with-pride sense. The problem is that life changes. GM agreed to contracts with provisions like offering x% of salary for the rest of an employee's life as well as covering their healthcare. Well, that was fine until Americans started living longer and that became a ton more money. On top of that, we have decided that it is inhumane to deny someone even the most cutting edge health care. That's fine, except that it means health care providers can charge anything they want since it's a violation of rights to deny it. No matter how marginally effective, no matter what the cost, people should get it. I'm not saying this is bad. I'm saying that it's ridiculously expensive and that it used to be more acceptable for people not to have access to the most cutting edge health care. In fact, it's the mark of a successful society that people want to continue living so much! So, GM has agreed to those and it's way more than they budgeted and put away for. Not only that, it's likely to raise way faster than inflation as people shift spending to things like health (from consumer items which haven't spiked as much in price) and live longer. No one in their right mind would buy into that. What will most likely happen: GM will file for bankruptcy. A lot of its labor contracts will be nullified. Someone will buy GM sans the labor contracts.