General Motors y el Rescate Más Caro de la Historia

In the 1950s, one out of every two cars in the United States was a General Motors. Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick, Pontiac, Oldsmobile—five brands, one owner, and absolute control of the global automotive industry. GM was the first American company to earn more than a billion dollars in a single year. It was bigger than any corporation on the planet. Its president said, "What's good for General Motors is good for the country." And for decades, no one argued with him. But behind that empire, a disaster was brewing. Cars that were all the same inside, even though they bore different names. Engineers who needed fourteen signatures to change the color of a screw. A joint venture with Toyota that proved American workers COULD manufacture to Japanese standards—and which GM completely ignored. Union contracts that added fifteen hundred dollars to the price of each car just in retiree healthcare costs. And executives who flew in private jets to Washington to ask for public money while the company bled dry. In this episode of Forgotten Empires, we tell the whole story: from William Durant buying car companies like they were going out of style and ending up in a bowling alley, to Alfred Sloan building the most brilliant business strategy of the 20th century. From Harley Earl inventing the fins on American cars to the moment Obama fired GM's CEO and the government bought sixty percent of the company with fifty-one billion taxpayer dollars. We cover the Cadillac Cimarron debacle, the EV-1 electric car that GM destroyed thirteen years before Tesla, and the ignition switch scandal that cost one hundred and twenty-four lives. How did the world's largest company end up begging for handouts? And did it really learn its lesson? Subscribe to Forgotten Empires so you don't miss an episode. Every week, a new story of rise and fall that you won't be able to stop watching. Did your family own a Chevrolet? What model do you remember? Tell us in the comments. #generalmotors, #generalmotorsvehicles #gmc #generalmotorsbankruptcy, #chevroletlife