it's not hard to understand the concern.

Paul, why not tell us specificallyl what you find legitimate in this concern? Otherwise, it's hard not to read this curiously vague and unsupported phrase as something other than a particularly weak he-said-she-saidism designed to inoculate WM against horrifying charges of librulism.

I sorry but the American auto industry and their executives who were paid exorbetant amounts of money, ran the companies into the ground through mismanagement. High gas prices ? Woah we never saw that coming.Plan for the future - Nah! Lets sell the Hummer and and Oversized Suburbans and Expeditions to these rubes for short term profits. Plan "B" we don't need no stinkin' plan B. They need a major shake up Toyota and the other "forigners" are hurting too but they are doing one thing the Detroit people are not - selling cars people want. I live in a small town with under 30,000 people and in one stretch of highway - 5 miles , there is a GMC , Chevy and Saturn Dealer..selling esentially the same product (of course the Saturn was different at one time) Efficent? not so much.

Of course the definition of capitalism is the use of money to overcome the risks and inefficiencies of small scale businesses.

This is why the casino always wins: their resources are vast in comparison to the handful of winners. (Even simulated card counters in blackjack face a high risk of losing everything if their initial investment isn't high enough.)

Somehow I think Obama gets this, but we'll see.

When, Congress passes tax breaks for buying Hummers, Guvmunt, very good. Telling Detroit how to run their inept business operations, GuvmUnt very, very bad.

Now, may I get back to figuring how to implode our Mercury Mystique with a M-80, so we can buy a Subaru?

We need a carbon tax.

You buy a Hummer, ya pay da tax.

You buy an electric car (GM killed it remember?) or a hybrid, ya pay da tax.

The efficient cars prosper, and the gas hogs fade.

To all of you who make cars and have jobs directly connected to the auto-industry, get creative, redesign a new fleet of cars that we will all be driving 50 years from now.

To get to that future, someone has to start doing it now!

I have no problems with the administration trying to emulate that railroad takeover in '76, as long as it concentrates on inept management practices at the top. I deplore the union breaking aspects of trying to destroy Northern based Democratic voting unions, so, plants will move to Right to Work Southern non-union "Slave" states. It wasn't the Ford and Mercury workers who designed our piece of junk Mystique. It was the pampered and coifed upper management.

Our auto makers have had the penchant over the years of saying, "It's what Americans want" while manufacturing want for power, speed and inefficiency. If our auto makers want to perservere into the future, they need a new line of product - say one specifically for urban transport,one for long-distance touring, and one for utility need.

Give us products that are more tailored to our environmental needs than to your sense of what we want, and presto, auto makers - you'll have a better more competitive reconstituted industry to benefit us all. Now get out there and give us some results, and keep your eye on the road this time! -Kevo

Good to see this. The management of GM and Chrysler were playing a game that was either incompetent or dishonest, saying "we need $X and we'll be fine", and then coming back 2 moths later and saying "yeah, we burnt through that money and now we need more". As long as the government paid up and the executives kept their jobs, this game was likely to continue.

And while GM was asking for $20B or so, a realistic
analysis suggests they need at least $100B to restructure and emerge as a sustainable business.

There were two ways to break the cycle: stop paying, or fire someone. If we stop paying, then chaos ensues throughout the auto industry (especially at parts suppliers) and a lot of innocent people get hurt. Firing someone is better: now all the auto executives know that their own careers depend on making a realistic plan. They may not be competent enough to do it, but at least now they'll really try.

Next step should be to do the same to the damn
banks.

they are close enough to provide many useful lessons.

Unfortunately, Reaganism has so thoroughly poisoned both the corporate and political cultures that the Conrail success couldn't be repeated today. When looting of both government and private industry for short-term gain is acceptable, taking a wider view of the role of a company or industry in the overall economy just won't happen outside of the DFH set.

What Richard Cownie said, all of it.

I guess if you run a big auto company into the ground you pay the price, but if you run a giant financial services company and the world economy to the brink of disaster you're expertise is too important to fire.

Me thinks the Wall Street Masters of the Universe are getting a free pass, probably because they run in same social circles as Larry Summers.

I don't have any sympathy for the Big Three's executives, but why are management changes required of the, but not of banks? Worse, the government injected capital into the banks and the banks STILL refused to make loans to creditworthy borrowers. No attempts were made to segragate the funds (a particularly import requirment because money is fungible)or otherwise keep track of the uses of the money. I didn't hear the Treasury threatening to yank charters because the banks refused to do their jobs. What happened to all the funds?

Rarely is the question asked, is our Harvard MBAs learning?

Mark McCormick was so correct in dissing the MBA programs. Morally Bankrupt Asses.

Rick Wagner and his staff AND the Cerberus Group should be prosecuted for wanton and unnecessary destruction of wealth. Also, those companies which are "too big to fail" should be broken up into smaller parts so that if one does, the exonomy is not damaged.

I guess President Obama needed Waggoner's head to give him political cover for continuing to provide bail out money to GM. OK, I get that.

But why not also demand as a condition to providing money the head of the the UAW president? The only reason for this bailout is to protect UAW jobs and contracts, so shouldn't the UAW boss also pay with his job?

Excuse me, but:

* WHERE are the demands for wage & pension concessions from the employees of the BANKS, WALL STREET INVESTMENT BANKS, and WALL STREET BROKERAGE FIRMS that have been given MASSIVE BAILOUTS ???

* WHY just demands for wage & pension concessions from the employees of GM when it has only been granted LOANS ???

John,

"Toyota and the other ‘forigners’ are hurting too but they are doing one thing the Detroit people are not - selling cars people want."

???

Up until a few months ago, GM was selling more vehicles in this country than any other auto manufacturer.

OBVIOUSLY, they were "selling cars people want".

Richard,

"The management of GM and Chrysler were playing a game that was either incompetent or dishonest, saying 'we need $X and we'll be fine', and then coming back 2 moths later and saying 'yeah, we burnt through that money and now we need more' "

That's a perversion of what occurred.

Remember, the Bushies only gave them a fraction of what they wanted and told them to come back months later with a plan and they would get the rest. It was then spun that they failed and now need more.

Tec... the Detroit News editorial page The Detroit News has the same question on this issue. And, it has the same answer as Ron Byers does.

Beyond all of the above, of course, Paul was doing nothing but fluffing a piece in WM that's totally irrelevant to the situation at hand. And, Longman's Part 1, on rail/intermodal, etc. wasn't that great last month.

How is it no such tough love for Geithner's friends?

Where's the nationalization the banks need to have imposed upon them to put their houses in order? Let's just attack the major employers of ordinary people in the Midwest and South and the only significant manufacturing sector we have left in the country. Guess only the 'haves" deserve to eat.

But the problems are US union wages, free trade ideology, immigration ideology that lowers the quality of R&D, and higher quality from Japanese competition. Most of these problems will be worsened by government control.

The problem in the United State is greed. The situation for ordinary people would be ten times worse without unions. Read your history. It's time for the "fat cats" to sacrifice a little for a change. Deregulation caused this problem and strict re-regulation of the greedy is the only thing that will solve it.

"That's a perversion of what occurred.

Remember, the Bushies only gave them a fraction of what they wanted and told them to come back months later"

But even what they were asking for was clearly, obviously, blatantly inadequate. GM burnt through
about $6B cash in Q4 2008. And we don't seem to be
anywhere near the bottom the recession. What did
GM ask for in December ? $18B. That might,
perhaps, be enough to keep them alive on the
operating table for 6 months. It sure as hell wasn't going to be enough to finance major restructuring and restore them to breakeven.

Richard,

But the total GM was asking for WAS only for a limited period of time, not for a "major restructuring".

"But the total GM was asking for WAS only for a limited period of time, not for a "major restructuring"."

So what was supposed to happen when the $18B ran
out ? They would futz around with no real plan and
then come back for another $20B ? That seemed to be about all that Wagoner had as a strategy: keep coming back for handouts, and hope for some magical turnaround in sales, which was hardly likely for a near-bankrupt company in the middle
of a deep recession.

It was time to find someone else who was prepared
to be a bit more realistic about GM's situation.
It may be a little harsh on Wagoner - though any
CEO who presides over multi-billion dollar losses
should know their job is on the line - but
whatever his personal qualities he had to be
sacrificed "pour encourager les autres".