Like in any other markets, there's winners and losers...If you come up with crappy products and your competition eats you alive...Who's fault is it? Should everybody else help you out? Hell no!

When companies are failing for years due to poor management and changes in consumer behavior the companies usually change up or die.  Employees have been very well taken care of in this industry with pension plans and I'm told $75 an hour for line workers.  This couldn't have happened over night, why weren't costs cut/employees laid off/changes in management occured before, and if they have, these businesses aren't profitable and just aren't going to cut it.  What's a loan going to do aside from prolong the inevitable?  Sadly of course for all of those affected, lots of industies and people will be hurt by the fall of the Detroit automakers but that's how companies work, people get laid off and find new work.

More political garbage that I'm not exactly convinced that we need, but hey, its only the death of the free market, right?

We had better bailout the common blue collar working man in Detroit. We hustle to bail out all those shylocks on Wall Street who have been raping the public for years, and then we dither over saving the backbone of the American economy.

When a nation goes into deep decline, it cares more for finance than manufacturing. That is the Iron Verdict of History and has repeated for Spain, France, Holland, Great Britain and maybe even Japan and Germany.

Take care of the working man and protect the manufacturing base. The finance parasites will travel along sucking on the productive. The finance leeches won't starve! 

  Here's why the bailout had to happen:  the UAW, which happens to own Barack Obama, cannot afford to allow the Detroit 3 to enter Chapter 11.  All union contracts would have to be re-negotiated in the reorganization.  They, refusing to concede a nickel in order to convince the idiotic Congress to allocate fundes originally borrowed and allocated to "bail out" the BANKING INDUSTRY!!! , have received a reprieve from bankruptcy from the conservative president you liberals all hate so much, until sometime in the 2nd quarter of 2009, when the Congress is more liberal and the president, who is even more liberal than the Congress, will put their thinking caps on and figure out how to donate more funds, which will also be borrowed, to the (then) tiny and very non-profitable Detroit 3, nearly all of which will go to the union, its members and their various benefit funds.  Does this sound to you like a plan to "save" the US auto industry or simply a way to feed the ravenous appetite of the single reason they are in this mess to begin with: the UAW, and the perpetual failure of management to stand up to the unions, even a single time.  They have now run out of time.

Any plan to re-organize, re-tool or re-vamp the Detroit 3, which does not include major (MAJOR!) concessions on the part of the UAW, is a total waste of time, money and rhetoric.  Which is precisely why it will happen again in April, 2009 with incredibly more funds being wheel-barrowed into this failed business model.  But, the union will not concede anything until their current contract expires in 2011!  A brilliant example of a liberal solution to a huge and very serious problem which the liberals are able to "blame" on the republican President George W. Bush, and the press will be blaming Bush for the current woes of the "Big 3" ad infinitum, even though this model has been in place for over five decades.  Why would anyone think taxes might be going up soon?

i want u to think of something, we as a country outlaw monopolies to protect the consumer from price gouging, yet unions like the UAW are monopolizing the workforce and wage/benefit gouging the companies, how is that fair? all the parties prospered during the good times and all the parties should suffer during the down years. if GM as a whole wants to be viable 5-10 years down the line then concessions need to come from everyone - including car dealers.  no one benefits from bankruptcy - except lawyers.

Why the double standard when it comes to who gets a "loan" from the government and who don't, notice I said loan. Company's who function in the real economy are getting backhanded by our incompetent elected officials. They were happy to hand out cash to the giant lending institutions without asking for a plan on how the money would be spent, since then Congress doesn't know where the money went. The big Three has a plan, but they might not get a loan. WTF?! I never liked the idea of a bailout in the first place, but since the government is a full fledged bank now, equal consideration should be given to all applicants. If the whole idea of a bailout is to "save jobs" Approving a loan for the Big Three would do that. 11/19/08: In case anyone don't know, I work for a tier one/two supplier in the metro Detroit area. Whatever decision is made will have a big impact on our company. We had some hot debates at work today. I am against the bailout. I don't want to get into all the reasons, other than to say it would set a bad precedent, everyone and their brother will want a bailout. I say let the free market take its course, even if it will cost me my job.

The bailout is simple, if you don't believe that history repeats itself.  Don't do the bailout.  If you don't believe all the other sub companies will fail, then do the bailout.
If you as the consumer believe that the Government should be able to tell you what to buy or tell companies what to produce.  Then do then don't do the bailout.
Keep in mind in 2007, sales for the big 3 for hybrids was 2.6% and Flex Fuel vehicles was 6%.  Like I said if you like the government controlling everything and telling you what to buy.  Then don't support the bailout.

The election will be the story of 2008.  This one will have to take silver or bronze medal.  We all have opinions but really no one really knows what will or won't happen regardless of job title, academic degrees, or years of experience.  I'll rate this as a story instead of my opinion because I don't have enough information to give a solid opinion- and neither do many of you. . .this seems to be a macro-economic problem on steroids.  I do know that national economies are more intertwined and connected than many Americans realize.  Your 401K probably has some money tied to Brazil or (insert other nation here.)  Under normal circumstances, I would let the big 3 rot for having some of the most retarded product decisions that I've been deriding for years.  (They were still building giant tank SUV's when smart people were saying their time had passed. . .)  I've always had it in for the big three crying wolf and blaming their union contracts for building cars that presently are barely marketable or cannot be sold in other nations.  I'd love to flush the handle and make them change and see the light- but even those who want them to go down must admit a truism before rendering judgement- these are not ordinary times.  I'm going to withold judgement for now on this solid 4-star story. . .

I do agree that bailing them out is not a very good idea. The industry is painting a very bleak picture of what would happen if they had to end up filing for bankruptcy: mass layoffs, auxiliary producers going under, dealerships closing up. But why not let them file for bankruptcy reorganization like most other troubled corporations do?

Just because GM files for bankruptcy does not mean that it will stop operating, nor does it mean that their workers will go idle. What this will do is allow for the company to get a breather. As it stands right now, GM's debt burden is unsustainable; so much so that they can't find financing in the regular debt markets. Simply put, they need to reduce their debt load--bankruptcy reorganization will allow them to renegotiate labor union contracts and realign their production methods. They need to reorganize to the point where they don't have so many redundant product lines. GM has 7 lines to Toyota's 3, and GM never really shifted their production away from big trucks until gas prices reached $4 a gallon this summer, way too late! The company needs to retain only those product lines that are profitable, all others must go to the wayside. GM will be smaller, but definitely more well positioned to become competitive again.

A bailout will do nothing to make these companies more competitive. Filing for bankruptcy however can be helpful to all parties concerned. GM will be able to find financing more easily under such a structure. The bailout structure that the Democrats are trying to work out essentially only call for the government to work with these corporations to make them more viable, as if it were that easy. The government should stay out of the car business! Instead, they should work with these companies to provide for financing after they declare for bankruptcy. GM needs to get a group of specialists that focus on turning around failing companies (someone like Mitt Romney comes immediately to mind here) and let them do their job.

For any reorganization effort to work, the consumers must have some confidence that GM will be around for some time. Car owners want to know that the company will be around long enough so that the resale price of the car won't plummet because spare parts and service options are not available. GM will need an aggressive PR campaign to let consumers know that they will emerge from bankruptcy stronger than before. It is critical that demand for their products does not go down too much during reorganization; otherwise all bets are off. This option is certainly better than Detroit going to Washington every 6-9 months asking for a bailout to cover operating costs. Business as usual is simply not sustainable in the longterm.

A terrible idea.  Let these companies go Chapter 11 like every other business that spends more than it earns.  Unlike banks, a failed car company can't infect healthy car companies.  And the US already has one of the most pro business bankruptcy policy around - Chapter 11 would give them a real chance to get their shit together.

If we bail out the car companies, there will be a line from DC down to North Carolina of companies waiting to get bailed out.

Seriously, wtf.  I just read that the three car maker CEO's each flew their own private jets to DC to beg for taxpayer help.  Ever hear of a carpool?