Finally, earlier Monday, General Motors filed for bankruptcy.

As said: finally. GM should taken this step years ago. It took hit after hit, loss after loss for years, decades even. Every time it got in trouble, however, Washington D.C. came to the rescue. Not anymore, and rightly so.

GM is a company of a different age. If it wanted to survive, it had to modernize. It, and its employees it has to be said, refused to do so, however, leading to the logical conclusion that it had become a drain on the U.S. economy, meaning it should be allowed to fail.

Sadly, there is also bad news:

General Motors Corp filed for bankruptcy on Monday, forcing the 100-year-old automaker once seen as a symbol of American economic might and dynamism into a new and uncertain era of government ownership. (more…)

The New York Times certainly thinks so:

Fresh from pushing Chrysler into bankruptcy, President Obama and his economic team are hoping that the hard line they took last week gives them leverage to force huge changes in General Motors, a far larger and more complex company.

Officials say that, difficult as Mr. Obama’s decision was on Wednesday to take all the risks of a Chrysler bankruptcy, the politics of reshaping G.M. will be far harder.| MORE ›

Although President Barack Obama has told automakers he intends to save them from bankruptcy, he has toughened up considerably in recent weeks. Automakers, Obama said this weekend, have not done enough. They have not done what was expected of them. As long as they do not, Washington will not bail them out.| MORE ›

Shortly before the deadline established by the federal government passed, Chrysler and union leaders said they had reached an agreement. It once again proves that pressure can accomplish a lot.

The deal includes Fiat, the Italian automaker with which Chrysler was ordered by the government to form an alliance before Thursday.| MORE ›