Congress Considers Auto Rescue Plan - With Strings

This sounds cruel, but the Government should let them go to the wall.

If their European / Latin American etc operations are successful (as Ford Europe certainly is) then their product name will live on. Otherwise why bother trying to save a dead horse at great taxpayers’ expense?

It’s clear these companies are mis-managed, have poor US market products and should really pay for their incompetence the way the free market dictates. Otherwise they’ll become just like Government workers (if not already!)

Imagine the impact in the economy if all those 3 fell. Unemployment, consumer confidence, future US growth... The point isn't to save those companies, it is to save us all from the impact of the fall.. It would be terrible.

UAW = socialism

6 wks vacation and 35 hr work week = Executive Bloated Salary

You seem to have the die-hard "free market" American attitude, which is something I really do not understand. (Referring to the "die-hard" bit; I know the free market principle well enough.) Clearly things have gotten a bit out of hand, and I think a financial bailout of your domestic automotive industry grossly outweighs any stubborn adherence to your free market ideology. In our capitalist world, yes, the weak should die, but the economies of scale suggest when giants fall, people get squooshed. And that makes a terrible mess.

I do agreed with you 9TNine. Why is it when GM, Ford and Chrysler make millions and millions of dollars in profit. The only people who were profit to this, is the top Executives and Managers. Now they are asking the tax payers for help. GREED is BAD.

Yes we should keep corporations under socialism and everyone else capitalists. I guess we should help out some more poor management business but they should be paying interest on their loans from day one...not 5 years later. Higher risk loans demand higher interest rates with some tax payor ownership to watch another of our new companies.

The problem here are the Union worker they're draining the companies profits with irrational claims. GM is loosing so much money because of that they have to cut labor cost in order to make more profits, not with the Government help. The Volt is not coming out because of these people they need to change the production lines, and the workers doesn't allow to do that because the lost of jobs. So the Government have to negotiate with all these in order to make America works again and create new jobs. Sometimes you have to give the chicken wing in order to eat the chicken breast.

In the early 80's Caterpillar stood up to the UAW and basically stood their ground. In the 90's the Cat UAW decided to strike. The company answered by sending the office workers into the factories to run the lines while the company hired replacement workers in the interim. Guess what happened... Those engineers running the lines looked around and started noticing how inefficient their processes were. The UAW workers standing on the picket lines didn't realize it but they were at that very moment shooting themselves in the foot. When the strike ended workers began finding out that their old job was gone or about to be eliminated due to better processes devised by the engineers. Today Cat is a worldwide company and is stronger than it has ever been. It's an obvious example of what can happen when the union is kept in check. The union workers still working today make a good living but the ones that were part of the bloat are no longer there. I can only imagine how much of the UAW workforce in the big 3's auto factories is bloat. It's no wonder the foreign auto makers are so careful to keep unions out of their factories! A lot of folks like to blame mis-management with the big 3 but the problem to me seems to be lack of management. The tail is wagging the dog!

Wow, the CAT story is very interesting.

I still blame it on the products they are releasing; the Chevy Volt is expected to save GM but how many of you here would actually go out and buy one?

I wouldn't point to that particular case as any sort of argument. Interesting, yes, but not exactly applicable.

if that bailout is happening the European union and Asian countries should and will enforce some drastic measure because in a free market you cannot have the government pay for your tooling, product development and running the factory, and charge the "well managed" companies taxes to pay for it..think about it!

who cares if there are some car companies less, there are plenty new ones emerging every day, sell the remains to china or India..does anyone cry for US made IBM computers anymore? Re invent yourself GM , maybe there are some slots open in the finance world, that was the business section GM made the most profits with anyway...

Product quality aside (because that's a rubbish argument), management responsibility aside (because that's not likely to change), all irrelevant arguments aside, what is best course of action for the American people? I am genuinely astonished at the US government's utter unwillingness to act hastily in this time of economic peril. I understand congress is under terrible strain as of late, but experienced congressmen are in a position better than most to fully understand the consequences of not immediately dealing with a rapidly degenerating problem. This is the first real consideration we've seen from congress for a financial bailout of the automotive industry, and "hasty" is not a word I'd use to describe its timing. At least they seem to have recognized all the problems normal folk have been aware of for decades, which is promising. So how about forking over the money before it is too late? As much as I'd love to see the big three go under, as a Canadian, I'm not so stupid as to wish that upon them.

The government makes it seem our patriotic duty to bailout companies. Even if we do help, GM does not really have enough good product line to sell. Look at all the cars that are offered with the European/Asian companies. They are able to make profits on cars vs trucks and they have double overhead cams, 4 valve/cylinder heads, 6-8 speed trans, ABS standard, rollbars, electric stability standard, better roof standards and more projector headlight LED tech standard