Crash Course: The American Automobile Industry's Road from Glory to Disaster
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"This is the epic saga of the American automobile industry's rise and demise, a compelling story of hubris, denial, missed opportunities, and self-inflicted wounds that culminates with the president of the United States ushering two of Detroit's Big Three car companies - once proud symbols of prosperity - through bankruptcy. The cost to American taxpayers topped $100 billion - enough to buy every car and truck sold in America in the first half of 2009. With unprecedented access, Pulitzer Prize winner Paul Ingrassia takes us from factory floors to small-town dealerships to Detroit's boardrooms to the inner sanctums of the White House. He reveals why President Barack Obama personally decided to save Chrysler when many of his advisors opposed the idea. Ingrassia provides the dramatic story behind Obama's dismissal of General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner and the angry reaction from GM's board - the same people who had watched idly while the company plunged into penury." "In Crash Course, Ingrassia answers the big questions: Was Detroit's self-destruction inevitable? What were the key turning points? Why did Japanese automakers manage American workers better than the American companies themselves did? He also describes dysfunctional corporate cultures (even as GM's market share plunged, the company continued business as usual) and Detroit's perverse system of "inverse layoffs" (which allowed union members to invoke seniority to avoid work). Along the way we meet Detroit's frustrated reformers and witness the wrenching decisions that Ford executives had to make to avoid GM's fate." Informed by Ingrassia's twenty-five years of experience covering the auto industry for The Wall StreetJournal, and showing an appreciation for Detroit's profound influence on our country's society and culture, Crash Course is a uniquely American and deeply instructive story, one not to be missed. The Washington Post - Jonathan Yardley …by the time the feds finally forced General Motors and Chrysler into bankruptcy…most sentient Americans doubtless were aware that the domestic auto business was a mess, but in order to understand just how much of a mess it was—not to mention how it got that way and how, if at all, it can be cleaned up—you really need to read Crash Course…a vivid and wholly persuasive depiction of what can happen when "confrontation instead of cooperation" between labor and management becomes the "default mode" of operation…This isn't a story about good guys on one side and bad guys on the other, because for decades there was more than enough badness on both sides—arrogance, incompetence, tunnel vision, irresponsibility, selfishness—to satisfy even the most morbid screenwriter or novelist's desires.
Timeline1 Where the Weak Are Killed and Eaten 32 Dynasty and Destiny 143 Glory Days of Ponies and Goats 304 Crummy Cars and CAFE Society 455 Honda Comes to the Cornfields 636 Repentance, Rebirth, and Relapse 787 "Car Jesus" and the Rise of the SUV 998 Potholes and Missed Opportunities 1169 From Riches to Rags 13610 The Hurricane That Hit Detroit 16111 Chapter 11? 19112 As the Precipice Approaches 21610 Bailouts, Bankruptcies, and Beyond 244Afterword: Another Chance 275Acknowledgments 281Notes 283Index 293
