and see part of the problem with gm’s problems. and it’s not necessarily about the cars. from march 2, 2007 - salon.com back at the dawn of the automobile era, banks generally refused to loan money for such things as buying a car. it wasn’t considered prudent. this was frustrating to companies such as general motors, which naturally wanted as many people as possible to have the wherewithal to purchase cadillacs and oldsmobiles and pontiacs and chevrolets. so gm decided to solve the problem by