They didn’t need intelligence. They had unions. Notice the past tense.
Killing Oldsmobile in 2004 cost GM $1 billion to buy back unsold inventory and compensate dealers when their franchises were terminated.
That's one reason the Obama administration seems to be guiding GM toward bankruptcy court, where a judge could break those franchise agreements. "Bankruptcy is one of the most powerful courts in the U.S. because you can do stuff that you normally can't do, like kill contracts," says David Lerner, a bankruptcy attorney in Bloomfield Hills, Mich.
For that reason, Chevy dealer Bruce McConnell of Healdsburg, Calif. thinks a GM bankruptcy is inevitable. "The franchise laws are just too strong. That's the only way they can take a wide swath through the dealer body,"
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