The Big Three (GM, Ford and Chrysler)

[WayneNYC]

What do you all think of their situation?  I always knew they'd bottom out one day, just because they've built less-than-stellar vehicles (I'm being kind to them) for decades while Toyota, Honda and Nissan slowly chipped away at the US marketshare.  I think at least Chrysler (and possibly Ford) would've gone broke eventually, but this economy probably help them along.  GM may have been able to pull themselves out of trouble as they had gotten serious and actually started building no-nonsense cars that could compete with the good stuff.

[Perry]

It's a tough situation.  I mean what is the Government's role in bailing out all of these companies that made bad business decisions all along?  Aren't they all sort of 'in bed' with other automakers though?  At least at one time it seemed like someone else had a stake in their company by either making engines or other components. 

I don't feel bad for them.  I feel bad for the workers that may be laid off, but maybe they need to just merge into one big company and then go from there.  They can still have their own subsets of their most popular vehicles. 

They claim it will throw us into a depression.  Maybe, maybe not.  One thing I've seen as a result of all of the fallout of layoffs, etc., is it's finally putting this Country into check and realizing that we've so overexpanded all of these years.  Time to go back to more efficient operations and streamlining.

[WES]

The only reason why the big three should be bailed out is not only would the failure of U.S. automakers kill jobs at the auto makers, but would also kill jobs at their suppliers, area businesses and other related entities.

I was one who thought that if a business failed because of their own greed and stupidity, was a good thing, since even though innocent people would lose their jobs, another-better run business would compensate for the failing business.  But now with so many businesses failing and so many jobs being lost,  I have sort of changed my mind.  I do think we shouldn't give free monies to these banks and other financial institutions.   They should get a loan, and the taxpayers should get that interest back they would be paying as part of the loan payments.  Some of the dividends that are given to the stockholders should also go back to the taxpayers and the only golden parachutes should go.......again to us taxpayers.

And some don't learn from their mistakes.  Take AIG for example.  Given 85 billion dollars, and what do these geniuses do, have an outing at a posh hotel.

It sucks also that some of these companies that are doing bad, give their outgoing CEOs golden parachutes in the tens of millions of dollars.  Perry send your kids to business school and then they can run and screw up a company and still get millions of dollars (think about it maybe we should all go to business school, screw up company and get billions).  I mean if I get fired, do I get tens of thousands in a golden parachute.........F*** NO, then why should some toupee wearing, wife cheating ingrate get it.

BTW anybody need a private plane, because the big 3 automakers' CEOs are selling theirs.  I think I have a few bucks, how about it?