[jfelbab]

I fully expect to see GM only selling Chevy and Caddy plus a truck line, perhaps GMC. I don't see Buick and Pontiac in their future. Ford and Mercury may also need to get rid of model overlap. I don't expect to see Chrysler being around. This retrenching needs to happen yesterday. This may be good for the us in the long haul.

In case you were interested, in 2007, Toyota made over $700 per vehicle while GM, Ford and Chrysler lost $729, $1467 and $412 per vehicle respectively. This was before the credit crisis. So tell me why we should pour money into them when they were not profitable even before this crisis. How would this bailout make them profitable? Unless they get new leadership, new labor contracts and a total reorganization, it is not a bailout. It is just delaying the demise.

The credit crisis has affected sales of all major ticket items, not just automobiles. There is no end in sight to those lining up for a handout. Now several state governments are lining up with their hands out. Next week it will be the airplane manufacturers, then the boat builders, then home builders, then the heavy construction industry, then the farmers, etc. The problem is that the money we are doling out is not ours. It is our children's and grandchildren's. This debt growth is unsustainable. Sooner or later our debtors will foreclose on us. We have a problem that we can't spend our way out of.