As I was Saying

So what exactly is wrong with the automakers? According to the president of the UAW it's the economy:

"The focus has to be on the economy as a whole as opposed to a UAW contract," Gettelfinger told reporters

"We have made dramatic, dramatic changes and the UAW was applauded for that," he said.

Instead, Gettelfinger blamed the problems the auto industry is suffering from on things beyond its control — the housing slump, the credit crunch that has made financing a vehicle tough and the 1.2 million jobs that have been lost in the past year.

"We're here not because of what the auto industry has done," he said. "We're here because of what has happened to the economy."

That's right it's nothing that the auto industry has done because they really haven't done anything to become more competitive.

According to Forbes the top 10 most reliable and least reliable cars of 2008, none of the most reliable was an American car:

The best-performing cars, according to our rankings, are all made by these two car makers, with Toyota claiming six spots and Honda four in the top 10.

How about the 10 least reliable cars?

It therefore shouldn't come as any surprise that when the performance of cars is examined according to their predicted reliability, recalls and rate of depreciation, Chrysler vehicles dominate the list of the poorest performers, with seven of the 10 models on our list. All the vehicles have multiple recalls, ranging from airbags to door latches, along with mediocre resale values and bottom-level reliability scores for market-research groups.

Maybe he's right. Maybe it's not the labor costs that are driving the Big 3 to the poor house, but I wouldn't blame the economy either, I'd blame making a crappy product.