SNIP
>and protection of domestic industry. The latter was the major reason, this factory could always claim it feeds 30000 families, so they had a lot of political clout.
>
>The regular wait period was usually about six months - not 3-4 years as it was in the countries behind the iron curtain. And the quality of the cars was, well, not too bad if you were lucky.

I cannot imagine any corporation getting away with that in the U.S. In fact, so many factories have closed or relocated to foreign countries there were literally hundreds of thousands employees laid off in the last few years with no job prospects.

There used to be a joke about the Yugo in the U.S. when they first started buying them in the U.S. and Canada. Everyone was saying that it should have been named 'NoGo' instead of Yugo back then. I think it has a better image now.