Were pension debts to blame for firm's ruin?

Did pension debts ruin General Motors?

I said they did in While America Aged, a book published last year. The thesis was that many decades of inflated pension and health-care benefits forced the company to redirect its free cash flow to retired workers. As a result, there was little or nothing left for the shareholders.

It was as if, I wrote, the company had secretly been sold and now belonged to the retired workers and their dependents. That turned out to be only partly right. When GM is reorganized, the United Auto Workers union will probably end up with 17 percent of the stock. The government will get most of the rest.