I have waited for someone else to say it first, as I've done in the past, but nobody has said it or realized it, so very well, here it is –

The bailout is not only a short-term election payoff to the UAW. (Gettelfinger and the union are desperate for a bailout, in addition to posturing stupidly against any concessions, when even people like Robert Reich are saying, or admitting, that they are in order, obviously.) And no, it's not just the phony claim to want to keep Detroit alive until 2010 when the new union contract takes effect. (The UAW wants federal bailout money to cover its retirement trust and the new hires are not the only employees whose costs are being paid by the Detroit Three.)

No, if a bailout now and subsequent bailout(s) that will be needed as well to keep Detroit alive another year or two get engineered, it gives Obama and the Dem Congress time to enact the new legislation for “card check” and open the non-union “transplant” sites in the USA (the modern US auto industry which has been healthy, not failing like Detroit) open to aggressive unionization targeting. This should not be neglected or ignored or missed. It's a longer-term thing than just election payoff or typical childish short-term thinking associated so often with bailouts (especially of companies and a union that has not planned any long overdue changes and has no contingency plan in case there is no bailout; how stupid as well as arrogant!).

Obviously the companies (and the UAW) cannot continue as is. Before coming for a bailout the huge spending of cash by the companies should have been greatly reduced or ended, other reforms made, and a believeable plan prepared for approval prior to getting any bailout. But there is none. The Detroit Three people simply assume (arrogantly, even) that they naturally deserve a bailout. They do not.

And what may probably the clincher as an insult to Americans, a statement by a top GM person, exemplifies the idiocy and the non-deserving nature of the Detroit set:

“There is no Plan B being discussed beyond a government bailout.” — management's position

The unemployment costs to the taxpayers, should they fail to provide our automakers loans, will exceed $200 billion per year. Aside from all of the other issues that these armchair automakers are trying to cloud the issue with, it definitely is a no-brainer so, even these people should not be having this much trouble making a decision.

http://ewebsmith.com/gov/autobailout.html

The Chevy Volt has been hyped but to date it looks like it'll be largely a stunt like EV-1 was. It's fun to drive (silent and swift) but the range is pathetic and it costs far, far too much to make sense. It may become like the EV-1, little more than a PR stunt, making sense most for people to use in a test driver program to show off the car while having some of the costs reduced or subsidized. Sales of a $40,000 vehicle with limited range and a long recharging time will never be large. Volt is not a miracle and it probably will not save GM.

(I saw the EV-1 when it was in Phoenix during a demonstration test-drive public-participation program, and I was lucky and got to drive one in Atlanta at an electric vehicle show there.)

Tesla, one of the other examples, is a high-end ultra-niche undertaking, and Fisker is not really that much different right now.

http://gm-volt.com/about/

http://www.teslamotors.com/buy/resyourcar.php

http://www.fiskerautomotive.com/news/

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“Big suppliers like TRW serve ALL of the Big Three, and the loss of GM would be a huge immediate hit on them.”

Sad, but true, and in addition, the buildup of failure at the Detroit Three will especially hurt here in the Detroit metro area, because that's where so much of the Big Three's facilities are located. Just here where I am, a colleague's husband just lost his job — the industry is downsizing or “rightsizing” not necessarily due to panic about the current conditions, or a rational result of the recent economic downturn, but also due to recognition that the Detroit complex is simply too large for its market share, even in good times. And it's going hurt the Detroit area especially hard as this kind of job-loss scenario unfolds, make no mistake about it. Not all people are like, say, GM management, and have chosen to ignore reality for decades. Many are aware that things must change, and even that change is overdue, but the major decisions were in others' hands (lying ultimately on the Detroit Three's top management, who continue to pay themselves millions of dollars, for what?). Many have ties here that strike others as odd — they have deep roots. (So many people who have left Michigan already never wanted to, and they want to return if things were much better, much different.) There's no avoiding the consequences here. (Note also that here in Detroit there is growth in military design and production, but it involves at least some activity that is ripe for reduction or cancellation as has been long known and which the Defense Business Board has bleakly reported recently. That is, more industrial and engineering activity is likely to be “struck” as early as next year. What job losses we've been hearing of already, are nothing compared to what may happen.

With the Detroit automakers, and for Detroit (more than Michigan as a whole), it's a huge price to pay for apparently not having learned or acted well since Chrysler's problems and bailout long ago.

Name a parts supplier that supplies GM exclusively. I bet you can't. Big suppliers like TRW serve ALL of the Big Three, and the loss of GM would be a huge immediate hit on them. The loss of GM does not magically mean that suddenly orders come rushing in from Ford and Chrysler. Do you really think that somehow the tanking of GM would give consumers greater confidence that they must now go out and buy a car from someone else? Things aren't going to work like that. 0% financing is still available from Toyota, because they're still decently capitalized, but even they are seeing their sales drop.