It has been 20 years since filmmaker Michael Moore tore into General Motors’ management in Roger & Me, portraying them as heartless buffoons for their ruthless downsizing. It seems they probably should have kept cutting costs and diversifying away from autos as former chief executive Roger Smith was then doing, to Mr Moore’s chagrin. After its dismal earnings report on Thursday, GM can now look back on two decades during which it sold some 170m vehicles, generated $3,300bn in revenue and racked up cumulative losses of $55bn in the process – more than its profits over the previous 80 years.

The US Treasury has hired some supposedly hard-nosed advisers, Steven Rattner and Ron Bloom, to evaluate GM’s restructuring plan. If they are worth their salt, they will recall this sad record of value destruction as they evaluate the carmaker’s case for another $16.6bn in government loans on top of the $13.4bn it has already received.