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I fully acknowledge the fact that letting the [companies formerly known as] Big Three go belly up would have a devastating effect on an already limping economy. But the decline of the US auto industry was facilitated in large part by the auto-makers' own stuanch adherence to Market-Based Capitalism. The Market will determine which companies survive and which fail. So when they started sending their sub-contracting work south and overseas, because they can do it cheaper, better, faster, they put a lot of people out of work. Guess what? Those weren't just American workers, they were American customers. Since they were out of a job, they couldn't afford the luxury of paying more for less car and a shorter warranty. Well, that's ok, since you now have 'cheap' labor, the quality will improve, so we'll be willing to pay more for more... only, it didn't, and we weren't.
We have kept this thing on life-support far too long. It will be really hard for a while, but we know manufacturing. If it's not cars, we'll manufacture something else (hydrogen fuel-cells, batteries, turbines), and we'll do it better than anyone else. If you want to lessen the impact AND help people at the same time, take the 14 billion and divide it evenly among all employees at GM and Chrysler to support them while we ramp up for something else. Otherwise, the money will be shoveled into an oxygen-fueed blast furnace, and the ashes will be divided among the few individuals with three-letter-acronyms for job titles.
/soapbox
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