I think this is the main point of your post.

They DO know how to buid a reliable car. Employee salaries and benefits and
keeping
stockholders happy have forced the North American car manufacturers to lower
a lot
of things, including quality.
Another thing, friend of mine used to be a Ford dealer. At a meeting, Ford
offered to make available
to them a car that could go 20 years trouble free. They said NO!!! Profits
are more important than anything else.

Whoa.  You seem to think it is INEVITABLE that GM will just find its
savior in the form of another company and all will live happily ever
after.

Don't necessarily bet that Toyota is sadistic enough to want to buy
into your thought.  They have a streamlined and profitable operation
without having to crank out ungodly numbers of units.

As much as the US manufacturing base has been allowed to corrode and
with China making GM engines (the 3.4L v6, for one) now, don't rush to
think there will be a rush to save a failing company.

Besides, since when is natural selection in the corporate world a bad
thing?

Yeah, I know, all the jobs and all the cars...someone(s) will have to
fill that void eventually as just letting X number of potential vehicle
sales in the US market go untouched is unwise.  Kia is building a US
plant, for crying out loud.  If given no other alternative for an
Aveoesque offering, they will pull some.

Besides, after the NUMMI venture and the fact that GM had a Corolla
clone in its fold for so long, they should know something about making
consistently reliable vehicles by now.  Not spotty crap like intake
manifold gaskets, 4L60E's with aluminum valve bodies, bad alternators,
crummy taillight circuit boards on the 88-98 trucks (replaced with
aftermarket lights not using the circuit boards), the decision to
follow the Mustang by several years (2009?  Get real...) or even bring
a crossover into the fold...

But, GM a least did well in acquiring a few of the Seven sins....sloth,
gluttony, and greed, for starters.

I doubt that will happen.  I suspect that, at worst, GM will declare
bankruptcy,
cancel the contracts, make all the stocks worthless, and reorganize under
protection.

To declare bankrupt you don't have to be dead, just on the point of dying.

Daimler Benz, of course, acquired Chrysler, so the concept is possible.

I have been in sales meetings, by the way, where executives made the kind
of statement another poster has quoted.  "If we gave you a car that would
last
for 20 years, troublefree, would you be happy"
This might have been similar to what happened in the Ford story.
In fact they can't do this, or at least never intend to do it.
When you are trying to get a sales organization to improve its market share,
the salesmen always say "We could, if you could give us this, or that, or
the other".
It is a common CYA situation.
The worst thing you can do to a salesman, sometimes, is give him what he
asks for.
Then his excuse is ruptured.

It can be really hard to figure out how to design a product, and the
marketing technique,
which will take a large share of the business from a competitor.  Books have
been
written on it.  Some companies have wasted millions or even billions on
fool's schemes.

GM has had it share of fools in management.

toycars wrote, "I think Toyota could teach those guys [GM] a thing or
two about building reliable cars."
  *************************************
 I submit that if you made the above statement to the average person on
the street--in other words, outside of this discussion room--they
wouldn't know what you were talking about.
 GM cars aren't generally regarded as being unreliable by the
population at large.
 If someone didn't know what a GM car was, and began reading about them
in this group, they would think they're absolute junk, which is far from
true.
 The main problem with GM, as I see it, is they're saddled down with so
much expenditure from health care and pensions.
 I sure as hell wouldn't have any problem with buying a GM car.

How long have you or your family worked for Toyota now?