Originally Posted by Villages Kahuna

At the outset, I must say that my oldest son is a Ford middle manager. His wife and three of my five grandchildren depend on him. We certainly can't be of much help should he become unemployed.

My son knows as I do how much time even a huge company like Ford has. By our calculations, if the economy remains stagnant for another year, Ford cannot survive alone. GM and Chrysler will have preceded them into insolvency and liquidation. We will no longer have a U.S. auto industry. Try to imagine that in terms of the total eventual unemployment that will cause...the destruction of communities...and the effect on our national security.

Capitalism has failed our country and economy. Was it the cause of the economic system itself? No. It failed because it was abused by greedy executives and politicians. It failed that all of us became mesmerized with our growing wealth, even though we knew we hadn't earned it. We let the greed happen. And it ruined our economic system which had worked so well for decades.

Now the government is the only party with the financial capacity to fix the problems which have resulted. Call it socialism because that's what it is. But if the government stands aside and lets economic forces alone try to correct the problems we face, they may not get corrected. If they do, it will almost certainly take years and years.

I disagree with those who say don't make a move to support the auto industry (or put another name of an industry important to our economy and national security in where "auto" is). There is no alternative than for all of us to collectively help solve the economic problems we face.

All I pray for is that whatever socialism or nationalizing that we begin in 2008 can be reversed sometime in the future so that we might return to a strengthened and reinvigorated capitalism.