We are going to have more Czars that Russia ever did.

I believe that Democrats will drive this country rapidly into a depression by nationalizing anything that is in trouble.

What they should do is force all three companies into bankruptcy court and let a judge force in new and much more responsible management, determine what the unions will get (or fire them), and make sure that their vendors are taken care of. 

I do not want want to become a shareholder of any of those three companies via my tax dollars and the GOP had better find ways to aggressively fight this.

You want fairness? The fairness that Obama has been proclaiming as the cornerstone of his economic policy?

It goes both ways. You want a fair distribution of the wealth, then you take a fair distribution of the pain. Obama must push the unions (one of his core support groups) to share the pain. In any compromise, the unions have to be part of the deal. Otherwise, it'll simply be a case of Obama claiming fairness when all he really wanted was more pie.

Obama can't vote "present" on this one. Welcome to the presidency. Let's see how he does.

Note: if Obama does force the unions to compromise fairly, I'll praise him for it. We should give him credit if credit is due. But if he stiffs us, or tries to stay on the sidelines ... his credibility will be gone for good.

The last thing we need is a bail out of the Auto industry. Things are bad enough with the banks. AIG stock has not gone up, but down sense word of the money came through early this week. And the AIG insurance side was solvent. The UAW has squeezed all the blood out of Ford, GM and Chrysler they are going to get, I think. Let them go into chapter 11. If the UAW wants to cut their members out of work, so be it. But no more goverment intervention in these things. Or I want my million.

Save a SeAL, club a liberal!!

Why not a variation on that theme as a pre-condition to any bailout with taxpayer money?

GM, Chrysler and Ford all have to split up and spin off thier 'divisions'. So instead of three big auto companies we'll have:

Chevrolet, Pontiac, Buick, Cadilac, Ford, Lincoln, Mecury. Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep...

I would put it to them as either split up and get aide, or go Chapter 11. Maybe this will entice some of the other european makers into the market too?

Hey, I got the wrong "CHANGE"!

Alan Keyes / Sarah Palin - 2012

What no one is asking the auto makers is "What you are going to do with this money to make you more competivive?

As long as the unions are present, they are just going to take the money and spend it. Nothing will be done to make their more competitive against foreign companies.

They will soon spend it all and will be asking for more in less than 2 years.

This is just going to extend their suffering a little longer but it's not getting rid of the disease, which is called UAW.

I think its telling no one is willing to buy up GM.  GM is a huge  company with a total market capitalization of only 1.75 billion.

Much has been made of the proposed financial bailout of the Big-Three automakers. Yet in all the discussion, a very real—unbelievably positive—aspect to allowing them to fail and reorganize under Chapter 11 bankruptcy seems to get overlooked; or at a minimum, is getting treated like some kind of “third-rail”. The moment an automaker’s bankruptcy paperwork is filed, every contract they have with the U.A.W. will—by law—be nullified!

 So why would this be a positive? Because beyond the over-the-top executive salaries and golden parachutes plaguing all the bailout proposals these days, the number one reason for the financial failure of these particular giants of American industry is the unrealistic, socialist-style, union contracts that have automakers clinging desperately to life support. When you pay someone $35 an hour, plus full benefits, to do nothing more than put hubcaps on a vehicle as it rolls by on the assembly line; when you are force fed a “jobs-for-life” caveat in all your labor agreements; when the concept of “it’s never enough” prevails within your workforce, no business interest, in any industry, can possibly survive.

As the Detroit Free Press and Wall Street Journal have documented, the General Motors Jobs Bank is costing the automaker over $800-Million dollars each year; needlessly adding $200-$300 to the cost of each vehicle made. And that is just GM; Ford and Chrysler have similar albatross’ hanging around their necks. What do the Big-Three get for over a billion dollars in combined “non-labor” labor expense? Not one thing. What was intended to be a short-term opportunity for displaced workers—to get paid while re-training for other positions or find work elsewhere—has turned into an unintended private-sector entitlement program. Thousands of “former” employees whose jobs were eliminated due to automation or plant closures gather in gymnasiums each day to read the newspaper, drink coffee and play cards, many collecting over $100,000 in salary and benefits each year—in a program established in 1984 (Orwell, anyone?)—having to do nothing more for this largess than making sure the U.A.W. gets their cut each month.

Ever wonder why certain members of Congress begin pounding their chests for higher minimum wages even before the dust settles over the last round of victories? Because of union lobbyists. U.A.W. (and many other union) contracts don’t dictate a specific dollar amount its members are to be paid per hour for the job function they perform. The contractual wage for their union members is actually a multiplier of the federal minimum wage; five times here, ten times there, with additional multipliers for things like holidays, shift work, and seniority. So with the swipe of the president’s pen, and as regular as the next increase, an employee who is barely shows up for work on time and who does the absolute minimum amount of work required, gets the same contractually triggered pay raise as someone who is motivated, hustles and strives to move up within the ranks—that is when he’s not being told to knock it off by the shop steward, because he’s making the slackers look bad. That, my friends, is the quintessential definition of socialism; already alive and well in America.

Behind closed doors, automaker executives have got to be quietly praying that Congress will back away from bailing them out. With their current union contracts lining the bottom of bird cages, and thousands of non-working individuals off their payrolls forever, the automakers can negotiate fiscally responsible contracts that allow them to build better cars and trucks for less money, and regain their competitive advantage in the U.S. marketplace.

Let’s face it; the U.A.W. has to know that all three automakers can set up shop in Mexico tomorrow, and effectively hang an “Out of Business” sign at the Michigan border, if they don’t play ball. It’s time to let the same market conditions that effect every other industry wrap its loving arms around the Big-Three, and allow the U.A.W. to rejoin the real world—or close its own doors.

Kevin D. Bakko