Time Editor's 'Case for Saving Detroit:' Autos 'Too Big to Fail'

"Talk about too big to fail," said managing editor of Time Richard Stengel on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" Dec. 4, who was on the program promoting the latest cover story for the magazine entitled, "The Case for Saving Detroit." Stengel:

"I find the fact that so many Americans are unsympathetic to Detroit to be kind of amazing," Stengel said:

We make the case that in fact the, you know, the Big Three have adapted in a lot of ways ... They haven't managed things well, they have too much capacity, but I mean, talk about being too big to fail in a way, right?

The fact is Americans don't understand what collateralized debt obligations are, yet they sort of said, ‘Okay, let's bailout all of these banks and AIG' and yet people feel like, ‘Hmm what about the big car manufacturers?

As Stengel talked a screenshot of a CNN/Opinion Research poll showed 61 percent of American oppose a bailout of the automotive industry and 36 percent favor a rescue.

Mika Brzezinski countered:

Can we just keep it real though for a second though? They make great cars? They're not on the top ten best cars. I mean, maybe there's one. And this Chevy Volt is not ready till 2010 and it's $40,000. We still do no have innovation at its best here.