In their arrogance and greed, they continued to produce the big behemoths that the American people weren't buying. Civics and their ilk were becoming increasingly popular.
If Americans weren't buying the "behemoths" why did the automakers keep making them and how, if they weren't selling, did the automakers have all this money? Can't have one without the other. Eco 101.
The reason "Civics and their ilk were becoming increasingly popular" is because the Japanese automakers had been forced - for
economic reasons - to become very good at making small, efficient, inexpensive vehicles. Had it not been for the oil embargo, horrendous inflation, and a very advantageous yen-to-dollar ratio, these cheap gas-sippers from the Land of the Rising Sun would never have seen their overnight leap to fame into the American market.
I remember when minimum wage was $1.65/hr and rank and file autoworkers were making $12-16/hr by virtue of their union contract. The automakers had to know that couldn't be sustained-but they had the lock on the market. This was before the gas lines and shortages of the early '70's.
If you are in a market where $2.00 is considered average and you are making six to eight times that, the
WORKERS AND THE UNION should have known that it couldn't be sustained. No one wants to pay a premium cost for an average product and will eventually find ways to offset the expense (like moving jobs to Mexico). Sounds to me like a bunch of folks who were their own undoing. Your "lock on the market" bit is a nice interjection, but completely unrelated to the rest of your statement. Throwing it in to keep the "Big Auto Is Bad" tone of the message serves no purpose other than being inflammatory rhetoric.
Brad