Agreed Jim. I would also add that they know nothing of the history of unions and the reasons they came to exist in the first place. Unions aren't perfect and in some cases are responsible for their bad press, but banning them would definitely be a case of throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

Other than to forestall worse economic consequences for everyone else, it's impossible, by definition.

There was nothing wrong with expecting wage and benefit parity next year (2009). It's years overdue. The UAW could have made a counter-offer of going immediately to the 2010 “company saving” contract, putting _all_ employees (not only the new hires! Quit playing games!) immediately under the new conditions, to which the company and the UAW both had agreed for the new hires originally. A little, and better, a lot less leftist whining about managment (we already know management and the board of directors have been worthless with the exception of Ford's CEO) and a healthy rise in skepticism about the propriety of a bailout (which fundamentally is _wrong_) would be also in order.

Simply to name one thing — Chrysler, which coincidentally was the object of a bailout decades ago, is in the worst shape of all; many don't even refer to the “Detroit Three” any more, but “Detroit 2.N,” whereby Chrysler is said to be only a fraction of a company. The company was taken by Cerberus in order to “strip it and flip it,” resell it. Cerebus should have more than enough money on hand to keep Chrysler alive. Why is the federal government asked to give Chrysler a loan when Cerberus can probably give the company whatever amount is needed, assuming the company has any remaining viability?

As for Ford, it will have to file for bankruptcy if either of the other companies do, to be competitive, but I have confidence Ford could easily reorganize and do well. As a Ford owner currently, I have no fears about what may happen to Ford.

GM, which most people detest the most of all, needs to shrink hugely, ditch many of its brands as well as work force and end the legacy costs, keep perhaps Chevrolet (which I believe could do well on its own) and Cadillac, and wipe out most of its bloated dealerships. (Doesn't Toyota, with about the same market share as GM, have only 1,500 dealers or so whereas GM has over 5,000? It's time to get real, GM.) It remains to be seen if GM will start producing other than fleet and government cheap-appliances-on-wheels.

They're as in denial as Detroit's stupid managment, as well as infatuated with their sense of self-importance. Detroit's kings, earls, dukes, and barons (heavy _multiple_ layers of management!) ensconced in their castles in Detroit have been completely in denial as well as ego-inflated forever. (Detroit is _not_ “the” US auto industry and hasn't been for decades.) They go elsewhere in the realm after mismanaging their kingdoms and exepect the subjects throughout the land to lend them money just because Detroit goes and asks for it (expecting to get it). What a pathetic joke. Meanwhile, the UAW constitute a bunch of overpaid knights plundering the countryside while wearing gold-plated and bejewelled suits and riding the finest of expensive thoroughbreds, when plain clothing and ordinary horses are what normal people rely on. (Everyone has known for decades that the UAW is a parasite and Detroit a willing, stupid host, who continue to believe it's the 1950s-1960s, that they are “the” auto industry, and act as if we still are a captive market for them, which we haven't been since at least the 1980s.) The sad thing is that these Clowns in their Kingdom can harm the rest of us economically by their own poor decision-making. Sadder still is that they didn't scrap their stupid, failed model, and even relocate to somewhere like Los Angeles, the center of auto culture in this country, so they could have learned what the auto market really is all about back around, say, 1980 (about the time Chrysler was about to fail, the time that the Detroit model should have been promptly corrected at the latest, and the most propitious time, would have been ideal).

Detroit's model has been obsolete for thirty years if not for more.

People calling the GOP Senators “un-American” are engaging in lies as well as in slander.

Detroit and the UAW to this day have not done enough. So long as they continue to gush huge losses of money, by definition they have failed to get themselves in even a minimally acceptable condition that leaves us confident they can eventually recover, reorganize, modernize, and become respectable. (Americans widely and routinely disrespect Detroit, as well as voting with their feet in huge numbers in favor of the _real_ auto industry in this country instead.)

Normal people don't and won't miss Detroit any more than they will miss the disappearance (not merely reorganization under bankruptcy) of, say, Pan Am. Great history, flagship Boeing airliner purchases, in line for the Concorde, historical icon of world travel, but with us no more and not missed at all. And there's no reason or place for any leftist whining about Detroit (and the tiresome Wall Street irrevelence and all the other junk accompanying it), either. If Detroit survives, it survives. Same for the UAW. (Detroit is on its death bed. Why on earth hasn't the 2010 “company saving” contract be made effective _NOW_? Have those people long in denial and full of conceit regarding Detroit's sense of self-importance no brains whatsoever?)

There has not been a DEmocratic politician in the media who has made a logical argument for the bailout. They have also not made an argument of why the unions should continue to exist other than past management made rediculous concessions to them in the past.

The last thing the government should be doing is bailing out companies who made long term union concessions based upon short term economic conditions.

Let's reverse the rolls here. What would happen if those foreign-owned, non-union plants were in the situation that the big 3 are. Do you honestly think that the senators from Michigan would support any kind of relief for them?

No but the government of Japan(Honda,Toyota ), Germany(BMW, Volkswagen, Daimler) & France(Renault/Nissan, PSA) would quietly buy a controlling interest in the companies prior to explaining to the executive who screwed the pooch the importance of an early retirement with minimal to no benefits and would then put in their own management teams and accept a few years of losses while they rebuild the companies.

Before the progressive partisans start attacking Republicans, maybe they should be asking the Democrats why they are incapable of holding an effective Congressional hearing, why the Demorats in Congress are incapalbe of talking in a coherent way about this issue in the meida.

And last, maybe now is a good time for David Axelrod to tell President-Elect Obama what he should think about this issue and what to say. Every time Obama talks about the economy on televisions, he is just as inarticulate as President Bush.

These foreign-owned, non-union plants are already beating the pants off the big 3 in Detroit. Of course they would benefit from the demise of the big 3, but in due time the big 3's lack of competition will make them go bankrupt anyway. They are making vehicles that people don't want to buy. They are not being innovative and now they are paying for it.

Let's reverse the rolls here. What would happen if those foreign-owned, non-union plants were in the situation that the big 3 are. Do you honestly think that the senators from Michigan would support any kind of relief for them?