Think of it this way: In terms of cars, the United States once was the moral equivalent of a three-company town — General Motors, Ford and Chrysler. They had a lock on new-vehicle sales, pretty close to a 100 percent share of market. For the longest time, GM divisions such as Buick operated as separate engineering and marketing fiefdoms, duplicating at great cost and waste things being done at GM's Chevrolet, Pontiac, GMC and Cadillac divisions.