A Bankruptcy Filing by GM Could Be a Positive Thing

After reading “If GM Fails, Then What?” (April 23), I found the last sentence quoting reorganization specialist Jeff Werbalowsky to be compelling: “The one thing that a bankruptcy makes clear is that, this is the size of the pie, and that’s all there is.”

At this point a bankruptcy filing by General Motors Corp. may be not only inevitable but also favorable.

Everyone needs to understand the size of the pie. It is no bigger or smaller than it is, and everyone might as well get over it.

Maybe this signals that we in America are passing the denial stage and that globalization is real.

Considering the double whammy of where the cost of oil is headed, reorganization could give GM the room it will need to change its paradigm and deliver quality fuel-efficient hybrids and electric vehicles.

Nothing less will suffice.

Craig Andreiko

Alta Loma

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The story about the prospect of General Motors declaring bankruptcy listed some very interesting facts, among them:

* That there would be “enormous repercussions for the entire U.S. auto industry, which still directly employs about 1 million Americans, many of them in the Midwest.”

* That “apart from a home, a car is the most expensive item most consumers buy.”

* And that, according to the marketing professor quoted, “the quality of most cars is really close now.”

To me, these facts certainly are related.

Should a consumer consider whether the profit from a major purchase ends up in Tokyo or in Detroit?

Do the livelihoods of a million fellow Americans, plus hundreds of thousands of U.S. retirees and thousands of American businesses, matter when deciding which car to buy?

The answers seem obvious, given that the United States, once the largest manufacturing economy, is now the largest debtor nation.

George Rooney

Yucaipa