When General Motors and Chrysler asked Washington for more money last week they took very different approaches. In exchange for an extra $17 billion from taxpayers — on top of the $13 billion it had gotten since December — G.M. said it would reduce costs by shuttering plants, cutting brands and slashing 47,000 jobs, about a fifth of its remaining work force.
For its $5.3 billion — on top of the $4.3 billion it has received since December — Chrysler offered little more than an assurance that it has already cut costs and accomplished most of what it had to do to become a valuable, viable company. It offered to trim production by a paltry 100,000 units — leaving it with capacity to make almost one million vehicles more than it will sell this year — on the questionable assumption that demand, and its market share, will bounce back next year… More info…Â