>>In regards to retirement costs, don't you think European car manufacturers are not suffering form the same problem. We have the same retirement costs up here I'd assume. For medical ensurance, things might be different. Because of the free market (read greed), healthcare is about 3 times as expensive in the US as it is here for the same coverage.
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>You miss the point of the thread. It is not about competition between US-based and Europe-based manufacturing. It is about comparing GM/Ford with ToyotaAmerica/HondaAmerica, i.e. both sides make cars in America. Also, you should look at the balance sheet: numbers of this magnitude cannot be short-term, i.e. they could not appear in the last 12 months events; btw you could look at historical numbers too.

Ok, thanks for clarifying that. However it would be nice if something can be found for the Toyota/Honda plants.

>Toyota, Honda, etc. have relatively new plants, i.e. relatively young workforce, i.e. less retirees. Also, newer companies do not provide defined benefit plans, like GM/Ford did; they provide defined contribution plans, i.e. give certain (fixed) amount of money and forget about retirees. If defined benefit plan includes medical care (as in GM/Ford case) then expenses may grow up too quick by reasons out of the company control.

It still however leaves me with questions though. Healthcare benefits really are calculatable and manageble, esspecially with the numbers of employees they've got. Smells like mismanagement of this aspect if this is pointed as a major cause. Not really know what to think of the huge number of retirees (I'm not familiar with how retirement is funded there). Up here in the netherlands it is less of an issue as all working people (young and old) are paying for current retirees. Companies are only paying retirement fees for people that are currently working on their companies, not for the ones who retired.