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Amounts to a bailout of the UAW. They stand to lose the most if any of the big 3 go under. The first item of business for a bankruptcy court would be to cancel and renegotiate the absurd labor contracts.

American cars are an embarrassment to the US. Let the go under.

The US should bail out the carmakers. I think most people are voting "NO" because they think the carmakers have been shortsighted by designing the wrong cars and digging a deep financial hole for themselves through union negotiated pension plans. Maybe so but you need to ask yourself if the US economy and your pocketbook would be better off if GM, Ford, and Chrysler ceased to exist or became subsidiaries of foreign owned corporations. I think the answer to that question is "NO" and therfore I think the car companies should be bailed out with appropriate controls put in place.

I just really don't see how $30B is going to fix the problems that the car makers have. With the costs that they have to carry (largely, but not entirely, union-based), they claim they can only make money by selling huge, gas-guzzling cars that people don't really want to buy as much as they used to. So I'm voting no- not because I have some principled stance against the bailout, but because I don't see the point in spending $30B just to delay the inevitable.

If they do bail them out, it should be under the same punitive terms as AIG, and with a clear plan to sell them off within 3 years, either whole or in pieces.

The only reason for the government to get involved is systemic risk. It doesn't matter if we think the US will be mildly better or worse off based on a bailout. You can always argue, as their lobbyists will, that low-cost government loans to some particular business will be good for America. That's because the benefits will be easy to quantify, but the harms won't.

The only reason to bail out a company is risk to the whole system. E.g., risk of a financial collapse, or risk of a much deeper recession. And in that case, the discussion shouldn't be about bailing out a particular company; it should be about choosing among a list of options for mitigating the systemic risk.

And if we do have to bail out some particular company, it should be in such a way that no other company leader looks at it and says, "Boy, I'd like a piece of that." Automatically firing the CEO and the board and claiming most or all of the shareholder equity during a bailout are good ways to do that.

It would be very a very negative signal for an already messy market to let them go under. It would mean a 'carte blanche' for other companies and sectors that are also in big troubles to capitulate. A massive bond market default on top of the equity crash is certain not good news for anybody. The answer should be in my opinion, bailout to avoid chaos and turnaround of the whole industry.

$25 billion is cheap compared to the some $500 billion in federally insured pension plans we would be on the hook for if the big three went under

Where's the money going to come from? Are we going to borrow it? Are we going to tax it and raise the deflationary pressure?

Nah, there's a lot of businesses out there and for every one we have to bail out we're putting extra pressure on the rest who don't get a hand out. The automakers are in a deep, deep hole - but that's not a good reason to keep digging that hole with more debt we can't pay off in the long run.

There's going to be a huge fire-sale for American assets are really "depressing" prices, but borrowing money (borrowed time) can't ultimately "fix" that as much as it can delay the inevitable.

I think we should bail them out because it would be WAY more expensive not to. Plus the chances that they would still go bankrupt are not 100.00%.

GM took in 180 billion dollars last year. If they still lost money (-39 billion net income) they at least paid out a whole bunch of other people! Many of them the current UAW workers that are fashionable to hate right now, but at least they are in America, spending their money here. Plus, for the record, their salary+benefit cost is not that much more than Toyota or Honda's down in the southern states; it's the legacy costs that kill them yet I don't see as many people bitching about retired workers.

Anyway, for the time being, I don't think it's stupid to feed GM some crumbs and let it continue its' huge car making machine until either conditions improve, or the US is ready to take 3 million more people onto social services.

OK, after reading some of the comments I have to respond. First of all, anyone that thinks the UAW is responsile for the financial problems of the "Big 3" should pull their heads out of the sand. In todays inflated economy 40 to 60 k for base salary is not out of line. Keep in mind thats base, so after taking out for health care, state taxes, federal taxes, FICA, workers comp, the "On The Check" wage is much less. Now maybe we could start way way back into rising costs of medical and the amount Doctors make, or lets talk about the 39.1 million Ford paid the new CEO for one month, or the deals our administration makes with forgien companys, putting americans out of work...and again raising our costs of living. Americans have to quit pointing fingers at unions, unions are the barometers for wages and enconomy though out the USA. Believe me when i say this, without unions those "Non-Union Bitchers" would not have the wages they enjoy right now either. Is there answer going back to the 1910 and 1920's when sweat shops ran wild in America. Get real people, think "BUY AMERICAN", send a clear message, we are on the move to bring back the American Dream to Americans. If America doesn't make some product a company needs, THEN the federal government would be wise to invest in those companies. Let the corporate dollars stay in America, let those foriegn cars rust, let the ships stay loaded and send the manufactured goods back to where they came from. Sure we need to import some raw materials, but finished goods come on people....get your "It can't happen here" ideas out of your head...because it can and is happening here, RIGHT NOW, even as I type this. We would all do good to remember the hardships the american people went through to form unions, oh yeah thats right, the union of states we now call the UNITED States of America, think of that when the President gives the State of the UNION address. People, we have been a group of united people since the 13 original states, and if you live in the Uninited States of America, wheather you like it or not.....you belong to the biggest union in the world, so to say you don't like unions is to say you don't like America...so leave it!.