you'd think a planned economy would be easy.

imagine if every 5-10 years,millions of people would not be thrown out of work, lose their homes, miss out on education.

what a boring old world that would be.

and you couldn't get rich. well, you'd have to work hard, for a long time. what a boring old world that would be.

"I don't trust the car companies' leadership," said Sen. Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat. "I worry that, if they're left on their own, they'll be back a short time later asking for more, and we won't be better off. To hand money over with vague, unenforceable promises without an enforcement plan for viability isn't good enough."

Weird. The same could be said about the Federal Government's "leadership". Pot, meet Kettle.

Then watch the Pension Guarantee Fund crater even more, someone will have to pick up all those pensions... at a far reduced rate to those receiving those pensions. watch people who worked hard all of their lives drift into poverty.

Go ahead and throw 3 million or more people out of work. Watch even more mortgages to belly up. That'll really help out the banks. You bet.

Destroy the automobile industry. Go ahead, who do you think makes the HumVees we use in Iraq? Who do you think makes some of the tanks? Some of the heavy trucks thatcarry military cargo to the troops.

Go ahead. Destroy this country as a military power. Do you really think that we don't bail out huge companies? How about Boing and their sweetheart air tanker deal. Do you really think that you can farm out production of military vechicles to foreign suppliers? Or better yet, let the federal government manufacture them for use. That'd be one hell of an idea.

Some will cite simple economic theory. Well, if they try to cite simple supply and demand theory then are jusy simple. Huge industries are not free market because the costs to enter the market are so large. Auto is an oligopoly, and as such doesn't follow simple market theory.

I'd expect the cost of starting a viable new auto company in the USA from scratch would be around 100-200 billion dollars. That sure doesn't sound like easy entry into the market.

Already we've lost our steel industry to Japan. We've outsourced our IT jobs, and sold out our high tech workers. Most high tech developements happen in the USA and then are sent to Japan to manufacture.

Our taxes are being done in India. Our x-rays are being read in India. Soon people will be required to have operations done in India.

We have to stop these suicidal acts and go back to making products and providing services for ourselves.

Every industry is connected to every other industry. We're none of us that indispensable in that regard. 100,000 people in financial services have lost their jobs this year. One would think that in a global interconnected economy that waves would rippled out of that and kill everything. But it hasn't,or, if it has then it's not so bad.

Keeping the car companies alive because of this is simply bad thinking. It's a scare tactic. If the car companies go broke, we're not going to stop buying all cars. Someone else will buy up those companies. Maybe Toyota or Fiat or Peugeot or TATA or Cherry.

It is a small wonder that some of these Senators and Reps want to hold onto as much of the stockholder Christmas gift (i.e bailout) for their own financial services constituents. After all, those banks are just such victims of their own excellence while they peddled fraudulent securities around the world, unlike those clear incompetents that make things that drive.

With a retail industry in a tailspin, a housing market imploding, and companies dropping tens of thousands of people from payrolls, we are going to pull a pin out of the MANUFACTURING sector? Clearly, some people are rather ignorant of the supply chain. I sure would rather the mfg sector get that money rather than the financial services sector where there is almost zero accountability.

While we are talking about learning lessons, how about we cannot import entire classes of durable goods? That we cannot sell thousands of houses to people who cannot afford them? That we cannot afford millions of immigrants, legal and otherwise, that are driving down wages? That we cannot have all of our retirements bound up in the stock market? If it wasn't for 401K's how many people would care that much about the market? Where is Congress on any of these issues?

After Citi just walked off with 25 billion, I am tired of hearing how badly Detroit acted. At least they actually make things.

Congress is goofy if it lets middle-class jobs go down the drain. There are enough job losses now that Obama will have to try to replace, without having more. When Bush and Congress bail-out their rich buddies on Wall Street to the unconditional tune of millions...no, probably trillions, it is a little annoying to hear politicians (mostly Republicans) posture for a backbone suddenly when it comes to union workers and an actual industry that produces a strong middle class. I've never owned a foreign car and never will because I want the American economy, which I am a part of, to be strong and good. I have always had a Ford or Chevy and I have not been disappointed, contrary to the jabber. The worst part of the auto industry, of course, is the hierarchy of over-paid CEOs, like the worst part of any industry, including Wall Street. If we could rid the companies of arrogant CEOs, the economy would already be on the road to recover. And by the way, considering the bad economy and the loss of jobs, has Congress offered to reduce its bloated salaries? What benefits are they going to give up? For the good of the nation.

Ever since Roger and Me, I've found Michael Moore's smugness just a bit irritating, even when I agree with him in principle.

But this time--and considering this is an area in which he does have quite a bit of knowledge and expertise--he's right:

"Congress must save the industrial infrastructure that these companies control and the jobs they create. And it must save the world from the internal combustion engine. This great, vast manufacturing network can redeem itself by building mass transit and electric/hybrid cars, and the kind of transportation we need for the 21st century.

"And Congress must do all this by NOT giving GM, Ford and Chrysler the $34 billion they are asking for in "loans" (a few days ago they only wanted $25 billion; that's how stupid they are -- they don't even know how much they really need to make this month's payroll. If you or I tried to get a loan from the bank this way, not only would we be thrown out on our ear, the bank would place us on some sort of credit rating blacklist)"

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