No wonder General Motors went belly up. Nate Silver, in his political blog FiveThirty Eight, reviewed the operating margins of the legendary automaker from the 1950s to now. He found that GM has been headed for the junkyard for the past 50 years. Each succeeding decade produced a thinner and thinner margin for GM—8.7% (‘60s), 5.5% (‘70s), 3% (‘80s), 1.3% (‘90s), and -.5% (current decade). The reason for this stems from the company’s decision decades ago to offer employees smaller wages, but larger retirement benefits. As the years ticked by, and an increasing number of GM workers retired to enjoy a lucrative pension and health care program, more and more cash got swallowed up by its retirement program—which was costing an average of $7 billion per year between 1993 and 2007, and now is up to about $10 billion annually.