By who?  That would be General Motors.  GM comes to Washington with absolutely no plan to weather the economic storm other than to grovel for taxpayer money.  Do you get that?  No plan!  Nada!  It's either hand over taxpayer funds or we're going to bail .. and if we bail we're taking the rest of the country with us. 

What arrogance!

The Big Three returned to Washington in their hybrid cars.  They presented their plans in hopes that this will be enough to get them a government bailout.  But guess what?  There doesn't seem to be any really drastic changes.  Their business models haven't really changed.  Their adhesion contracts with the unions are still in place.  There aren't any secure plans to pay back the taxpayers other than creating a government oversight board.  Oh yeah ... that makes me feel so good; a government oversight board.  I feel better already.

There is some talk about symbolic cuts.  The CEO of GM and the CEO of Ford say that they will work for $1 a year if it means their companies get a taxpayer bailout.  That's great.  The problem isn't solved by paying CEOs a buck a year.  The problem is solved by bring in some management talent that will make extremely difficult decisions and them paying them a gazillion dollars if they can pull their companies out of the fire without raping the taxpayers.    

There is already a provision under our laws to take care of this mess.  It's called Bankruptcy.  Chapter 11 bankruptcy, to be more exact.  Reorganization.  The magic of bankruptcy is that all outstanding contracts that are making it difficult for these automakers to compete and survive would or could be cancelled --- and that includes the contracts with the United Auto Workers.  Nancy Pelosi is saying that bankruptcy is not an option.  Why not?  For the very reason I just set forth.  Bankruptcy would not work well for the unions.

The capitalist system - free enterprise - has lifted more people out of poverty than any other economic system ever devised by man.  Freedom works.  And freedom means the freedom to fail if you don't live up to consumer expectations or if you allowed yourself to be drug into unprofitability by asinine union agreements and products the consumers just don't want.

My guess is that the only way these auto companies survive is if they have to fight their way through this without taxpayer help.  A bailout is the easy way out for them.  What a stupid idea it is to throw tens of billions of dollars at these companies only to have them declare bankruptcy down the road. 

There's another idea floating around out there.  Let's just take Ford, GM and Chrysler and combine them into one large auto company. Oh yeah .. that ought to work.  Nothing like good old-fashioned competition to spruce up the marketplace. 

And speaking of competition ... there is no way the Big Three can survive under their current agreement with the unions.  These unions cannot be allowed to bring these automakers down.  Get rid of them.