Yes. These automakers (GM, Chrysler, Ford - ford oem parts) needed funds to uncover and to stop the entire industry from getting down. Bankruptcies could even slow our
industry's recovery.

what then?
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By "help" do you mean resolve the problem?

Of course a piddling 17 billion does nothing for them. They are losing about 18 billion a year and no amount of shutting down factories or laying off people who get paid anyway will even begin to solve the problem!

That doesn't even mention just where will car buyers get a loan to buy a car with little or no down payment and maybe no job tomorrow.

I can't figure what good making cars does if few can buy them, and most of them wants Hondas or Toyotas!

It is clear that we will be supporting them for years. Open your pocketbook to pay huge sales taxes, more income taxes, much more local property taxes, more state taxes, and a huge tax on every "non-necessity" available---yeah, good steak, pop, pizza, sugar, gasoline (a big one), jewelry, fancy clothing, furs, leather, luxury vehicles, all service labor--including haircuts, beauty salons, nail salons, cable, telephone, dish, even color TV!

We also must support all of these people who work in services and paper shuffling for years until we can get some manufacturing returned.

Borrowing as we do now is about "OVER."

By "help" do you mean resolve the problem?

Perhaps you need to ask "CarDealer".
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It sounds so good. I mean like OMG, we can divert all that money to everyone and to pay off all the debt, send children to college, buy a new car, get a second home, travel,… .

Well, let’s see:

They’re 305,910,768 of us – men, women and children some legal and some not. So let’s just stick with that number.

The value of TARP is $700,000,000,000 ($700B). If you divide the TARP funding by the population you get a grand total for everyone …….insert drum roll please………of……..$2,288 per person.
So much for “Guv” money for us common folk.

Now let’s look at the size of the GDP. This is the value of the economy (money exchanging) and is about $14,000,000,000,000 ($14Trillion). This comes out to a per capita of $47,000.

So the take away idea here is, the “Guv” cannot take care of you.

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Bailouts: $7 trillion and rising

I don't know what to say. It goes against all logic. Federal receipts for fiscal year 2007 were $2.4 Trillion and now there's a possibility to spend $7 Trillion. The school I went to says that will lead to failure.

Ah heck, come next March when the music stops in my department I might not have a seat to sit in. I'll retire and cut grass with yardman.

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Yeah but the value of the "new changed," economy with all that money circulating will be more than twice what it is now!

You just don't understand Keynesian mathematics!

We will just make our dollar worth half of what it is now on the world trade, and that way we "Can't" buy all of that overseas stuff and will have to make it here.

Now, it also means many of us will have to go back to work away from our desks to make stuff at low wages, but what fun it will be!

Have you created a new identity again?
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I suppose you mean me as $?

No, I have same identity as I have always had, What do you mean?

Have you NO OPINION on the statement that I made? Not interested?

Why so much interest in someone's comment name? I could care less what "cyclist" means!
I guess you ride a motorcycle along with millions of others!
I work for a dollar a day and food.

This has been discussed by many. The economy would soar if we could pay our bills; taxes; etc., etc., etc. If money was given to the average Joe to get himself out of this mess; if Credit Card companies were prevented from charging those outrageous interest rates; - we could keep up with the mortgage, buy some clothes, spend a little more on food, etc. FIRE THE CEO'S WHO HAVE FAILED; restructure the auto industry; and stop worrying about the 'rich' who have made enough for their children to enjoy generations of comfort. Let their next generation have to work for a living!! (There - I got that off my chest!)

Is there is really no money to bail us out with. This worthless money that they are creating is diluting the worth of the dollars that we earn every day. What we need to do is let the chips fall where they may and let a few of these corrupt institutions go under so their assets can be sold off. Get the bad guys out of the way so better run companies and their employess can grow, prosper and expand.

But that's not going to happen. Those in power have and will continue to benefit financially and power wise by their close associations with the corrupt Son-of-a-you-know-whats. Look at Madoof the finacial terrorist. Why isn't he in some NYC jail instead of being monitored by ankle bracelet and confined to his $7 million dollar luxury suite. Something is terribly wrong right now in this country.

Well the reason to do so of course is that bankruptcy will be filed and massive layoffs will occur and also in their suppliers! Maybe adding 5-7% to our already 7% unemployment.

That doesn't mean that we should just give them money however.
Get something for the money: You name it!

Now as to it being the blame of labor and their unions, of course what the auto companies pay for working and retired employees does not compete with foreign makers, it is just as much the company's acceptance of those contracts as well.

Anyway, we paid what they wanted for the autos for a very long time!
Just to brag and show them off!

Delta seemed to survive bankruptcy, or say they are, so why can't GM and Ford? Don't know what Chrysler's problem is!

I'm afraid we are in for many sacrifices to pay the bills we should have been paying long ago!
I never did understand those who kept saying it is alright to owe 130% for your house because inflation is never ending on homes, and yet didn't want to pay 3.5% social security so they could eat at 60!

Strange generations! Strange ideas!

The answer is neither. they're BOTH terrible!

Sunday April 20, 2008
BEIJING (AP) _ “General Motors Corp. will sell its first gas-electric hybrid cars in China in July, introducing a model created in part by GM's Shanghai design center, the company said Saturday.”

They said it would be priced under 300,000 yuan (US$43,000; euro27,000) _ comparable to the Prius.

News Flash, a 2008 Prius has an MSRP of $21,500 - 23,770.

“GM has made China, the world's second-biggest and fastest-growing vehicle market, a key part of its efforts to develop alternative power sources. It announced plans in October for a US$250 million (euro158.43 million) fuel research center in Shanghai.”

“GM hopes the Chinese government will introduce incentives to encourage sales of alternative vehicles, Liu said. The company plans to introduce a hybrid version of the Cadillac Escalade sport SUV in China next year, followed by an all-electric car as early as 2010,”

Please tell me what the GM management is thinking/smoking? They can’t sell the SUV’s they have here in the US so they plan on retooling to make yet another SUV for China?

Maybe GM should just close down all of it's US opperations and move to China.

Oh my.
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Protection for retirees and workers who are willing to dump the union. No big bonuses or corporate jets or even jobs for the top 4 layers of management.

And why was the head of the UAW union at the table yesterday with the heads of the Big 3 automakers. Isn't he the major problem?

Actually, I think we tax payers need to pick up the tab for 250,000 retirees. That is far better than helping to make the US companies profitable. Never mind that the imports have been provided tax-break after tax-break. And then there is the little problem of trying to sell US cars in such friendly markets as Japan....Ford sent vehicles to Japan. By the time the tariffs were added, there was no way they could compete. Oh but, shiploads of vehicles come to our shores and are welcomed with open arms. No tariff, no tax and all the while their gov't is subsidising them....

The US 3 made mistakes but, is it worth putting 3 million addition people out of work just to prove a point? There is a better solution and it starts with conditional loans to help them get back to profitability. If we can give money to AIG and the "Fat-cats" on Wall St., I think we can do a little to protect 3 million jobs and 250,000 pensions.

The southern Republican Senators would rather support foreign companies in their states and let the American auto industry die as long as they get a chance to bash the unions.

BTW: Japan does not impose any tariffs on imported cars or parts.

“Japan itself already has no tariffs on passengers cars, trucks and parts, and although the United States, its major export market, also imposes no duties on cars, it has a tariff of 25 percent on trucks.”

Japan proposes free trade on cars

Who cares about the unions.

I care about the workers and the retirees and we can handle that by confiscating the union funds that are targeted for their retirement and blending that into social security for the retired workers.

And the workers can get a job with Toyota or KIA. We (the federal gummint) can pay their moving expenses to Tennessee or SC.

Why the Republican Party is shrinking into a small regional party.

The point of free market is that the government doesn't interfere in the economy. The government bailing out the Big 3 goes against that. The government went against that when they bailed out any other company, ever! If a company is going to die, we should just let it die. That is how our economy works. Everyone has the right to fail and the right to succeed. How well you run your business determines that. I am completely against all these bailouts, no exceptions! The government needs to back off and let the economy run its course. We will bounce back at some point. Every country has good times and bad times, we just haven't had bad times in a while so I guess it's time. Think about 1973, yes it was bad, but we came back! That's the important thing, we came back! We WILL come back this time around, time is all we need.

The point of free market is that the government doesn't interfere in the economy. The government bailing out the Big 3 goes against that. The government went against that when they bailed out any other company, ever! If a company is going to die, we should just let it die. That is how our economy works. Everyone has the right to fail and the right to succeed. How well you run your business determines that. I am completely against all these bailouts, no exceptions! The government needs to back off and let the economy run its course. We will bounce back at some point. Every country has good times and bad times, we just haven't had bad times in a while so I guess it's time. Think about 1973, yes it was bad, but we came back! That's the important thing, we came back! We WILL come back this time around, time is all we need.

Japan hasn't had tariffs on imported cars since 1995 so I hardly think that is much of a factor in the US auto industry's near-collapse.

The Big 3 themselves for decades were protected from foreign competition and they got very lazy and bloated. Once the tariffs and protectionism ended because consumers demanded the government get the hell out of their automobile purchasing decision, it was the beginning of the end for American automakers. Their payrolls and pensions were already ginormous and they haven't made much progress in overhauling the very broken business model that is from decades ago, not modern reality.

An auto industry bailout is a band-aid placed over a six inch gash in the side. Until the American automotive industry completely changes how they operate and get relief from the enormous liabilities they have racked up, jobs will keep disappearing as sales will keep dropping.

I have no doubt the Dems will make sure a bone gets thrown to the auto industry and the inept execs and very ignorant and part of the whole problem unions will fight tooth and nail for shreds of that bone as the whole house sinks around them.