[merrylander]

We could have insisted that the Big Three come up with better iron. Hell I recall the first Honda Civic, the one with the trailing link rear end and an engine that red lined at over 9000 RPM. After one Canadian winter they looked like Swiss cheese. The first Camrys were iron dogs as well. You could not keep fenders on a Datsun (Nissan).

Most of the blame belongs in management's lap, the people on the line built what they were given. But government fell flat on its ass with all the free and open market crap. Then we had all the States giving the Japanese companies tax holidays just so they would build plants here, no State government was giving the big Three any tax breaks.

Then came the constant bad mouthing of the Big Three regardless of what they built, like the recent yada yada about building gas guzzlers - that was exactly what the people were buying, they could not give away the compacts. For example, JD Power downed the Hummer because the people that bought them were not happy with the gas mileage - WTF did they expect?

H.L Mencken was right.