GM's struggles with health care, Europe hurt bottom line

GM announced today that fourth quarter profits were down 37 percent mainly due to rising health care costs and a flailing European division. The prognosis for 2005 isn't that rosy either. Officials say they only expect to "break-even or better" for the first quarter of '05 and predict U.S. car sales to fall compared to last year. Interestingly enough GM gained market share in three of the four markets it takes part in. The one failure being the U.S. where Nissan, Toyota and Honda saw record gains in market share. Of course those companies aren't seeing the $1 billion increase in health care expenses that GM will take on this year. They better sell a lot of Cobalts, or better yet a lot of Z06's.