Personally, I think it would be more cost effective for the government to just build a system of military-run manufacturing facilities and leave them as a contingency plan than to nationalize the automotive industry in the event that it goes belly up. For 30 billion dollars you could build a couple pretty decent facilities, I imagine. Let alone for 300 billion, or 700 billion. What say you?

I didn't mean to imply that the automakers need my permission to go into Chapter 11 bankruptcy and restructure. They DO, however, need my permission, via my elected officials, to get a 25 billion dollar loan, or 50 billion dollar bailout, or 300 billion dollar subsidy, or whatever it shall be called, in whatever amount it shall be granted, from the generous public coffers. Perhaps I should clarify my statement: I would rather see the automakers restructure than to get massive government loans, handouts, or bailouts. The financial industry is a false dilemma – I didn't want them getting bailed out either! As we speak, Citigroup is on the way to obtaining 300 billion new dollars, bringing our total amount for handouts, bailouts, loans, and subsidies in the past 6 months alone to about 1.5 trillion dollars – over 3 times the federal budget deficit last year; over 7 percent of our GDP. I don't want Citi getting a loan or bailout or handout or buyout any more than I do Ford or Chrystler or GM – in a free market, nobody should get bailouts. It isn't the government's job to capitalize private industry.

As far as domestic manufacturing, I'm not just "trying to win an argument". I was just saying, manufacturing capacity is manufacturing capacity. If the government has to mobilize the entire private economy for wartime manufacturing, they can just as easily use a factory that builds sedans for Toyota or pickup trucks for Ford. That sort of mobilization will only be necessary in the event of a global, multi-front war between developed nations, which in our modern age means, in all likelihood, the deployment of nuclear weapons, in which case conventional tanks and bullets will be of relatively minimal concern anyway.

Second, I agree with the NO bailout idea. However, I do favor using the bully pulpit to advance truths about American made products. Does anyone believe that Germany or Japan would watch one of it's major industries go under while being flooded with American made products?

I don't mean to imply that the Big Three are the only manufacturing companies left, but many industries are gone and a pattern has been established. Just walk through any store and see how many "Made in America" tags you see.

It is a fallacy to think that foreign owned companies build here with equivalent content to the Big Three. The design is done overseas, as is much of the decision making of how to build and where to purchase components. I don't know all the details of Toyota's process, but I do know an awful lot about the way Japanese and European companies add US content to make it look as if they are just another domestic company. They don't do it out of altruism. It's very calculated to make it appear to government and the public. The domestic facilities used in WWII were more than buildings. They were a complete system of sales engineering, design engineering, manufacturing engineering, toolmaking, and production including everyone from the CEO to the floor sweeper. If you insist that this can be done in a Honda plant in the Carolinas then you are just trying to win and argument, with no reference to the facts.

And, BTW, why should AIG, Fanny and Freddie get all the money while Detroit burns? If we could go back to pre-TARP, I might be more sympathetic to your words.

There was a condition in my statement: "if our domestic industry cannot remain profitable and sustain its business…" I'd be all for a reorganization under Chapter 11, but if the industry cannot pull itself up after such a reorganization, I don't want them bailed out then any more than now. Success cannot exist without the risk of failure. If the industry should fail, should it be kept operating by taxpayers?

To say that the "big 3" represent all of American manufacturing is an overstatement anyway. Foreign automakers manufacture cars here the same as our home-grown companies in Detroit. In the event of a military mobilization requiring the conversion of domestic industry to war supply manufacturing, we have production facilities that can be used. The big 3 need to adapt and thrive or fail.