THE MOTOR CITY MIRAGE

This is not the first boom-and-bust cycle that has afflicted American automakers, and they do always seem to turn things around. The problem is that, with each cycle, they wind up further behind than they were before. At the 1994 auto show, Jack Smith—then the C.E.O. of G.M.—said in a speech, "Success itself breeds the roots of complacency, myopia, and, ultimately, decline." Smith thought that he was talking about Detroit's past. Little did he know that he was also predicting its future.
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