Robin -

The recently announced layoff of 30,000 General Motors employees is a secret plot. They have discovered a new highly efficient non-poluting vehicle technology, but the expense of putting it into production requires a rapid recovery of the manufacturing investment.

Since even a vastly superior vehicle can be sold only to people who's existing car is uneconomical - or has enough problems otherwise to convince them to junk it, they must let the used car market "dry up" so that a large percentage of drivers will need their new vehicles.

Once the used market is dominated by real junkers, they intend to announce their new vehicles, sell as many as possible, and then sell their automotive divisions to the Chinese - who will find the market already saturated with clean vehicles that will last virtually forever, and China will go broke.

I know it's true, because I heard it from a drunken PhD in a very high class bar.

John