RE: bailout

I started this as a comment and then it got too long. Anyway, I have to agree with Dan and won't reiterate his points. It's reached the point where Japanese companies even make better trucks and SUVs, which is just absurd .. the whole situation is a mess.

There are good reasons for bailing out Detroit, bu doing so would require a very high level of gov control, and I don't know if we're ready.

I think there is a case to be made that not having a solid US auto industry would hurt us in terms of defense... as one congreesswoman put it, we're gonna go from dependence on foreign oil to dependence on foreign automobiles. (for a quick history lesson, search for "the arsenal of democracy".. if you're lazy, I'll give you 3 guesses as to guesses as to which company built the jeeps and tanks and planes that helped win WW2)

If we're gonna be in a war (a real war, not like Iraq), we'll need the machinery we have in detroit, not a ghost town.

what could the gov do? we could steamline the big 3 into one company auto with the best cars, and have them heavily invest in the volt (if it really exists). We could then use the rest of the machinery to rebuild our infrastructure, replace it with a green infrastructure, one of the critical things we need to do to be competitive in the next century.

I wish we were closer to the action, we'd have a better idea of who'd be getting these gov contracts...