Barra: "Nobody Took Responsibility" For Defective Ignition Switch

Not sure what your point is. If your point is that public feelings about X are seasonal, like the weather, I have to disagree. The perception of the U.S. military in the 1970s was that it was incompetent. People can argue one side or the other about the Vietnam war forever, but it seems like, for the first 3 or 4 years of its life, it was not well executed, at least on a strategic level. Post-Vietnam, there was the botched re-capture of the Mayaguez and then the incredible cluster-f**k of the aborted Iran hostage rescue mission. A series of well-executed missions, culminating in the 1991 Gulf War, gave the public the idea that today's military is highly competent, notwithstanding some significant strategic errors coming from the civilian leadership like invading Iraq a second time and then assuming that someone (but not the disbanded Iraqi army) would maintain public order afterwords. Unresponsive bureaucracies grow up when the organization is insulated from outside pressure, either because it has a monopoly, is part of an oligopoly or is the government (combat military being the exception, because the "outside pressure" comes from its adversary who will kill it if given the chance). Post-war, GM was the leader of an oligopoly and very much a first among equals, as compared to Ford and Chrysler. So, it's no wonder that an unresponsive, inward- looking bureaucracy took root. Ultimately, outside forces, in the form of offshore competition, came to bear on GM and the result was bankruptcy. The reason many people were so unhappy at the GM bailout is their fear that the bureaucracy would not be sufficiently reformed and the "new GM" would fail anyway, notwithstanding the expenditure of billions of public dollars. That's still an open question. The best thing politicians could do for GM is to make it absolutely positively clear that GM is not "TBTF" and that the next bankruptcy will not involve a government bailout. Such reform is not unprecedented. The IBM of the 1960s and 1970s had a monopoly (the government even brought an antitrust suit against IBM in the early 1970s). Outside pressure in the form of the mini-computer and then the PC made much of what IBM sold obsolete. However, the company did "reinvent" itself without having to go through the meat grinder of bankruptcy and is reasonably healthy today as a competitive business.

@DC Bruce I meant that if the American public could digest, process and excrete such an unnecessary, ruinous and horrible experience as the Vietnam War and return to full flag-waving support of the sandbox wars in 15 years, this GM incident is barely a hiccup. GM is as interwoven into our history and culture as the military. And when the dust settles their execs will go back to what executive officers always do: lie, hide and let it slide. 'Cause the pay and fringes are pretty good if you just go along.

@DC Bruce - well said.

You underline the point made by those above. People forget. Completely, apparently. GM did go bankrupt. Just five years ago. So, your point is what, exactly?