Comment Re:I think... (Score 4, Insightful) 425
No, if GM had collapsed it would have taken the rest of the auto industry with it.
See, first GM goes down. Then the GM suppliers start falling, because they're close to the edge and GM defaulting on payments breaks them. There's no funding available to restructure, so they're all getting liquidated at pennies on the dollar (remember, we're in a massive banking crisis with a liquidity crunch). The failures cascade down the supplier chain, and then start taking out other automakers (because they can't get parts anymore). Pretty soon you've blown up most of the industry.
The correct anology isn't a a tree falling, making room for new, younger trees. This would be more akin to a massive forest fire (or even a volcanic eruption). Sure eventually you'd recover, but it would take years to decades and meanwhile it leaves a massive patch of utter devastation to deal with.