Gee, lets see here. GM introduces a new, expensive incentive across the board to move the metal without much regard to cheapening their brands or killing the resale. Sales shoot up. Ford and Chrysler follow. The Japanese don't. And then, at the end of the quarter, Toyota profits are through the roof while the big three have a wafer thin margin. This has been going on since 2001, when GM decided to "keep America rolling". All of the big three would love to ditch this expensive marketing tactic, but seeing as how the Asians continue to pick up market share without incentives, you could imagine the implosion that would occur if they did. The sad truth is...

1) American car makers have few "gotta have it" products on their showroom floors

2) There is a persistent lag between perception and reality of product quality (it is now better at the big 3 than most people realize)

3) There is an actual technological gap between the foreign makes and Detroit makes, in many cases. For example, durable though it may be, GM's 3800 V6 has seen better days.

Meanwhile, they have a union contract at their US plants stating that workers will receive up to 90% of their pay during temporary shutdowns. Thus, their choice is to either keep the lines moving and sell product at a loss through heavy incentives, or shut down the lines to bring volumes in check, and lose even more. "Moving the metal" at any cost is their best and only option, until the contracts can be renegotiated. We live in a very different world now, than when the contracts were written. Back then, all of the big 3 made huge profits on the backs of large SUVs, which were then very much in vogue. Since then, the market has become crowded, and consumer tastes have changed to crossovers - an area where Detroit must catch up to the imports (who were there first).