The Big 3

Should the Big Three Auto companies be given a bridge loan by the federal government to help them avoid collapse? Everyone has their opinion, and here's mine.

First of all, this is a huge concentrated industry in the U.S, that affects the jobs of hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions. So it is probably an exception in terms of whether or not the government should bail them out.

Second, they have been inordinately affected by the financial crisis, brought on by many crazy and irresponsible inane decisions of both the financial industry and the government. People can no longer easily get loans to buy cars and trucks. Ergo sales are way down. Add to that the falling income of many people, and the runup in the price of gas last summer, and you have a perfect storm for the car industry, most of which is not their fault.

Third, even if the auto companies have not been preparing for the era of high gas prices like they should have, the Congress is also negligent in not forcing them to make changes. There is plenty of blame to go around, including the American consumers who wanted SUVs and trucks. Until this year, American society in general wasn't really interested in small cars, so why should we try to lay all the blame on the car companies? Even Toyota and Honda made big trucks and cars for our cheap-gas market.

Fourth, how can the government basically just give hundreds of billions of dollars to the financial industry, and at the same time not consider a loan to the auto companies?

And finally, we cannot take the chance at this time of exacerbating the economic recession or our trade deficit by letting the auto companies free-fall out of existence.

There might be a case for a pre-planned, carefully managed bankruptcy to allow for the restructuring of the companies for the new era quickly coming. But this should probably include enough government funding to be allow the companies to survive, albeit restructured.

So, I'm basically for helping the Big Three. The CEOs driving in their hybrids to D.C. was also a nice touch (a little humiliation and groveling never hurt anyone!).