Description General Motors sat comfortably perched at its usual spot in 1970 atop the Fortune 500 List of American industrial companies.
Its sales of $24 billion eclipsed by almost $10 billion those of second-place Exxon.
Its profits of $1.
7 billion similarly exceeded Exxon's $1 billion.
GM was the largest and most profitable company in the world.
GM was at the top of the world with an income stream that exceeded the gross national product of many sovereign countries.
It outsold Ford, Chrysler and American Motors combined.
The VW Beetle was just a minor irritant.
Chevrolet was the largest selling car while Cadillac ruled the luxury car market.
The Buick-Oldsmobile-Pontiac lines raked in profits from the midsize car market.
Its operations in Europe, Canada, and Australia were money makers.
GMAC was seemingly minting money.
The company also prospered in buses, trucks, diesel locomotives, and finance companies.
Frigidaire was a major seller of appliances.
Terex was a power in heavy equipment.
What could go wrong? Who could have predicted that GM would be bankrupt four decades later? Who could have predicted that GM's two-thirds of the domestic automobile market would progressively shrink below 20 percent? Appliances, buses, locomotives, heavy equipment, Europe, Australia, GMAC-all gone.
Its brand names cheapened.
Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Saturn, Saab - all dead.
General Motors had grown so big and successful that it had become sclerotic without knowing it.
The Greek word Hubris is applicable.
It lost the entrepreneurial drive of its former leaders, among them Charles Durant, Alfred Sloan, Charles Mott and Boss Kettering.
Two oil embargoes in the 1970s and listless, if not incompetent, management, killed GM.
The two Arab oil embargoes drove up the price of gasoline.
No longer would it be priced as low as 19 cents per gallon-common in the price wars in California.
Detroit struggled with producing quality, fuel efficient, small cars that could compete with the Japanese impor.
Independently Published Meaty, beaty, big and monopolistic: the story of general motors/denis binder
