G.M.'s Record Profits

With only 7,000 G.M. employees left in the Flint area, this news doesn't have the same impact it would have once had, but it's still good to see a glimmer of hope for Michigan's economy.

Nick Bunkley of The New York Times reports:

General Motors reported the largest annual profit in its history on Thursday, even as losses in Europe dragged down fourth-quarter earnings.

G.M. said it earned a quarterly profit of $472 million, or 28 cents a share, down from $510 million, or 31 cents a share, a year ago. It was the eighth-consecutive quarterly profit for the carmaker, which cleansed much of its debt in bankruptcy years ago, but also the smallest during that stretch.

For all of 2011, G.M. earned $7.6 billion, nearly all of it from North America. That was 62 percent higher than the $4.7 billion it earned a year ago and more than G.M.’s previous record of $6.7 billion in 1997.