[DGthe3]

To add to what Dragoneye said, the VEBA agreement in 2007 is estimated to save GM ~8 billion/yr starting in 2010, which in and of itself puts them back to profitability under a normal sales year. Then there is the continuing reduction in build/labour cost and increase in quality (more sales, less warranty replacement). Also, know what GM's best sales year was? 2007. In fact, 2005, 2006, and 2007 were 3/4 best sales years in GM's history. They've averaged ~200 billion in revenue each year durring that time. So while a loss of say 5 billion may seem like a lot, its not much relative to the size of the company. A loss of 30B like GM had for 2008 is impossible to ignore, but the difference between 2007 and 2008 for GM is roughly the same as Toyota's (down ~25B). In an odd twist, thats good news for GM since they lost more sales than Toyota did and most of those were on highly profitable trucks and SUV's.

Ford started all this earlier than GM did and they are in a reasonably safe position. Chrysler started later but are much smaller so the turnaround can happen quicker and so they are in roughly the same financial position as GM is.