How to Save Detroit

(via VH1) This is the best article I've read on the bailout - and most specific suggestion on how to do it ... the right way. Great information and knowledge on how the industry actually works and how to actually make it better. A good read. I haven't been able to make up my mind on the bailout, but I'd sign onto this plan.

Of course, nothing is guaranteed:

We can't be certain that the rescue will work. Even with the money, one or more of the automakers could end up in bankruptcy at some point in the future. But the timing makes the case for this kind of effort compelling. If GM stopped producing, a million people could easily lose their jobs, including employees at dealers and suppliers. (Note that "only" 1.2 million have lost their jobs so far in this already-severe recession.) Paying them $25,000 in unemployment compensation for a year would be an outright expenditure of $25 billion--to say nothing of the three-quarters of a million UAW retirees whose pensions the federal government would inherit, via the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, or the tax revenue lost when workers become unemployed. A $25 billion loan, at least some of which is bound to be repaid, seems like a pretty cheap alternative.