Lets bail out all in need. Lets all take vacations, drink fruity drinks, and have fun. But who is gonna bail me out when I can't pay my house payment, or pay for my truck? Will my mortage company say "thats ok, you don't have to repay us."

G.M. Guy,

I'm sympathetic, retired and own two Fords. I really don't know the answer. The bottom line will be economics.

Anthony hits the nail squarely on the head.  The market's been artificially propped up by incentives and fleet sales since 2001.  You can only hold back the pendulum so long, then it's going to swing the other way - hard.

There are other problems - health care costs, the unions, perceived quality concerns, poor product mix.  (Yeah, Detroit makes fuel-efficient vehicles.  But they're outnumbered by the gas hogs.  Look at fleet fuel efficiency - we're way behind japan, korea, etc.)  But all of these other problems are magnified by the bloated capacity issue.

Right ON F Williams, the MEDIA needs to stop bashing Americans and America, maybe the american workers hurt by the media should start suing them too. It's the overpaid media managers and reports and investors that are hurting america, they can move out if they don't like honest pay for honest days' work, look at the investors, wall street, investment workers, CEOs, they are overpaid and don't work an honest day of work, a million dollars a month to fix the crisis they made, not even close to honest  anyone who puts down any american worker is anti-american.

As a business owner I know what I would have to do if I needed money. First sell some assets second cut spending and third rethink your business plan. No government bailout plan for me. The automakers need to take the same approach and if they cant dig themselves out then let em fail. New companys will take over the void and be stronger and better.

Anyone who says Big 3 quality doesn't match foreign makers simply isn't paying attention.  Toyota and Honda and their luxury brands were the only makes that ever consistently topped the quailty polls.  Nissan, Suzuki, Subaru, Kia, Hyundai and the other asians have never consistently performed better than US makers as a whole and the Europeans (yes, even Mercedes) were worse.  

Now there is essentially no difference in quality between American makes and the top Japanese.  In fact, in the most recent J.D. Powers quality surveys, the higest rated midsize sedans were the Chevrolet Malibu and the Ford Fusion - HIGHER QUALITY THEN EITHER CAMRY OR ACCORD!

Perhaps all you out there should ask yourselves why we allow Japanese and Korean companies unfettered access to our markets when they allow us next to no access to their markets.  Japan is the second largest economy in the world.  I have no doubt we could dump our cars in their market and make them fight us on their home turf.  But, they have closed us out, taken the profits from their closed home market, and used them to come here and attack us on our home turf.  Some have said the US governemnt allows this because the Japanese own so much US government debt that we don't dare fight some of these battles.  Perhaps all those years of deficit spending had and impact after all.

Doesnt anyone look at the numbers? There are more american cars sold in the us than foreign cars its just that the US automaker doesnt make any money on them. Whose to blame for that, the unions?, the automaker?, you make the call. All I know is that it doesnt matter if 90% of the cars sold were american made the big three would still be hurting. Hopefully people know that when you buy a used car whether it be foreign or american the only people making money off of it is the car lots that you bought them from not the big 3 or a foreign automaker.

If any of the big three file for bankruptcy relief, it will be under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code, not Chapter 7. Chapter 11 allows a company to restructure its debts and renegotiate or reject its contractual obligations. A Chapter 11 bankruptcy does not mean that the company would close its doors. A bailout for the big three will only delay the inevitable result, which is Chapter 11 relief as the result  voluntary petitions filed by American auto manufacturers.

I have listened to the litany of experts who have expressed their disdain for the decisions of the auto industry.  Have they erred; clearly.  Were they innovative; not enough fast enough.  And as always lets blame the unions for attempting to get their piece of the pie.  Everytime you see someone driving their oversized SUV remember that they bought what they wanted.  Should the big three have been engaged in delivering the increasingly larger and more powerful vehicles that the market wanted?  The rigid adherence to "market forces" have yielded this financial meltdown as executives chased profit at the exclusion of everything else.  Let these industries fail, and like electronics and steel before them we will have lost yet another bellweather industry.

Where were the Big 3 during the late 70's and most of the 80's when they were building junk.  That was the period of time when most American car buyers turned to the far better quality of imports.  The builders of these cars looked to the future when designing cars, built far better cars than were being made in Detroit, and gained a new generation of customer.  It is very difficult to get a customer back after sticking them with lousy cars.  Do these automakers deserve a bailout?  Absolutely not!  Let them retool their plants, get better designers to build more efficient cars, stop paying their executives over the top salaries and bonuses, and then perhaps American cars will again be the envy of the world.   Right now, my tax dollars would be better spent elsewhere.