[68fastback]

I generally agree with you, Dave. I would be ok with loans only (which is all they're asking for).

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I saw where the hourly cost for an employee of the domestics is $73-76/hour (labor and burden) vs $37-43 for the imports (I showed a range bacuse three diff channels reported three different sets of numbers).

Much of that diff is attributed to better benefits and legacy costs and while reorganization under bankruptcy would open the door to renego much of that I think there's more to the problems and a dose of irony too.

Aside from the most recent downturn in the economy (which has little to do with the auto industry per se) which is pinching them as everyone else, I think the biggest failure sits squarely on the shoulders of the media. Really!

Just as they've poisoned political candidates in the past from judges to VP candiates, they have blindly clung to coolaid-drinking view of the superiority of Toyota and Honda with talking heads who spew the well molded and managed releases of those darling brands without so much a mirror-foggin consciousness of the extraordinary quality comeback of the domestics, etc (not to beat that to death).

The irony, as I see it, is that for the first time in prolly 20 years give or take, Ford and GM really have made systematic improvements to both product, process and plant and, prior to the general downturn, were on track (at least Ford was) for a turn-around. Actually, Ford had already turned profitable even in NA prior to the down turn and has been broadly profitable outside the US ongoing. So, especially for Ford, who brought in Mullaly and is midstream in what I blelive is a most excellent turnaround plan on par with those we've seen from IBM, Motorola and Apple (of others) and given they cannot control the vagaries of the economy, the lower costs of T & H that are not due to process superiority any longer, and the broader uneven playing field of protectionist foreign government/markets, I think it's ironic that Congress thinks the industry is a dinosaur (that word repeats by proliticos and talking heads alike) when it is a misunderstood jewel in the industrial crown of the US.

Have they coasted in the past and gone for the profits over a prudent blend of stockholder masturbation and R&D infusion? Sure. Are they doing that over the past few years? Not. Are the plans perfect? Prolly not but given the disparities it's likely as good as it can be in the short term which, if successful, will permit self-reinvigoration of R&D for the long term.

Meanwhile the foreign automakes talk about their excellence to the wide applause of an ignorant and media (and, not surprisingly, eqaully ignorant public), while diligently blocking out imports and keeping the key R&D jobs on their soil -- all the while being responsive to such concerns here by unleasing mind-f__ing commercials showing beautiful design centers here in the US (which has nothing to do with the key R&D speding guarded at home). The US is just easy pickings for the Toyota and Honda given the uneven playing field. In spite of that, the US makers are doing more with less since US cars must struggle to offere comparable features at comparable price but with a sizeable cost disadvantage.

I'm not trying to make a case for us to bail-out the automakers, but I do believe, if nothing else, they should be given low-interest loans (comparable to the rates banks get) since a competitive auto industry is absolutely essential to out national security to (imo) and given that they are largely on the right longer track -- argueable, for sure, but it becomes hard to split out the impact of disadvantaged cost-structure vs quality and value since the reality of the existing playing field is necessarily baked into the reality of the current products and plans.

Unlike the airlines or a bank where folks keep flying and banking, I think it would be much harder to enable the auto industry to 'restructure' under bankruptcy without shutting down production and breaking the industry. Banks are not about real competitive differences (that's why that's all they talk about in commercials -lol-), they're just multiple outles for the same necessary services and they have little skill-base implications on the security of the nation. The auto industry is different, imho (no one wants a car with a long-term warrantee from a bankrupt company, etc.), so needs to be treated a such. It also has huge seconday/tier jobs drag (seven to one?), with very high engineering content ... the single most critical skill deficiency this nation faces in the future.

Of course if the automakers could reorganize to responsibly shed legacy costs (tough one and they've addressed this fairly responsibly given the givens), bring proven modern manufacturing approaches here (that they've already proven elsewhere), get fair access to foreign markets (hasn't happened), and wake up the American public to the greatly improved products, I'd say fine! But unions have diligently thwarted the first two, the government has ignored the third, and the media has poisoned the buying public by virtue of legacy-opinion momentum and sheer ignorance/incompetance. The government can help with all four -- loans notwithstanding.

Still, in the interim, it seems nuts not to help in some short-term but real win-win way while government *also* takes steps to level the playing field worldwide -- something the automakers have been asking for for many years now and which the government apparently has little interest or ability to do.

I'm no economist but putting an industry with such a broad and deep critical-skill pool in jeopardy is simply putting politics over common sense, imo.

Bail-out? No.

Loans? Yes. (the gov turned a profit on Chrysler in the '70s).

Long term government attention on the core problems? Oh, p-l-e-a-s-e!!!! (just don't hold your breath).

The media? Now there's an industry I wish we could put out of it's grand-whores-of-capitalism misery ...for the benefit of all mankind! ;-) ...no, I have no clue how aside from a return to the prudent FCC regulations on ownership-in-market, etc. And some due-dilligence in reporting wouldn't hurt either -- apparently things few seem to care about.