Detroit Held Hostage By Possible GM Chrysler Merger

Detroit's economy has been beaten down for years by wave after wave of job losses in the U.S. auto industry, but locals fear the worst may be yet to come if General Motors Corp and Chrysler LLC merge.

"It's already been ripped apart," Tim Jones, 55, said when asked about the economy of the Detroit area.

"People are losing jobs. If you walk down any main street in this area, you see half of the businesses are closed," said Jones, who left the construction industry two years ago to start an online business selling cell-phone batteries.

"A combination of GM and Chrysler will only make things worse."

From its gritty downtown to its leafy suburbs, fears of massive layoffs loom large in Detroit, a city whose fortunes remain tied to the declining American automakers.

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HSCenterconsole - 10/20/2008 3:48:04 PM

-6 Boost

Make the USA just like Detroit. Vote Democrat.

0to60 - 10/20/2008 7:33:19 PM

+5 Boost

Funny considering Bush is a part of the reason we are in this predicament

0to60 - 10/21/2008 11:04:42 AM

+1 Boost

And then it was primarily the poor leadership of these companies, not the city.

dumpsty - 10/20/2008 4:35:51 PM

0 Boost

I think Detroit needs this "wake-up call". They've spent decades providing sub-par product and now they should experience the painful results.

The past 2 decades has been filled with largely badge-engineered models that shows GM cutting costs to keep bloated divisions alive b/c their customers "don't want to change" and like the "same-ole, same-ole" designs of the yester-years...when there wasn't much global competition.

I guess the US Big 3 is in a true competition of who will fail the fastest. I like that GM is trying to swallow up a fledgling Chrysler to final do something that probably should've been done 10 years ago. As we've seen, it was a mistake to allow Daimler-Benz to complete their "merger of equals" deal that turned out to be anything but the opposite. It was obvious after the 1st month of "ownership". Did anybody ask how much D-Benz stock Chrysler bought to make the concept of a merger real? (Cap'n) Kirk Kerkorian forgot to ask so don't feel too embarrassed. Heck, they should've let Lee Iaccoca purchase the company when he tried, at least he would've brought the more polarizing concepts to production and maybe even increased stock value.

A GM purchase of Chrysler would be a hard pill to swallow for the auto giant at first, but the instant increase in market share should make it fairly painless afterward. The US Big 3 has spent so many years competing with each other when they should have been competing against their foreign counterparts. Now their getting the chance to be aggressive and show their global competitors that they mean business.

Hyundai - 10/20/2008 7:17:16 PM

0 Boost

Mad Max, here we come.