http://www.thestar.com/business/article/643821
Summary:
In this article, it explains that GM has finally declared bankruptcy on June 1st 2009. In the past, GM was one of the car manufacturers that were doing very well with their sales. However, as the recession hit and the competition increased, GM’s sales have decreased since there are cars that are more efficient than those in GM. Although the President of the United States, Barrack Obama, still decides to reconstruct GM and believes that they will make profit, about 66 percent of the people living in the United States oppose the idea to bail out GM with their tax money. At the moment, brands like Honda and BMW are preferred. Even though this is the case, United States have contributed $72 billion and Canada has contributed $9.5 billion to reconstruct GM.
Connections
This has connections to chapter 10 because every car company has their own way of selling their products. For example, Toyota was the first brand to sell and discover hybrid cars. This would result in them promoting their hybrids more, thus, people will have an alternative decision to save on gas. As a result, GM was not able to keep up with the competition and their cars didn’t appeal to as many people as compared to the foreign cars. In other words, the advertising methods as well as the new technology of cars in foreign brands exceeded those of the GM Company. This resulted in GM declaring bankrupt because they were unable to keep up with the competition. In other words, the decisions that the other companies have made surpasses those of the GM ones.
Personal Reflection
If I am to vote if GM should get bailed out by our taxes or not, I would go with the majority of the people which is not to bail them. I believe that spending so much money to reconstruct one car company while we have so many other brands is not worth it. Moreover, after spending so much money to rebuild GM, we aren’t even sure if it will turn out to be profitable. Plus, it seems that people feel more confident about buying hybrids these days because gas is so expensive and that environmental issues are big topics at the moment. Also, Toyota seems to be doing very well because they are able to convince people that hybrids are worth their money these days. For example, when you step on the brake while driving one, the battery starts recharging itself. This may be one of the many reasons people find these cars appealing since they don’t need to buy things like extra chargers. If we look at where GM is, they do not seem to have anything special that will attract customers like the hybrids.
