We definitely are all in for a rough time from what is coming economically. But every time the federal government spends a penny, it has to come out of somebody's pocket. If the government is going to take $25 billion of our money and give it to somebody, I want to make damn sure that we aren't pouring that money down a hole in the ground. Regardless of who we believe to be at fault for it, it remains the truth, that a business model of paying more to produce a product than the product can be sold for is DOOMED! Until the big 3 can figure out a way to change that business model, I am categorically against spending a penny to bail them out. Doing so is wasting money that could be spent bailing out industries that DO have a successful business model that simply need some help to make it through tough times. Detroit was losing money and losing market share BEFORE the economy turned south. Even a return to prosperity will not bring them back on their current path, because the era of the huge expensive SUV has come and gone, and that was the only thing detroit could make money building.

We don't have unlimited cash to hand out, and we should be handing it out to companies that are likely to be successful and employing people 3-5 years from now WITHOUT further government assistance. As I saw elsewhere, giving Detroit a bailout right now without dictating changes is like giving a "loan" to a friend who is a cocaine addict without asking him to go to rehab. You know it isn't really a loan...it is just the first of what will become a series of installment payments on an accumulation of poor lifestyle choices.

They need to downsize from cocaine to the less expensive crack

I agree that it is a combination of the big business lack of vision & failure to plan ahead, and the unions that caused the auto industries this problem.

They are stuck in a same old business as usual and not looking to the future.

Just today on a news/talk radio show I heard this-
I heard they lose $1500 per vehicle because of the "union" benefits.
I also heard that one of the CEO's make 2.3 mil a year!! {might have that $$ wrong}
and probably stock options and the company jet on top of that.
He mentioned the 71.00 per her@ Big 3 vs $41 per hr @ foreign automakers.

I also heard the 25 bil, would most likely come out of part of the 700 bailout moneys. Not a separate thing.

You mean $25 billion? You know...it is D.C...take a billion here, a billion there, and sooner or later you start talking about real money...

2.2 million base salary and the rest is stock options, etc. That's my understanding.

Well, if they don't bail out the auto industry and put the money they WOULD have used into health and human services programs and job retraining and small business loan incentives there might be less fallout. And we really NEED more money in health and human services and other programs like job retraining. Plus, there have been studies that have shown that entrepreneurship is high in a market where people get laid off (maybe not the exact right words, but that's the concept anyway).

What gets me is all the focus on the airlines and now automakers. Whatever happened to competition and market driven forces? If you can't make it, you can't make it. And there ARE bankruptcy options available. Restructuring isn't so bad. It really isn't.

If we would mandate higher mpg requirements and smaller car size to assist development of higher mpg cars, then we'd be in front of the 8 ball rather than behind it right now. But no..... we can't do squat. It's like trying to force a ban on sales of cigarettes. We know it causes cancer and look at other products that cause cancer--they're mostly all off the market or regulated heavily, but because of Big Tobacco we still have people coming down with tobacco caused cancer.

I get torqued up because the auto industry blocked higher mpg requirements and has known how to produce cars for quite some time that are more efficient in many ways but doesn't. We won't invest in alternate energy development in the same fashion that we offer bailout.

And the banks? So we've done all these things--cut interest rates and given $$ to them, and they're still not lending. Um duh.... but if you don't put MANDATORY stuff in there requiring things then hardly anyone is going to do what you "suggest."

Look at the total bailout $$ that we had available in the beginning and then divide the US population into that and see how much $$ we could all get if it was divided up. Fun exercise. Then take out the population under 18 and do it again.

No one's going to bail out the job sector in which I work. I'm in health/human services. In fact, my organization suffered an almost $1,000,000 funding loss at a time when demand for services is increasing due to the economy. It's looking bad for next fiscal year's budget too. We haven't laid off yet, but it may be coming, which means that we'll have to cut services and demand will still increase. I'm at the bottom end of the trickle down and seeing its effects every day. But I'll end up in the unemployment line too because they won't put the money where it can make an actual difference.

<sigh>

i think we should stop with the bailouts.
let the chips fall where they may.

let these companies fall and let them start again, from scratch.
let these big execs go. we need to reorganize our systems.

bailing out and letting these companies go along their merry way is no long term solution. IMHO.

Would it not be great if we just walked to work or telecommuted?

Heck, we could use the freeways as scooter tracks for the great "US Scooter 500" sponsored by Pride Scooter Corporation every year!

The problem with walking to work is that there are many of us that live in rural areas with no public transportation, and things are spread out. I live 3 miles to work, and since I walk about that every morning for exercise, I'd have to leave for work about 45 minutes early, then be sweaty when I get there.

I actually travel all over our school district, which is 10 miles from one end to the other north and south, and probably another 10 east to west.

But I'm all for doing my work from home!

Actually, in our school district, we have some very innovative technology dudes, that have made it so we don't have to physically touch a computer for a lot of problems. We can just remote in and fix it. That has helped a bunch as far as mileage.

Um VIC We live in LA, people don't walk here . Maybe I should get a segway