GM wants a bailout

[pirate_satellite]

The Big Three automakers are making a play for a bailout from the Federal government. (Especially, it seems, GM, who are loudly trumpeting another quarter's astronomical losses today in hopes of hurrying along some federal monies to plug some of the leaks in their listing ship.)

What's your feeling about it? I know there are a lot of manufacturing jobs at stake, but the American automobile companies have created their own problems by producing second-rate vehicles for 20 years. They've fought every safety and environmental innovation tooth and nail. They deliberately produced a generation of gas-guzzling, badly engineered SUVs that roll over, ride like tanks and demolish people in sensible cars who are unfortunate enough to get into accidents with them.

I can remember reading an article in either The New Yorker or The Atlantic about 15 years ago warning that American auto companies were falling grossly behind in their engineering of passenger vehicles because they were so focused on cranking out high-profit SUVs that were basically gussied-up pickup trucks (from an engineering perspective), while Toyota and Honda were constantly improving and innovating their passenger cars. The article said that in 10 or 15 years the American automakers would be so far behind that they'd never be able to catch up. Guess what: we're there yet.

To me, the Big Three automakers are a casebook in socially irresponsible capitalism, as they've short-sightedly gorged on SUV profits regardless of the damage they were doing to both our country and their own long-term business interests. Today they try to peddle their cars with Palinesque nationalist symbolism ("This is Our Country", etc.) in hopes that you'll overlook what they're actually selling.

Now they want us to step in and bail them out because "what's good for GM is good for America"? I don't buy that anymore. What's so good for America about GM?