I can't differ with you, Steve. GM may be too far gone to save. If a cash injection had strings on it, something that would permanently adjust their costs, they might have a chance. But it's pretty well-known in the indiustry that GM didn't have the greatest product pipeline to begin with. But in order to conserve cash in recent months, they've pretty much cancelled all the product development on vehicles that would be more attractive to the marketplace when our economy recovers, say in 2010 or so. In their current situation, if they survives that long they'd be trying to sell some pretty tired and fuel-hungry vehicles. The foreign manufacturers and Ford, in paticular, have some superb, fuel-efficient products hitting the market in that time frame.

Like I said earlier, if the employees want to buy GM and give it a go, it can be had for about $6,000 per employee. That price will almost certainly go down in coming weeks. If they think it's such a good deal that the taxpayers should invest, why aren't they doing the same?

I'm afraid that we'll be down to the "big two" in a coupe of months. And again, it's common knowledge in the auto industry that Cerebus, the private equity firm that owns Chrysler, would dearly love to get rid of it at any price. It's tougher to know for sure with a private company, burt the word in Detroit is that Chrysler has an even worse product pipeline than GM. It may well trun out that by the summer Ford will be the only surviving U.S. auto company.

These thoughts are a lot easier to say than to imagine the widespread negative impact that the loss of two of the big three will have on America and our economy. I read a report today published by the Center For Automotive Research at the University of Michigan that projects that the loss of two of the three auto companies will cause the immediate loss of about 2-1/2 million jobs with the incremental unemployment caused by the failure of the two companies remaining at 1-1/2 million thru the end of 2010, with 1 million still being unemployed at the end of 2011.

In economic terms, the loss of two of the three U.S. automakers would reduce personal income by over $125.1 billion in the first year, and a total loss of $275.7 billion over the course of three years. The impact of this personal income loss on fiscal government operations at the local, state and federal levels include an increase in transfer payments, a reduction in social security receipts and personal income taxes paid. The net impact of all three of these categories results in a loss to state and federal government of $49.9 billion in 2009, $33.7 billion in 2010, and $24.5 billion in 2011—a
total government tax loss of over $108.1 billion over three years. In addition, the two auto companies provide, directly or indirectly, healthcare inurance for about 2 million U.S. citizens. That number would almost immediately be added to the number of citizens with no heathcare insurance coverage.

The loss of GM and Chrysler without government intervention is almost a certainty. It won't be a pretty picture for any of us.