I find it very interesting to note that the automakers felt compelled to feed at the trough of government handouts (much like the bankers have), yet the investment banks and private equity firms were nowhere to be found when it came to offering financing and restructuring options for the automakers...isn't this precisely what Wall Street is supposed be doing, rather than running the over-leveraged casino they've been running for the past decade or so?
There can be no doubt that we need a vibrant manufacturing industry here in the US, including heavy industry (steel, automotive, industrial equipment). It is a national security and economic survival imperative. That said, the free market should be able to find ways to support, on appropriate terms, the financing of the restructuring of these firms, not the government. I don't wish to live in a country like Russia or Venezuela with nationalized industry. Is this not an ideal opportunity for investors to get an asset below market value given the stressed state of these companies?
In any case, the automakers also have an opportunity to re-tool themselves as innovators for the next 50 years, if they can take a much more aggressive and proactive stance on electric vehicles. The might of their collective R&D capability, along with some targeted public R&D funding for these initiatives and the associated infrastructure that would be needed to support a post-internal-combustion-engine world, should be able to tackle this issue in less than a decade and at a cost much below many would think. Realize that the Apollo Space Program was executed for a shade over $100 billion of today's dollars. It is also imperative that the United States be a net provider of these technologies to the rest of the world, not a consumer. The net/net result of dramatically reducing our oil imports and at the same time increasing exports of US-made or US-designed technologies is compelling. There are simply too many reasons, from national security to long term competitiveness to not pursue this as a major national "quest", much like our efforts to put a man on the moon.
