Namely two things; Greed and stupidity. The U.S. Auto industry from the thirty's to the early seventy's dominated the general market in both sales and appeal with the exception of exotic racers like Ferrari, Jaguar and Porsche. U.S. cars were simple, powerfull, heavy duty and well built. Something happened after that long period of prosperity. What was it? Gradually everyone wanted a Japanese vehicle and gradually the U.S. automakers produced a Japanese vehicle. If people are only buying Japanese cars all we have to do is produce Japanese cars. Right?

WRONG!

In a bonehead attempt to recapture the new car market the U.S. (and even some european models) began to follow the bad example of the asian manufacturers. The CEO's, top marketing and adminstrative staff, lacking normal conscience, put into effect a design program paralleling asian manufacturers. The only problem is this; D'ohh! The asian design, production and product is geared to the asian population. It works there and for them. It does not work for us because we have a different workforce that demands higher wages and lacks the loyalty and commitment that they have. Also our consummer tastes are different. Our technology is behind their technology because they are willing to work and advance their technology for less money than the U.S. possibly could. They can afford to build and maintain fancier, more complicated designs for things like headlight molds. It's within their budget. The U.S automakers could not afford an extra $50,000.00 or more for each plastic injection mold for fancy headlights but they did it anyway. That's why they are in the red. After overspending in many design areas to keep up with the Japanese, the financial support arm of the industry began to complain. In order to keep everybody happy with big bonuses, stock options and bright futures for the executives siblings the money had to come from somewhere. Naturally you can guess who got stuck with the bill. The design engineers were leaned on to cut costs and they did so with quality. The consummer does not know any better because of a general lack of education in that area and because the cars themselves became more complex. As part of the ploy to milk the defecit from the buyer, the cars were not designed to be easier and cheaper to repair, but more complicated and costly. So now you had a product that was of poorer quality when purchased, required more service and parts which were more expensive. In exchange for this the consummer got an imitation Japanese style car.

At every turn they gave the consummer less product for more money. This even reached the safety and protection elements of the product. They used the same ploy as the corrupt healthcare industry. They are so concerned about your safety and well being they need to reach in your pockets for your own good. Cheap break-away components are used at the recommendation of incompetent, neurotic safety engineers. The only problem is the cheaper and more flimsey the the interiors, bumpers windows, etc., the more they charge for the vehicle. This goes for pollution control as well. How much smog has been eliminated from Los Angeles due to billions of dollars and pain in the ass emissions control? Is it significant? Of course not but it puts money in the manufacturer's pocket.

Working with the auto makers on the side lines are the vultures that do car repair. They act as lawyers to support the bonehead thievery so they can get their share. What was once a ten minute repair or simple part replacement may now take hours. That simple part is now a "complete sub-assembly" that needs to be replaced.

The next bonehead decision was to build in as much electronic and microprocesser junk as possible. This was offered as a trade-off for poor quality, poor craftsmanship and unattractive design. It was cheap and played on the consummer's "Bill Gates" fantasy, to be surrounded and in control of a multitude of computers. This further added to the failure rate and down time thereby goading the consummer to buy the new models or spend more for replacement parts. It also had a bonus feature; it further boosted the asian economies because most of the electronics were imported putting them in a better position.

Still another bonehead decision was to make the cars look like imports. Most of the import designs are similar in appearance and lack beauty, independence, innovation and individuality. The things American products were known for. Now U.S. automakers are following the same poor taste examples as the imports, even the Corvette looks cheap. They are all modeled after fish, dragons or shapeless Chinese lanterns.

The last bonehead attempt to regain market share was the SUV. Rediculous in size, vision blocking, gas guzzuling and more expensive, it was offered as a way to get back that feeling of quality, power, reliability and pride. You know what was received instead.

The consummer's pockets have been reached into so many times for so many years they are now empty. So the crooks will have to look elsewhere.

What they should have offered was a few basic models built around quality, simplicity and practicality. Forget about all the power features, back off on all the safety and emissions baloney and standarize parts and design for cheap and easy service. The American people are tired of supporting the crooks in Detroit and half the asian countries in the world.