You keep forgetting to mention that the US actively subsidizes foreign transplant automakers - but very strangely seems determined to put the its auto industry into liquidation.

Similarly, US corporations are given grant subsidies and tax breaks to export US jobs.

You figure out why the US has these self-destructive policies in place and you'll go a long way towards figuring out How the World Really Works.

I'm sorry you didn't like my xmas present. Some people just can't be pleased.

Yes, the top management of the big three automakers have been making stupid decisions for years along with most other short sighted executives in the US.

But this is not about a handful of shortsighted greedy scumbags. Its about the US economy and weather or not we are going to be a society that "cleans each other's houses" and lives in slums or one that makes things and lives in middle class neighborhoods. Note:(there will always be the rich who will no doubt live in gated communities.)

Don't like the idea of those rich bastards having their cushy job's saved, fine... we'll fire them as a part of any deal, but don't flush the entire industrial base of the US down the toiled because you don't like a handful of ignorant and arrogant executives.

And don't believe the shallow news reports that claim ONLY a few million jobs are at stake. The US auto manufactures set the standard for all the other manufacturers in the US and help to maintain and advance that standard. Ask anyone who knows about PPAP, or SAE standards or hundreds of other critical process that every other manufacture in the US and world depend on. If the US automakers go out of business the US will not longer be a significant player in the industrialized world.

I support the idea of doing something immediately. But lacking that, Obama can go on television again and repeat that, "help is on the way." Each time he was on TV in November, the stock market went up close to record amounts.

But we don't have to wait until January 20. On January 3, a new Congress is in town. That's only 16 days from now. If the creditors and the workers can take a two or three week break, then the problem can be on the way to resolution. At any rate, in only 39 days Obama can sign the new legislation.

Inspiring words really do matter, both in the stock market and the general economy. I am confident that Obama can hold things together during these next 39 days.

At the continued baseless hubris and unmitigated gall of Republicans. Their economic theories are in tatters, the country is in the most major of recessions and stands at the brink of a second Great Depression. Yet their best idea is to drive the nation over that brink, sending literally millions to the unemployment lines and the auto industry into bankruptcy in order to score some political points?

Shortsighted and woodenheaded are adjectives that don't even begin to describe the feckless stupidity and utter pettyness of this move.

Un-fucking-believable.

most: It seems hard to conceive that GM and Chrysler could not somehow manage to totter forward just one more month, when Obama will take office with a significantly strengthened Senate majority and presumably a much more potent bully-pulpit.

Jerks like McConnell and Co. will behave predictably but the automakers' position will be greatly strengthened come January.

Here's fellow Republican Senator DeMint (SC) on what he "thinks" will be the outcome if automakers are bailed out: We’re going to have riots. There are already people rioting because they’re losing their jobs when somebody else is being bailed out. The fairness of it becomes more and more evident as we go along. Because the auto companies may be hurting there are very few companies that aren’t hurting and are gonna hurt. http://thinkprogress.org/

What with these riots and screwy syntax, socialism is the least of our worries. Higher up on my personal list is the relative paucity of halfway intelligent elected officials.

Expect a full court press in the next 3 weeks. Then the homebuilders. Then the steel companies. Then the railroads.

Money is free let's just give it away to everyone.

As long as your so damn set on screwing the manufacturing sector of the US and in particular the Big 3...next time a hurricane or a nice set of tornadoes wanders through your constituency you can whistle dixie! Y'all seem to forget who sends MILLIONS to help the victims of your wonderful natural disasters...and if you want to cause a NATIONAL CALAMITY of massive proportions among the working class...so be it.

Remember, what comes around goes around and your last stab at the Blue States will haunt you all in the long run.

And lets look again at how much the Japanese and Korean auto makers subsidized by your tax dollars...spent almost a billion in Alabama to get those jobs.

I for one propose closing all those army and air force bases down there and shipping those jobs northward. Sounds like fun to me!

Increasingly drastic moves by a party that feels more and more irrelevant?

Vengeance over economic stability? Hardly mainstream policies. I suppose that is why I am more interested in hearing what they believe is an adequate alternative to the loans and car-czar plan. Will the hold-outs demand the unions disband?

And why isn't anyone asking why these naysayers feel the need to scapegoat the unions for the corporate decisions? No matter what implied oppression officials claim Union demands made on them, it was GM/Chrysler/Ford management that made model decisions, vehicle ratios, supplier contracts, and marketing decisions. It isn't like these companies farmed that out to union shops. No, they painted themselves into this corner, it isn't up to the unions to bail them out.

I do believe that the unions have a part to play in all this. I am not a union or auto-business expert, but I play one on the int0rwebz.