After years of arduous reorganization and a hellish effort to avoid bankruptcy, at the cost of tens of billions in federal bailout money; American auto giant did eventually follow in the footsteps of Chrysler and declare bankruptcy. The executives had previously stated that bankruptcy has not an option, but G.M. was it its end.

Unless the state was willingly to pump billion more into G.M., the automaker needed to declare Chapter 11 bankruptcy in order to quickly shed dead-weight loss and transform into a leaner, but more efficient auto company.

For years G.M. grew fat with dull brands and unaffordable health-care and pensions costs. Now a new G.M. has emerged from bankruptcy. What will this company look like?

G.M.’s sale of its desirable assets, including brands like Chevrolet, Cadillac and GMC, to the new company — now named Vehicle Acquisition Company but soon to be renamed the General Motors Company — is meant to shed decades of buckling liabilities. The federal government will hold nearly 61 percent of the new company, with the Canadian government, a health care trust for the United Auto Workers union and bondholders owning the balance.

The new company will be much smaller, with brands like Saturn, Hummer and Pontiac in the process of being sold or closed. It will also have a smaller sales network, with thousands of dealers having been cut during the reorganization.

G.M. used to say that the federal government absolutely had to bailout the struggling firm because if it didn’t, especially in a time of great economic crisis, the affect on the U.S. jobs market would be devastating and America may well see the end of its auto industry because consumers would forever be turned off by a bankrupt firm no matter the success at reorganization. Well, G.M. has done precisely that and the jobs market, while bad, is not effected in large measure by G.M. and certainly not castotrophic. And American and world consumers have not been forever turned off.

If only G.M. had not avoided the evitable. The end result has been the same: bankruptcy. But by forestalling, G.M. cost American taxpayers $50 BILLION.

Thanks assholes!