Why the Automakers are a Mess

I find it amusing that all three company CEOs took private planes to D.C. to ask for money.

The single biggest reason for the failure of the Big Three is QUALITY. I've driven Hondas and Toyotas for the last 26 years and NEVER (I mean NEVER) had a major mechanical problem of ANY kind. Just normal maintenance. In contrast, some of my friends and relatives own American cars and are constantly complaining about breakdowns and bad service. I gave up on American-made crap back in 1982 I had 3 American cars in a row give me trouble, and I've never looked back. I don't plan to either. I'm a patriotic American with a son in Iraq, but I'll be darned if I'm going to throw away my hard-earned money on second-rate quality. Message to the Big Three: File for bankruptcy and deal with your own mess. Message to the auto-workers: You're not worth the money you're being paid. Come out here in the real world with the rest of us non-union people and find out how it is to perform every day and work hard. No more bailouts!!! We're driving our nation into the ground. Quit whinin' and start workin'!

It's not like the Big 3 didn't see this coming. America has had plenty of warnings that their dependency on oil was going to be a big problem in the near future. Instead of the Big 3 designing the next cool exterior or interior look, why weren't they working on better fuel efficiency. The Big 3 stay in check with Washington's laws for better fuel efficiency to just be slightly ahead or inline. Has anyone heard of market leadership? How many markets are flourishing where demand is high for product improvement(much better fuel efficiency rather than a mile or two per gallon), but the suppliers only provide mediocre improvements? If we can land men on the moon almost 30 years ago, why can't we make significant improvements in fuel efficiency without having a high price tag on the vehicle purchase for this improvement? Handing the Big 3 money to keep doing what they have been doing is the true definition of insanity (doing the same thing everyday and expecting different results). Set some strict rules on what any loan money is for. There have been a number of great companies started during tough times and any Big 3 management blaming outside sources for their predicament is just foolish. If they didn't have the foresight to see these issues coming, then perhaps there needs to be a change in management. There should be a mandate to produce cost effective alternative fuel vehicles (not ethanol) so we are investing in getting ourselves off foreign oil dependence. Let's take an opportunity here to assist someone in trouble while laying the ground work to help the entire country. After all most of these issues are linked and if we don't attack multiple ones at once, then we are just band aiding a problem.

Dear Cheryl, I've had the opportunity and pleasure to work for both a Japanese and US manufacturing company during my long career, in both cases in a management capacity. Besides, the obvious cultural differences there was one thing that really stuck out : Japanese companies think and act long-term, US companies think and act short-term. The implications for the company strategy AND the way the blue-collar workforce is treated are obvious. Best regards, Johannes Belgium

If these Companys really were in great shape and just needed a little help"cash" then there would be the private sector lining up to invest in them. With GM having a cap value of a little over 2 Billion Dollars, where is Warren Buffett? he could buy GM that is change for him.The answer is these Companys are losers and no one will touch them other then Uncle Sam. I think there will be a back lash to some degree in this country against the big three and they have it coming.

Marc, Who is it that determined what to produce? The CEOs and BOD. They had no vision. They were only motivated by that quarterly earnings number that makes the institutional investors happy. Short term vision for short term gain. The employees are there for the long term. That is why they seek health care and retirement. The two goals are opposed for the success of the company. The CEOs pay is based on the short term performance. As a small business owner you need motivated, loyal employees to produce the "widgets." Unfortunately there is no corporate loyalty anymore and it has festered it's way into the employee morale. Small businesses can't get loyal employees because they know they will get burned at the drop of the hat. They have seen it happen to their friends at the big corporations. So, now, we have the auto makers coming to congress to have the taxpayers throw good money after bad decision making. This will only delay the inevitable trip to bankruptcy. Better now than later. Will the employees be hurt? Yes. But with the new bankruptcy laws the CEOs and other top execs won't be able to walk away with a bucket of cash for being incompetent.

Unions have outlived their need and usefulness in American industry. Yes there was a time that they were welcomed, needed and necessary. It was a time when federal regulation was none existent and workers were forced to work excessive hours on regular pay and in extremely dangerous conditions. Unions have created themselves as an entrenched part of the auto industry to get fat along with everyone else. Compare the auto industry to any other large employer in the US and you will find that things are pretty good. Get rid of the greedy, ineffective and unneeded unions, move the factors to places that are cheaper to live for employees and create a management structure that is affective and you will begin to see the auto industry begin to move forward.

I work in the auto industry. I have done so for almost 40 years. The big three have a management issue more than a union issue. CEO's that are paid astronomical salaries and bonus'. And for what, to put the company in the tank. These people along with upper management are the sole cause of their own problems. They look only at the bottom line and don't care about their workers their customers or their dealers. It's pure greed and nobody in the media wants to say it becuse their run the same way. To h%$%#$% with our employees or our customers or our dealers we want it all. The Japanese know if you have customer service and a quality vehicle and treat your employees with dignity and respect most consumers will over look minor issues with their auto's because they are being treated right. It's not brain washing by them but pure greed and the lack of careing by the big three that's gotten them in this mess. By the way Ford has for the last few years tryed to turn around by doing things the right way but they still are lacking in customer service by treating their dealers like sh&*. If instead of building a better auto you cut the labor rate payed to mechanics for doing warranty work what do think will happen to customer satisfaction when mechanics don't want to work on a car or truck that's under warranty. That's just one of a hundred example I could come up with. So NO BAIL OUT TO THE BIG THREE---THEY ARE REEPING WHAT THEY SEWED!!!!!!!

For the last time...autoworkers do NOT make $70.00 per hour or $100.00 per hour. This is part of the problem...public opinion is often based on inaccurate information released by the news media. Again: seniority workers make about $28.00 per hour before benefits, lower "tier" workers (those with less seniority) make about HALF that amount. Please, Please get the facts straight! It is vital that reporters are accurate. Also, think about this: How would you feel if your hourly wage was being broadcast around the world, and was being reported inaccurately as well? Autoworkers are real people with real families, not numbers with dollar signs in front of them. If you want to be fair and balanced, invite some autoworkers and their families to your show to tell their side of this story and how a collapse of the auto industry and the subsequent loss of their jobs would affect them.

The management needs to go on a strict financial diet as well. If the UAW takes a 50% pay cut, I think middle management should take it as well and executives should take a 90% cut until profitability is restored.

I think the UAW workers who are looking at the $70 figure are forgetting that they are only the working half of that $70. The other half isn't working, but getting paid anyway. This is rolled into the price of the labor on each car. I'd be angry if non working labor was taking as much and more than the working labor too.

I have an idea. Since the labor unions negociate contracts for their rank & file, and benefit by charging more in dues, government should tax the unions. They will have to charge more for union dues, the membership will have to pay more. Let's see - cost/benefit. This may convince the membership that they do not need that "leach" any more. Just a thought.

Giving the big three money would be like giving a alcoholic a drink.

Hey Homer Feamster.... you state: WE HEAR ABOUT LEGACY COSTS; LIKE IT IS A BAD THING. THE PENSION FUND OF THE UAW WORKERS WAS FUNDED BY THE UAW WORKERS OVER THE YEARS IN LIEW OF A RAISE. IT BELONGS TO THE WORKERS! MANY PEOPLE RECIEVE A PENSION! IT WAS AWARDED FOR 30 PLUS YEARS OF SERVICE _______________ Ever hear of the problem with Social Security. This is Social Welfare in the form of bailing out the UAW and poor management, nothing more, nothing less. The UAW cries they have given so much in the 2007 contract negotiations, really, well surprise, they should have started decades ago instead of garnering more and more and killing their golden goose. Let them file bankruptcy, then tear up the contracts and start over, this time with a plan that is truly fair and gives the UAW workers a company to work for that has a hope of success, throw out current management, cut unprofitable vehicle platforms and downsize them to the 20% market share that they currently hold, not the dinosaurs that they have become.

$28 per hour equals 56k per year no overtime, no benefits, health, retirement etc etc........the professors model might not be so far off.....

This is all so rich. Those lazy folks in Michigan (and California, and North Carolina, and so on and so forth) must be employed to have real estate prices stay up at some sort of respectable level, to purchase goods in a consumer driven economy, and so on. Everyone here points out the obvious: foreign companies often make better cars. True! Problem: You take the money the blue and white collar folks currently make in the automotive industry out of the equation and you'll see tons of other related ventures collapse as you effectively eliminate America's last vestige of industrialism. After all, who's gonna fund a chapter 11 reorganization when banks have no money? USA is #1! 17% unemployment, we are on our way!

Bailouts. Principals What principal is it that allows the robbing of Peter to pay Paul? Things are not black and white you may say. Principals are black and white. You believe in a principal or you don’t. You hold, stand, fight for a principal, or you don’t. If you compromise your principal you have lost. Individual freedom, I thought, was The United States of America’s principal. The right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness principal. The rule of law and the Constitution principal. Robbing Peter reduces the life, liberty, pursuit, the individual liberty of Peter. What principal is it that allows the robbing of Peter to pay Paul? I would like to see more talk about principal, about philosophy, in the talks on bailouts. Mike Frick Yorkville, Illinois

Those individuals that seem to be posting in favor of supporting the workers may rally sympathy, but are making the argument to subsidize the UAW/big three more untenable. In the real world those of us that are not too big too fail suffer consequences for bad decisions and are bestowed praise and profit for decisions that work out well. Sometimes what looks good for now will eventually turn bad. If I accept cost that cannot be recouped, I should expect to fail as a business. The Big three have been banking on being "Too big to fail". Let them bankrupt. Let someone pick-up the manufacturing facilities and equipment at a liquidated price and let a better industry emerge. If I were spontaneously endowed by god to serve as a benevolent dictator, my first priority would be to end the cycle of "too big to fail", as far as I am concerned all companies that presently fit the "too big to fail" criteria--Whatever that is. Should be forced into separate competing entities. If those entities can make a profit offering, pensions, health insurance, and other lavish benefits. But Stop telling me, the small business man that after loosing good employees to "better benefit packages" for years, that I now have to subsidize those benefit packages that I can't offer my own employees because if did, I would go bankrupt which is what "too big to fail" have done. If you want to stay big, fine. You now pose in anherent risk to the economy of the USA, as such you shall pay a "too big to fail" tax of 15% Gross revenue. Which will then be allocated to a TARP subsidization fund. The prevailing logic of UAW beneficiaries is to let the CEO's "fail" thereby forego compensation beyond what the average employees is entitled. I have no problem with the compensation model. What they fail to understand is there is not enough money to cover all the individuals affected by this crisis. The terms of the deal were misunderstood at the time they were signed for and remain misunderstood today. Nobody will understand the impact of obligating future earnings for benefit packages until this house of cards falls over and everyone is left out in the cold. Here is another option, give the company to the entitlees that "refuse any more concessions" to manage and let them keep whatever is left. Of course by January, they will all have to move into those factories because there won't be any money to get out of them. GM in particular has been privately lobbying right wing talk show host to percolate some sympathy and attempt to weave hope of the public percieving their products as durable and reliable, an accolade now unshakably granted to Honda and Toyota. (Above references to Nissan are moot as that company was bought by Renault, a pillar of socialist societal productivity with the reliability parallel to Octobers DJI). The years of turning out vehicles (with planned obsolescence while dispensing bumper stickers hailing the "BUY AMERICAN" slogan) have taken their toll. Saving Detroit means saving a substandard product line that has exploited the economy, the patriotism, and the resources of Americans since their inception. We will all suffer tragic consequences when they fail. But they are already off the cliff, Its time to plan for the aftermath of the crash.

Hi Cheryl, I saw you earlier today on Fox News. At the time, you commented that you thought General Motors hourly workers were paid approximately $70 per hour. My husband has worked for GM for 13+ years, and his currently hourly wage is $28.71. I doubt that his wages and benefits together come close to this $70/hr. figure. He has a 401(k) with no company match, standard health and dental benefits, and pension (which, as you can imagine, we never expect to see). There is already too much misinformation out there, as evidenced by some of the earlier comments to this post. My hope is that you will go back on Fox News and clarify your statement. We are not driven by greed. We are not the "working counter part to those fat cat CEOs". We have never seen six figures. We are just a middle class family trying to raise our kids and pay our bills. Like everyone else, we have seen our 401(k) savings practically vanish in the past few months. We are now faced with a very uncertain future.

I actually know how to save the US auto industry. The auto companies should start building cars and trucks people want, and those vehicles should cost far less than half the average consumer’s annual income. They need to make nice, safe attractive cars we can all pay off in two years instead of six. They could instantly sell tens of thousands of well appointed high-quality full-size trucks if priced less than $11,000. Computers, TV and cell phones all cost less than they used to, let’s see some massive price reductions in US autos and while at it let’s see the fat, and old lazy Michiganders lose some weight and shut the heck up, the constant oinking is making the rest of us deaf.

First the UAW contracts should share the blame here. Second the auto execs should've look ahead ten years ago; reshape thier business model. Not to mention to look at cars with alternate energy sources. If the execs and the unions look ahead with thses issues they're weren't be in this problem. Last thing: they should've seen the Japanese and euro competition coming.

Hey Stroker Ace! It wasn't the Unions that got the automakers into this mess. It was the management. Get it? The unions just make the cars. Management decides what cars to make and how to service them. Management also signed the contracts with the unions so they knew in advance what the costs would be. Perhaps when the share holders realize the board of directors has screwed them maybe they will fire those truly responsible for failure: MANAGEMENT!

I am recently retired from Chrysler. When I retired I was making $27.00 an hour. I paid into the pension fund for 25 years and I feel that I am entitled to receive my money in a monthly check.If autoworkers were making $70.00 an hour plus benefits, I missed out and Chrysler owes me a lot of back pay.

I'll get behind a plan that uses my taxes to bail them out when Ford forgives my car loan, otherwise im paying twice for my car! The unions need to go! why do they think they should have it better then the rest of us. Then we wonder why, the first chance companies get to send all the jobs out of the country, they do it.

Cheryl, I watched your comments today on FoxNews regarding the U.S. automotive industry. It was apparent that you do now know the facts (e.g. the $74 per hour amount in fact does include benefits). And you are unaware of the plan in place to reduce this amount that was part of the historic contract signed last year with the UAW, which will drastically reduce labor costs in 2010 and will offload most of the pension and health care costs to the union. Please check the facts (e.g at minimum, review the recent contract). Ignorance and mininformation are the greatest obstacles facing automakers this week. Few in the media and the congress have their facts right. Together Ford, GM, and Chrysler spend $12billion annually on R&D, most of it spent in the U.S. to develop fuel efficient vehicles of the future. No other industry matches automakers in product developement spending (not even big oil or the finance sector). While the industry initially lagged Honda and Toyota in fuel efficiency, GM has 18 models in its portfolio today that get 30 mpg or more. American automakers are leaner, greener, and offering exciting product line-ups. But have been overwhelmed by the global credit crunch and one of the worst downturns in history.

The little 3 automobiles basically suck. Especially those manufactured by GM. In addition to some serious cost cutting, they need to produce better products.

What I see.., is the labor force saying "I won't work for less than 100 an hour, management saying I won't work for less than 125 an hour, and investors feeling that they should be getting 100 in dividends per share.It's a lot like 3 vampires sucking the life out of the industry, and now they want a "transfusion" so that they can keep on feeding. They have reached a point, where a 20,000 dollar car ( exagerations ) has to be sold for 47,000, just so everybody gets their share.Since it won't sell at 47,000, the only solution is to make it cheaper by lowering the "quality". I feel they need the "shock" of bankruptcy, to make them aware of just how RIDICULOUS they look to all the rest of us. I have no sympathy for any of them. This entire mess is all of their own doing. They are public / private companies and are not DESERVING of our hard earned tax dollars. I ( and everyone else I know ) has to live within a budget.., or WE WOULD have to file bankruptcy. Why should I have to bail out the "elite" , that don't seem to realize the most basic of economic principles ? Their greed got them all where they are today.., so let their greed take them into tomorrow ( WITHOUT me being taken along for the ride ). If I'd have wanted to invest in the big three, I'd either buy stocks or one of their cars. I haven't.., and I don't care to now.

I have always bought american vehicles, (mostly GM) and will continue to do so. But the big 3 and the unions both have to make concessions and get the cost of doing business to a competitive level. Too many pensions and health care packages at stake.

Reality Check... RE: Job Losses If the Big 3 aren't making as many cars, the suppliers will be impacted anyway unless they also get bailouts UAW workers are paid even when they don't produce cars, so it has no impact on them. Why are we giving special treatment to UAW workers than other workers making far less money and with less generous benefits? If they want to keep their jobs they need to take serious wage and benefit cuts just like their fellow workers are being forced to do. RE: Bridge to the future The argument is that GM will have new cars they can sell world-wide (to markets like India & China). Does anyone really believe that they will build cars for the Asian markets in the US and not in Asia? I think the bailout money will go to develop the new cars that will ultimately be built in Asia with Asian workers. RE: Pension / Benefits Burden Wow, do we really think the Big 3 are the only companies with this pending problem? Expect a massive wave of companies / government organizations not being able to cover their pension obligations.... And don't even talk about Social Security / Medicare obligations... If we provide a Cadillac solution for the Big 3 (and maybe 2 million folks), what are we going to have left for the other tens of million folks that will also need our help?

R Holbrook, you either don't know or don't understand what you are talking about. 1. Those "tax free" zones you are talking about are actually "Foreign Trade Zones," and what they do is enable the manufacturer to defer duties on foreign parts until the product is actually imported into the country. These are available to domestic manufacturers as well, but the Detroit 3 are too incompetent to be able to use them (this is not an opinion -- I have industry knowledge). 2. Detroit's dirty little secret is they are shipping jobs overseas as fast as they can, and one reason is because they won't learn how to use Foreign Trade Zones (the other is to get the parts made at nonunion prices). 3. Yen cheaper than the dollar? Surely you jest -- the dollar has tanked most of this year because of the rising price of oil and is now rising mainly because of the falling price of oil. 4. The US steel industry destroyed their own market with inferior goods. I have personally consulted for steel fabricators who buy foreign steel because domestic manufacturers don't clean the aluminum, etc. out of their scrap, causing the steel to be inferior. I think the USW had soemthing to do with the price also. 4. CEO pay? Yeah, it is too high, especially for the fools who gave away the farm to the UAW over the years.

Let them file chapter 11 and restructure. This way that can get out of the Union contracts. Then they should rehire without using any Unions. If they Unions make a big deal then relocate the plants to places that don't have unions. The manufacture should be responsible in have a benefits plan for there workers. The big three are to heavily controlled by these unions and have ruined the companies.

let the automakers fail and go into chapter 11 for reorganization. That is the only way to bring the cost of labor down. Also, fire the management of the automakers who agreed to these levels with the unions in the first place. NO BAILOUT OF ANYONE, EVER!!!

Cheryl, Nice provocative piece. I also enjoy all the responses so far. I grew up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan where iron mining was a major industry. I had relatives that worked in the mining and auto industries. Yes, they were union folks. One might think that because they were and are pro union that I would be. Not so. I watched what the unions have done. I studied history, and examined my own history to conclude that the unions had a place in a time when we didn’t have the labor laws we have today. I watched the mine workers strike them selves out of work. The mining company reduced output and moved to Brazil to mine a better grade of ore with cheaper labor. I watched the auto workers strike them selves out of a plant in Flint. Is it greed, or is it a blind faith movement in tone with union wishes? I don’t believe the unions are totally at fault here. The notion that everything should be easy and free drives the avarice of the modern day workers. Bad management is culpable in the failing industries with equal stance. Government isn’t without fault here either but a bail out will only push the inevitable to a point in the future that could be more disastrous than just letting the chips fall now. Power hungry unions, a lemming like work force and bad advice will destroy any industry in time. Some of the most prosperous businesses in the United States today even with an upside down economy are the employee owned businesses. Take a look. They have trimmed labor by taking pay cuts if necessary, expanded when the economy supported, and provide goods and services at a reasonable cost to consumers. Maybe the auto industry could rethink the ownership process accept bankruptcy and retool as an employee owned company.

* sell it to us * fix it when it is broken * manufacture it * manufacture repair parts for it * wash, vacuum, insure and even drive it for us. Manufacturing the car and its parts is kinda a big part of the chain, and its doubtful that washing cars is considered part of the manufacturing/sales train. But hey, who cares if millions of Americans lose their jobs and become migrants? This is America, the greatest country on earth. If we want to have our economy turn into Argentina's, we're gonna do it, because we have nukes!

That gap will shrink when the little 3 start to have more workers retire and their wages increase over the years. The big 3 have more problems then just labor costs. GM just opened a plant in Russia, cost 600m. I saw almost the same cars there as you would see on a GM lot here in the US. The idea that if we don't bail them out then it will be catastrophic to our economy is just a ploy to strike fear in the minds of Americans. Bottom line if they can spend that kind of money on a plant overseas then let Russia pay for their bailout and leave the US tax payers alone.

This is nothing new. I hope that the union leaders of the 70's and 80's that threatened to strike if the auto workers were not made the highest compensated blue collar workers are proud now. The cost of maintaining 3 workforces through current empolyment, and pensions is why the US automakers are literally making cars to lose money.

If the taxpayers are going to bail out the auto industry then there should be payment in kind, i.e. the government should get autos that are not being sold and have a national lottery to give them to taxpayers or, maybe, use the vehicles in place of those that the government already buys.

Why don't you post a comparative MANAGEMENT Pay scale? What is meant by "total compensation," medical and retirement? What's your point? It wasn't labor that decided what cars to build and market, it was the management. The managers are the ones that signed the contracts with labor and thusly, knew what it was going to cost them to make the product. This isn't a labor problem, it is management problem.

The head of the UAW is among those lobbeying Congress for TARP loans. He'll be an effective advocate!

This is just a chart that shows the obvious......Unionized labor has the ear and power of Democrats in their pockets. If no-one sees the correlation between the Auto worker and the work force of steelworkers in the rustbelt (northeast)then they have no buisness being an Economist. And we pay people to try and keep these same problem in place. I guess we get what we pay for. Listen to the Dem's in congress and the UAW and they will never see the problem that chart shows.

The cost to produce a car is just one of many reasons that Detroit is in trouble. Have you driven a GM lately? I rented a brand new Monte Carlo a few months ago, and there is NOTHING good I can say about this product. If I didn't know it was a 2008 model I would have guessed it was built in the 80's. The seating was very uncomfortable, the visibility was bad, the dash was flat with gauges placed in hard to read positions, not wrapped around the driver at all. Closing the door created an 'earthquake' of claning and rattles - not at all like a solid well-built car from Toyota, Honda, or almost any other manufacturer. As much as I would love to buy an American made car, I can't see reinforcing this kind of 'quality'.

Gm and the UAW negotiated a new contract in 2007 when the results of that contract are fullfilled, we will actually have a lower cost than Toyota. UAW workers have given up alot to help out GM.

We are experiencing a BUBBLE that is firmly implanted between the ears of the elitist. The automotive news is brotherhood to the housing news; both are costing more than the "free world trade workers" can afford to pay for the goods they want to produce. Get outside of GOVERNMENT jobs with UNION styled benefits, companies that thrive on SLOPPY GOVERNMENT contracts, CEO exeuctive suites and you find the average workers compensation below poverty levels. We the people, awe come on, I know you have heard of that somewhere. We really do not need "BAILOUTS" or stimulus packagaes. We need a government willing to rein in WASTE and stop insulting the working mans intelligence by making believe we are in control. Watching how the bucks are being manipulated on WALL STREET, personal pension being siphoned dry, 4o1Ks robbed, oil magninets laughing all the way to the banks, foriegn and domestic, and the JOKE that screams "CHANGE" is the great ILLUSION. Everywhere you look someone has their hand out and the GOVERNMENT is incapable of filling the hands of the PEOPLE when, as it appears, their sole interest is serving self FIRST. WORK-FARE OVER WELFARE . . . CITIZENSHIP OVER ILLIGAL IMMIGRANT STATUS.

That is why we can never get out of this hole unless the UAW is run out of town. We cannot afford them anymore,sorry just the truth.And lets don't forget the job banks that have cost the big 3 billion's just to pay a union worker not to work, or the cost Of Viagra that is part of the UAW health care package that cost GM 17 to 20 million a year and that is GM alone!! Rick Wagners pay 14 plus million a year!! thats more then the top 5 CEO at Toyota get all together!!!And this is just the tip of the ice berg,They should go down and the taxpayer will better off without them.All this doom and bloom we are brain washed into thinking will happen if they file the big C11 is bull!Americans will buy cars, they may not be built by the big three but there will 100.000's of new jobs that the foreign companys will have to pick up the slick that is left behind from the American Companys.I am sure they will get there bailout but I hope there will be a back lash not to buy from a Company that has taken tax payer's money to stay in business,I will be at the front of the line.

What, you didn't know. The union gangsters have been strong arming these companies since the early 60's. They need to fail and reorganize. If you don't want to go back to work, you want to sit down, then your fired. I know plenty of people that would kill to make 20 dollars an hour and love a job like that to death (literally). Put the union gangsters in prison with Barney Frank and his henchmen. America is turning into a cesspool where the hard working and honest are becoming the targets of discrimination and hypocrisy that has no bounds. Americans are becoming a minority.

Giving money to Ford and GM is like spending a million dollars on a liver transplant for a person with terminal brain cancer. It just does not make sense. I would rather spend the same million dollars on well baby care for auto makers and give it to TESLA Motors. (I will take a car as payment for this capital campaign) Don't let this 100,000 job loss or the one in ten jobs in America depend on the Big Three impact on your thinking, it is an inaccurate assumption that is easily challenged. Americans still need personal transportation and someone will: * sell it to us * fix it when it is broken * manufacture it * manufacture repair parts for it * wash, vacuum, insure and even drive it for us. I am not suggesting there will not be some economic dislocation, there will be. Even with the bailout there will be economic dislocation. Congress please read the U.S. Constitution prior to the next session keep your attention focused on what you are suppose to.

Your chart is not the problem,the big three are paying good salaries/benefits, are producing excellent products(I dare say better in many respects to the foreign) The problem is the American public has bought into one of the biggest scams of history...they have been brainwashed to lose confidence in their own ability to manufacture quality vehicles.This process has been aided and abetted by the media.If I were to suggest that that Joe Public take a few minutes and GOOGLE say, Nissan 2.5 engine reliability or durability or for that matter even safety,Joe would probably not do it because he "thinks" he knows it all.This engine is probably the most common engine found in Nissans for the last 8 years,and has had a disastrous history.Some foreign countries even hinder the sale of the big three in their markets (I would think if the quality of these vehicles was so bad, they wouldn,t have to legislate them out, what are they afraid of?)Listen America, wake up you,ve been taken for fools long enough.

A bailout is just wasted money at the rate of several billion dollars a MONTH. Bankruptcy would allow the companies to shed those excess costs. It will allow the companies to shed taxpayer payback after the useless bailout money is spent.

WE HEAR ABOUT LEGACY COSTS; LIKE IT IS A BAD THING. THE PENSION FUND OF THE UAW WORKERS WAS FUNDED BY THE UAW WORKERS OVER THE YEARS IN LIEW OF A RAISE. IT BELONGS TO THE WORKERS! MANY PEOPLE RECIEVE A PENSION! IT WAS AWARDED FOR 30 PLUS YEARS OF SERVICE. THE JAPANESE CAR COMPANIES HAVE SOME YEARS TO GO BEFORE THEIR PENSION FUNDS START PAYING; IF THEY HAVE ONE! THE HUGE SPIKE IN GAS PRICES DERAILED CAR & TRUCK SALES! IT WILL TAKE MANY MONTHS TO RETOOL FOR GAS EFFICIENT VEHICLES! WE NEED TO HELP THE CAR COMPANIES WITH A LOAN, WHICH WILL BE PAID BACK! TO MANY JOBS ACROSS THE UNITED STATES ARE AT RISK! WHO WAS BEHIND THE HIGH SPIKE IN GAS PRICES? IT WASNT JUST DEMAND!! MANY IN WASHINGTON WILL READILY LOAN HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS TO BANKS, HEDGE FUNDS, ETC. WHO HAVE CAUSED THE WHOLE MESS, "LACK OF GOVERNMENT OVERSIGHT, DEREGULATION ETC." SOME IN POWER ARE READY TO DUMP OUR BASIC INDUSTRIES OR IS IT JUST TO GET RID OF THE UNIONS??? HOPE YOU PRINT THIS!! HOMER FEAMSTER

Cheryl, I would guess by this rational that any company that has been in business in the U.S.A. and has a retierment / benefits package for it's workers is a mess when compared to new companies that have none.