Did you hear the automaker that offers more hybrid models than any company filed for bankruptcy protection the other day? Yes. It’s General Motors. You’d never learn that hybrid fact from the mainstream media about GM. In recent years you didn’t hear much about GM’s hybrids because many reporters were too busy insisting that GM just makes gas-guzzling SUV’s and trucks.

The fact is GM was ready with products that were beginning to take hold in the world marketplace when credit for new car loans simply dried up last year. You can thank all those lenders who decided everyone with a pulse should get a home mortgage for the credit crunch that ultimately forced GM into bankruptcy.

As recently as the late 90’s, GM was still making record profits. But the company also did not put as much of that cash into research and development as some of the import companies and that too ultimately hurt GM. One big reason GM did not that pump enough into R and D are excessive union labor contracts that required the company to spend more on health care for retirees than it did on steel to build vehicles. The bankruptcy will break those agreements. Of course GM originally agreed to those contracts years ago and that was the fault of the automaker’s leadership, or lack thereof.