There is little doubt that the 111th Congress is going to vote some sort of bailout for the car companies. There's some chance that GM may not make it until early January when they're sworn in without becoming insolvent, but that's another question.

Given the high probability that WE will give the car companies a bridge loan, we ought to be worrying about and communicating with our representatives regarding the content of the restructuring plan that they'll demand from the auto CEO's when they re-appear before Congress next month. We ought to be worrying about the strings that will be attached to any money we give them.

If all we do is send a check after listening to some empty pie-in-the-sky "plans" next month, that would be a huge mistake. There are a lot of elements to any kind of plan that should be required. Sure, there should be some limitation or prohibition on executive comp, but that's next to nothing in the auto companies cost structure. The requirement for more fuel-efficient cars in the product planning? That's already well underway, at Ford at least where I have more inside information. What's really needed is some dramatic reductions in employee and retiree pension plans and healthcare benefits and probably some give-up in hourly wage rates and work rules that must be sacrificed by the UAW. If that isn't a part of the plans presented next month, we'll be just peeing down a rat hole, as I've said before.

Do I have much hope that these things will be part of a plan? No. Unfortunately, those types of things will only happen in a bankruptcy court and that is going to cost all of us a whole lot of money.