including the 25,000+ employees (a quarter of GM workforce) to be "discounted" and fired to compensate for the company managements poor vision while suppporting the outrageous salaries of the incompetents who have driven the company into the ground. It is only natural that American car companies should go the way of the dinosaur given thier short term, profit  maximizing methodology.    But who pays for this Greed?  The workers who are downsized when the bitter fruits come to fruition,  the citizens foolish enough to buy  into thier gas guzzling behemoths, and all of us as the environment becomes toxic around  us.  The UAW needs to start exerting force on the car companies to refocus on a better product built for the the world we live in where Oil is a dwindling resource and pollution from hydrocarbons is triggering global clamatic changes.