Trust me; 99.9% of the ones laid off had nothing to do with the financial crisis. They were worker bees.

Why are UAW-member autoworkers somehow sacred? I haven’t owned one of their lousy products for 30 years, and I’ve done just fine without them.

And lo and behold! Now even Hank Paulson himself admits he knew the bill would not work when it was passed. He just wanted the money to administer a new…different plan than the bill of goods he saw us.

IOW, not only is he an incompetent weasel. He’s a lying incompetent weasel. So we’re going to trust him this time why?

Heck, in 1990 I bought a Nissan. It was made in Kentucky. A die-hard “buy American” friend bought a Dodge minivan, which turned out to be made in Canada.

Guess which car lasted and which did not? That Nissan is still running, on its fourth owner, and they’ll likely have to shoot the thing to make it die. The Dodge went to the scrapyard before the millennium.

So now I’m in the market for a new car before the end of the year; time to unload my Audi. I’ve decided, in the current economy, that European cars are too expensive for me to maintain; so I’ll be economizing a bit.

But I wouldn’t consider a Detroitmobile if it were free. I refuse to subsidize the UAW. I’ll be buying a Toyota or Nissan, thanks.

2) Let GM die.

3) Rename Toyota “GM”

And bingo – You have a profitable, healthy American owned General Motors.

…I can’t wait to buy my new GM Prius!

GM needs better management, new labor contracts, and a new vision for the consumer of today. There’s no question this problem was brought on by the unions and by lack of vision for what the consumer of today wants. Detroit’s getting killed by Honda and Toyota. How? They build better cars, vans and, now, they’re starting to build better trucks. Most Americans want to buy American, but Detriot’s got to give us something equivalent in quality and price to make it worthwhile. At the moment, they’re not.

Imagine if the Big 3 could build cars for the same prices the imports are doing with the same quality and attractiveness, the Big 3 would blow the imports out of the water. To do that, they have to entirely retool. Will the party of Obama let them?

We won’t be settling for no Chevrolets either; it’s Cadillacs and Hummers for everyone! You just wait and see what The One can do!

How long will the charade go on?

As the recession gets worse and no

automakers are selling cars…

Is Washington going to sell the cars?

Is Washington going to buy all the unsold cars?

I think I would rather see more guns made with all that steel.

Guns are something that people are buying!!

Instead of crappy cars how about GM build some cheap

armoured vehicles with M50′s mounted on the back?

I would buy one of those!!

My fear is that if GM is allowed to go under, it could very easily sink Ford and Chrysler with it. Neither one of them are in terribly good shape. There’s a chance that Some foreign companies with domestic plants will scoop up some workers, but with the economy in the shape it’s in, and with cars not selling, I fear that’s unlikely.

Every other company in the Country had better hope that GM doesn’t get in a pitched battle with the UAW because the result will be a re-written bargaining law and all new NLRB case law. When you have a hostile government and labor board, you stay away from it and don’t give it a chance to make decisions.

The only thing that will keep the managers in the big chairs is to get a bailout from Congress. They’ll get that after The One takes office and the price will be that GM essentially becomes an arm of the government. That will be a small price to pay for the management that gets to keep jobs and for the UAW that gets to keep its power. The shareholders and the rest of us don’t really matter.

Save our state — let GM die.

Ford, Inc. will survive (heck, they’ve got one of the best fuel efficient automobiles on the market, paying for itself faster than any other hybrid: rankings )

GM management should resist all attempts at Washington throwing the unions a life line.

GM should file for bankruptcy on the day Obama takes office.

“Mitt went on to make the point that in his opinion, the government was responsible for the creation of the crisis, and ultimately is responsible for resolving it. While Pat (Toomey) and Mitt were on opposite sides of the issue of the necessity, Mitt did offer the following,”

I agree with Pat that we have a significant risk going forward. I think that using the word “bailout” was a big mistake, since it wasn’t intended to bailout specific individuals and institutions. However, I now worry that the Obama administration will indeed engage in bailing out troubled industries. The risk is that we now enter into a European solution, where we subsidize failing businesses to the detriment of our economy.

Welcome to the westernmost member of the EU.

One way to frame the argument is to ask the question “Do we want to achieve short-term or long-term benefit from our actions?” To put it another way, do we want instant or delayed gratification? This is at the heart of the nation’s political choices, and our recent track record does not bode well for the outcome of the proposed bailout or any other weighty matter our elected leaders will choose to consider. Our tendencies are illustrated in our current financial crisis, brought about by individuals who borrowed money they could not afford to repay , institutions who gained short-term profits by making the irresponsible loans, and legislative enablers who made it possible – and then shifted blame when the consequences appeared.

The Republican Party has sometimes been termed the ‘adult party’, because of its reliance on principles. Mature and disciplined behavior is characterized by a focus on the long term, delays gratification for a more beneficial result later, and is no stranger to sacrifice. The Democratic Party, on the other hand, is a party of ‘right now’, ready to pander to man’s baser instincts. A focus on short-term benefits will cause us to lurch from crisis to crisis in an incoherent manner. Incoherent in terms of adhering to any principles other than instant gratification and pain avoidance, that is. The failure to accept the consequences of a course of action cannot be deferred indefinitely.

In the discussion this weekend on CNN between Wolf Blitzer, Rep.Rangel, and Rep. Blackburn, I could not discern any reliance on principle towards addressing the issue. I did find a lot of concern for pain avoidance, however. In recent article, Michael Barone brings up the demographics behind the Obama victory with the overwhelming support of the under 30 segment. We have done a poor job in raising that generation, eh? The Modern Liberal education system and our inattention have reaped its own consequences.

Do we have the ability to do the ‘adult thing’ with regard to current and coming issues? With Democratic control of government, I fear delayed gratification will be in abeyance for the next couple of years and pandering to the baser part of human nature will abound. I’m sure mine will not be a lone voice crying in the wilderness, but how many of the under-30 demographic can I get to join me?

What I see from my chair here in Oklahoma is a bunch of business school graduates and corporations who have lived like tommorow would never come and now they just don’t want to pay the piper.

Many (NOT ALL) of those unemployed auto workers will be
working at other auto plants for lower pay and less benefits.
Welcome to the real world.

Many (NOT ALL) auto parts suppliers will have to make
other deals with other auto companies.

Many, many thousands will lose their jobs.
That will be difficult & painful for many (NOT ALL)
of the workers involved in the GM world.

It’s face the music now or if we wait, many more
business’s will expect a bail-out and will set themselves
up for failure to jump on-board the bail-out express.

My fiscal conservative side thinks that GM has made some really stupid business decisions that are coming back to bite them…not the least of which was showing a complete, utter lack of foresight in terms of oil prices. I tend to agree that’s a a compelling reason to let them die.

My liberal side doesn’t want that to happen. Allowing GM to fizzle out would result in significant job losses. I’ve heard somewhere in the tens of thousands – do correct me if I’m wrong on that. And the repercussions of that, while arguably beneficial in the long term, would cause a near meltdown on Wall Street in the short term, and that could take a lot down with it.

Realistically, they’re going to get bailed out. No administration is going to want to be left holding the GM death bag.