GM spent a lot of money to "buy up and destroy mass transit"

"as reciently as the 1920s".... how are you viewing time, by milleniea ?

Gee, another conspiracy theory aimed at GM. In this group. Imagine that!

Nice job. Killing two birds with one stone. Traffic jams AND pollution are GM's fault.

Hillarious, but the best is yet to come.

My guess is, (but whom am I to question the author of this article???????), the "steel-wheeled electric/rail trasit system did not serve the needs of the AMERICAN CONSUMER, who wanted the freedom to move WHERE and WHEN he wanted, which public transit, of course could never provide.

Then, of course, there is the small matter of privacy one has in his own auto as opposed to being squeezed like sardines in public transit..............................

Gee, another conspiracy theory aimed at GM. In this group. Imagine that!

********* GM officials have admitted that some of its practices are close to conspiracies. In particular, they admitted that they had intentionally made cars, the desirability of which, decreased rather rapidly with age. (Some call this "planned obsolescence", and that is a good a name as any.)

Wasnt the phrase "If it is good for General Motors, it is good for the country" another hint at their intent to manipulate the market area?

No giant company willingly lets a market change to its detriment, if it can help it. NONE

Do you have a cite for this?

Whether it happened or not, it was the 1920's. What next, blame GM for us all having cars instead of horse-drawn carriages?

Actually, it is consumer choice. Now that I take a train to work, I can tell you it is a garbage way to travel, second only to airlines+security. Morning isn't so bad, people are freshly showered and some sleep in. But on the way home, you can tell the Mexcian had refried beans and FDS seems like a nicer smell.

If my employer had parking for me, I would ditch the train. It is fourth class travel.

No it wasn't. I get particularly upset when people take something like a very old expression, made in a certain context, and reapply it with a totally different motive attached. The phrase is worth researching a bit, to discover who made it, when and why. It was indeed a true statement at the time, much like John Lennon's infamous statement was true, albeit grossly misunderstood. GM was one of the biggest, if not the biggest employer at the time and the health of GM directly reflected the health of the American economy.

Nor do even small companies, if they can do anything to budge the market at all. What is the problem with that?

Worse than buses?

I believe it was Bob Lutz who made a statement tantamount to the above. It should be easy to find.

Please do, because I've had no luck thus far.

Here is a brief clip. I heard and saw Lutz on TV accept some responsibility for the attitudes that caused them to behave as they did. I respected him greatly for it, because without introspection, identification of problems, and a positive path to resolve them, nothing is ever done.

"In an interview heard on All Things Considered on NPR Friday, Lutz told host Robert Siegel that, "We took our eyes off the ball in the '70s, '80s and early '90s," when it came to product quality........"

Maybe you can find the rest of this if you are interested.

Admitting they had quality issues, and admitting they built cars to purposely fall apart in a few years are two totally different things.

I think that if you find the text I was referring to, you will see that he was suggesting there were more than just a few quality issues.