高级英语视听说第七单元文本 GM27s Difficult Road Ahead.docVIP

Unit 7 GMs Difficult Road Ahead Episode 1 If the old saying “what’s good for American is good for General Motor and vice versa” is still true, we are all in a lot of trouble. General Motors is limping along in the breakdown lane, in need of a lot more than a minor tune-up. With GM’s stock trading near an all time low and its bonds rated as junk, the company reported losses of more than $10 billion last year. Unless it stops hemorrhaging money, it will have to be towed into bankruptcy court—a consequence that could cascade through the American economy, threatening up to a million jobs and changing the dreams of American workers. *General Motors is not just another company. For almost a century, it was emblematic of American industrial dominance, with a car for every customer and a brand for every stratum of society. ***Back when Pontiacs were as sexy as Sinatra and Cadillac the synonym for luxury, GM made half the cars in the United States. And a job on one of its assembly lines was a ticket into the middle class. But that was before the first oil shock, and the Japanese imports. Today, General Motors is losing $24 million a day—and *** all bets are off. Cole: **And this is not a phantom crisis or a fake crisis. This is a real crisis. David Cole is chairman of the Center for Automotive Research, a non-profit consulting firm in Ann Arbor Michigan. He is widely considered one of the industry’s top analysts, and believes that Detroit is now facing what the steel industry and the big airlines have already been through: high labor costs that make it almost impossible to compete. Cole: And every one of the Big Three faces a problem right now of about $2000 to $2500 per vehicle produced cost disadvantage. ** If that plays out over time, they’re all dead. Correspondent: Change or die. Cole: It’s change or die. Everything is driven by a profitable business. If you can’t be profitable, you can’t be in business. Episode 2: Wagoner: This is a mid-sized car, the Chevy