Ironically, I have tried three times to post to this thread today, and each time my post has been deleted (mechanically, not intentionally). So, with trepidation...

I agree with Greger's observation that "The same folks that don't have money for American cars also don't have money for Toyotas." We're in a recession, a deep and lasting one, and a deepening one. Watching the unemployment numbers double and double again is frightening, because those are consumers that will not have the wherewithal to buy products that they used to produce (kinda the anti-Henry Ford). Until we get paychecks in people's bank accounts purchasing will remain low (suppressing production), savings will remain low (inhibiting lending), and the cycle will continue. That is the background against which the bailout discussion has to be measured.

Beyond the automakers is a supply chain that employs MILLIONS of people - mostly within the United States (although less so than in the past). Yes, the managers of these corporations are responsible for abhorrent business practices and mismanagement of the worst order, but what is more important to the economy is that supply chain - and the employment chain it represents. I may have stated this before, but there are three reasons why I think a bailout - with rope-thick strings attached - can be workable and is necessary:

1) We need to maintain an industrial base within the United States to be able to respond to the mega-threats over the horizon. We're not going to be buying our tanks and trucks from overseas markets. It's a national security rationale.

2) We need to have a production base within the United States that employs people at reasonable wages. The idea that bankruptcy is the answer is just plain false - first it will destroy the market for the vehicles, and disrupt that entire production chain, but more importantly, it is a mechanism of right-wing corporatists to destroy the labor element of the production capacity. They want to divest the companies of the pension plans, health insurance and union-based wage structure and bankruptcy is the most expeditious method of dumping that, but it is not good for the economy as a whole, the shareholders, the workers, or virtually anyone but the management class. Instead, we need to focus on keeping employment and benefits within the United States.

3) The bailout will give the government the ability to exert influence over the companies directly for the benefit of the nation as a whole. Strings. Requiring higher fuel efficiency, requiring better environmental practices, requiring alternative fuel/electric vehicles all benefit the United States in general and will move the industry in that direction. They won't do it on their own, as has been thoroughly demonstrated, unless they are convinced that it will be to their economic advantage, which is why none of them has yet produced legitimate alternatives - fearing that it will put them at a competitive disadvantage. By using that influence equally on all of the manufacturers, that concern about competitive disadvantage disappears. It is a win-win situation. Free-marketers hate this element, but then, they tend not to like the real world very much anyway, preferring to be nostalgic about a never-existent and unworkable fantasy land where "the market" solves all ills. It's time for the government to exert some muscle for the general welfare.

A well reasoned argument is like a diamond: impervious to corruption and crystal clear - and infinitely rarer.

Here, as elsewhere, people are outraged at what feels like a rigged game -- an economy that won't respond, a democracy that won't listen, and a financial sector that holds all the cards. - Robert Reich