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What gets me is the blind assumption that granting this bailout will either stop job losses or create more jobs. When was the last time any large corporation created new jobs? The overt trend is always to merge and shed workforce. When was the. If allowed, Big Auto will swallow this drop in a bucket and beg for more before the Valentines Day. They will take these billions, cut another 20% of their workforce in the US, and continue to drag their feet on alternative fuel technology. CEO compensation is the biggest problem existing. Putting that much money into payroll expenses distorts thinking, and rationality flies out the window. It's not the unions that are breaking the Big Three, that's utter nonsense; it the CEO packages the sycophantic boards keep handing out. With the bailout billions they are contemplating, it would be cheaper for the government just to send a stimulus check of a quarter-million USD to every household. Now THAT"S a stimulus check. Stop giving the money to the corporate fat rats. Skip those sticky-fingered greedy middlemen and stimulate the economy by direct application of cash. EVERYBODY would be able to buy a new car, would stop worrying about surviving the winter/summer/spring/fall, could amend their funky mortgages to reasonable rates, could send their children on to college. People with money would BUY CARS from the corporations who would then sell the efficient models they already make for foreign markets and thereby help keep these same corporations afloat in a highly competitive global economy. They can boost production in their foreign plants (helping those local economies) while they retool here; they could send teams from the US plants (creating some good jobs) to those locations to observe and emulate this different business philosophy, building cars that get good gas mileage. Corporations would still have product on the market (keeping salesmen and repairmen employed), it would be a product the people want (generating high levels of customer interest and spawning heavy internet involvement), and as soon as they got retooled stateside (bunch of jobs there), hey presto, jobs galore!
