Funny from the Onion

"Having meticulously crafted the 1998 Dodge Dakota to boast best-in-class payload and towing capacity, Chrysler decides to rest on its laurels for the next decade"

Actually, what Chrysler spent the next decade doing was trying to get Daimler's dic^H^H^H^ hand out of its ass^H^H^H pockets.

From BusinessWeek:

"Far from being the perfect hedge, Chrysler proved to be a massive rescue job that sucked up billions and absorbed German management for years."

"Soon the Germans discovered that Chrysler, which has a long history of boom-and-bust cycles, was in much worse shape than they anticipated. It spun deeply into crisis in 2000, racking up $4.7 billion in operating losses the following year alone. Mercedes had to make the ultimate sacrifice, squeezing its own costs to pump out better profits for the group."

Paired with this trend, the restructuring ought to work just fine:

Hah! German management completely ignored North American operations. Except for putting out silly commercials with Dieter Zietsche as "Dr. Z." Useless.

EVERY carmaker that has operated primarily in the North American market follows a "boom and bust" cycle. Its been that way since at least the end of WWII. Daimler management refused to deal with that cycle by timing new products correctly to generate interest as the previous product lines waned, and paid for it.