[fabsroman]

Allen,

I thought about that, but who would have the money to come in and do that? I seriously doubt any other car company would want to buy GM, but I could be wrong about that. If somebody was really interested in either GM or Ford, why not try a hostile takeover since the stocks are at $2.80 and $1.80 a share respectively. GM hasn't been this low since before the 50's. Further, why wouldn't these speculators already be talking to the Big 3 to try and buy them? I haven't heard a peep about anybody remotely interested in them. When the financial institutions were in distress, other financial institutions swooped in like vultures to try and buy them or merge with them. There is absolutely nothing like that going on here.

Then again, on one of the financial institution proposed mergers, I believe it was Lehman Brothers, the interested buyer wanted the government to kick in some money to sweeten the deal. When the government said NO, the interested buyer backed out and Lehman went belly up.

This entire bailout thing is a very slippery slope. That is my big negative about it. Once they started bailing out the financial institutions, everybody figured they could get a bailout from the government, including individuals struggling to pay their mortgages and facing foreclosure. By bailing out industries and individuals, the government is sending the wrong message about risk taking (i.e., take all the risk you want because we'll bail you out). It is kind of like children. Parents bail out their kids over and over, so the kids continue to take risk and get in trouble. The problem occurs when the parent cannot bailout the kid, or when the parents is SOL after bailing out the kid.

Jack,

You are right about Chrysler. They were bailed out back in the 70;s, and the government got every penny of that back. Now they are asking for a second bailout. See above on why that bugs me.

We are in a pickle indeed.