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You do not think Japan and China subsidze their auto companies? Who is the number 1 shareholder of Toyota? Funny, you can find this out about GM and Ford easily, why not Chinese and Japan companies? We subsidize them buy allowing them to force us to make parts for our products, i.e. wings for 787. Japan(Nippon Air) would not buy 50 of the Boeing 787 airplan unless they (Japan) build the wings. Do you think they get billions of dollars worth of R&D that we paid for by forcing us to give the technology to them?
I say, we (American companies,not Japanese transplant parts companies) build all the parts for the Prius - turnabout is fair play.

The government is going to take steps to assist (bail-out, loan?) the U.S. owned Big 3; this is a given. The real question is what do these companies need to do to be viable over the next 5-20 years. But we do need to sperate thew private equity owned Chrysler from the publicly owned Ford and GM.

The key priorities are for all three are:
1. Clean up the Balance Sheets. Easier said than done. But all of the debt holders will have to take a severe haircut in return for equity. And spo will the dealer organizations, consolidations and closings.
2. Improve cash flow so that revenue flows to product development and marketing, rather than debt service. An improved Balance Sheet will help (less debt and debt service), but the auto workers will have to take a hit in terms of numbers and pay. Goodbye to job fund, etc. But the pension transfer should include significant equity to align the workers opportunity with the companies' goals.
3. The companies will have to look very different. Less brands, more consolidated dealerships, and the most attractive parts of Chrysler will have to be merged with with either GM or Ford. Again, Cerberus takes the biggest hit. It is the nature of private equity to leverage and gamble, and they lost this one.
4. Lastly, GM and Ford will have to rely more on their European and Asian operations to produce revenue, car design (better mileage), and a push to new technologioes. The US market should be recognized for what it now is, a minority of the car buying marketplace.

This is not a 3 month endeavor, but it needs to start now in exchange for government assistance.

The arguments for not bailing out the auto makers are many and valid. High labor costs and concessions with labor unions have put the car makers in inefficient positions, with average workers costing the auto makers $74-$76 per hour. They get extreme coverage of everything from medical to unemployment and absenteeism. No amount of bail out fixes union extortion. Executive pay of millions for multiple tiers is almost criminal. Instead of bail out or loans, provide a 10% tax credit for those buying autos. This will stimulate the auto market immediately, but not pick winners and losers. IT will not benefit the inefficient, and if bankruptcy occurs, it is not the loss of the company, but an opportunity to free up their obligations to renegotiate union agreements, in order to get to a position where they can efficiently produce and compete. This deduction was used in 1982 with the recession, but was limited to business vehicles, then was used again in 2003 by tax write offs for business investments up to $75,000 in autos, and equipment. Results were positive each time.

I wish you could see these arguments from the inside of the automakers like I do. As a 13-yr union employee of one of the Big 3, I would like to tell you some of the facts. Union members have taken pay cuts over the last 3 yrs in the form of COLA reductions and no hourly pay increases to help fund the VEBA health care plan that ensures that our retirees will have health care coverage when they need it the most. These cuts work out to be around $4-5/hr. per employee. The retirees paved the way with hard work and sometimes, their own blood (anyone recall the "sitdowners" of the Flint strike should understand what I am talking about) to allow us to have what we have now. In my plant, there is one salary person for every six hourly people on the floor. We have 3-4 layers of management for every 24 people in a dept. Talk about micro-management! The number of mgrs. has remained the same although the number of hourly people has been reduced from 4500 to less than 1300. While we are taking cuts in health care and overall pay, the "$76/hr" figure keeps getting rolled out by the media, even though it is currently more like $45-55 total cost of pay and benefits, very musch in line with Toyota and Honda, VW and Nissan, all who pay their employees in the $25-30/hr plus benefits.

Lastly, this is back-breaking, dangerous work that can't be appreciated by standing on the sidelines and observing the video bites, also as seen by the media. I have spent my days shoveling literally tons of sand, standing on a platform for hours at a time loading parts weighing up to 40 lbs. onto a belt, hoisting those same parts and others weighing 60-80 lbs. a piece from a tub to a grinding machine at a rate of 1 every 50 sec. and unloading the same parts when done. If you think it's easy, you won't think so after 5 yrs., or even a year when you wake up in the morning and you can't feel your hands. It is called dirty work for a reason. Please cut us blue-collar folks some slack!!

P.S. - I am a 40-yr. old woman that can hold her own with any man in this field. I don't ask for slack and will keep up or surpass any person I work with and proud of it. I am blessed to be able to work hard and proud of what I do!

LET ME REPEAT MYSELF. GM HAS HIGH LEGACY COSTS. MAYBE WE (UAW) SHOULD ABANON THE 700,000 RETIREES. THEY ARE OLD AND RICH REPUBLICANS.
NAFTA AND THE REPUBLICANS HAVE SHAFTED US.THANKS AGAIN FOR ALL YOUR SUPPORT AND THANK YOU TO THOSE WHO BUY GM. WE BUILD THE BEST CARS WE CAN FOR AMERICA.