This is Our Country

Yep, why not bring back those John Mellencamp Chevy ads one more time!

I'm glad to see that the stuffed turkey session of congress (or whatever they're calling it) is giving the "Big 3" hell. I don't want to get in to a big, long, drawn out thing here, but I'm not in favor of bailing out the auto industry. I understand that a collapse of any one of the three could be catastrophic... but let's be realists here. If the credit markets had remained frozen, we'd be in a world of pain; without money movement, not only would the financial sector have crashed, but the entire economy would have gone with it. Say what you will about the way its being handled, but I haven't once yet had to barter at the grocery store.
Ford, GM and Chrysler played the game differently than the financials did. The Lehmans and Bear Stearns of the world played fast and loose with the Bush administration and won, a lot. But just like the casinos, the house always wins, and not surprisingly those companies stayed at the blackjack table a few rounds too long. Luckily for them, their even richer cousins, the Goldmans and Morgans of the world, have a little cred with the pit boss, so they're still in the game, its just that now they're in room 1715 in a high stakes game behind closed doors... only its not their money whether they win or lose.
Meanwhile, Lumpy, Dumpy and Grumpy (we'll give that one to Chrysler, because who cared about them BEFORE this anyway?) are at the $10 minimum table, pretending to be big shots. Only instead of playing it like the financials, they played it big, dumb and slow. They smell bad, drink too much, and have been up way too long playing with a small stack of chips, and a big bill on their credit card. And they all have the foresight to hit on 20. And 21.
Unfortunately for them, they don't have any friends at the casino. Just a bunch of mobsters in the back waiting to pound the stuffing out of them when they try to sneak out without paying the tab. No, Toyota won't be able to pick up the slack, be it in employment, distribution or production. But it doesn't need to. None of them do. Without one (or all) of the big 3, demand might actually rally to something resembling supply.
In the end, our glorious lord and president elect will raise his finger and a magic web of hope and bailout will stream upon Detroit; I accept this like I accepted the whupping he gave McCain two weeks ago (I haven't seen that kind of schelacking since my pancake incident), but that doesn't mean I'm happy about it, nor that I won't revel in the weasels from Michigan squirming in their seats for now.

Yep, this is our country. Where every news headline can somehow be told with a gambling analogy.