This current crisis knows no geographic boundaries. What happens to the U.S. auto industry also has an immediate impact on Wall Street and Your Street. Did you know:

* 4% of U.S. gross domestic product is auto-related and represents 10% of U.S. industrial production by value.
* 1 out of every 10 U.S. jobs is auto-related, supporting approximately five million jobs across all 50 states.
* Domestic auto industry has invested nearly a quarter of a trillion dollars in the U.S., including $10 billion alone last year.
* The auto industry purchased $156 Billion in U.S. auto parts and is the largest purchaser of U.S. steel, aluminum, iron, copper, plastics, rubber and electronic and computer chips.
* Autos account for $690 billion, or about 20% of all U.S. retail sales
* Auto sales generate more than $10 billion dollars of annual tax revenue
* U.S.- based carmakers have 105 plants in 20 states, including California, Texas ,Kansas, Louisiana and Maryland.
* They support 14,000 dealers across the country, and these dealers in turn employ 740,000 people, with a total payroll of $35 billion a year.
* The auto companies provide pensions for 775,000 and health care benefit for 2 million.

Because carmarkers are so tightly woven into th e fabric of the U.S. economy, the collapse of this industry would reach far beyond Detroit. The Center for Automotive Research predicts that a collapse would lead to:

* Widespread failures of supplier companies
* Put nearly 3 million people out of work
* Personal income would drop by $150 billion
* Tax and social securityreceipts would fall by more than $45 billion

Patricia
Michigan/Florida

Isn't there another way to get the AN article so that we can send it on to our Legislatures?

Very irresponsible reporting! If GM fails, no jobs will be lost. Where do you think the jobs will go? If the market requires 100 cars, the manufacturers will produce 100 cars. Weather GM is part of the production or not. So obviously there will be no loss of jobs, only transference of jobs from one manufacturer to another. Do you actually believe your constituents are stupid enough to believe that we will lose 100,000 jobs if GM folds? I for one am insulted. I realize that many of the folks reading this rag directly or indirectly supply the automotive industry, especially your big contributors but it still surprises me that you would make such a broad and obviously inaccurate statement. Your credibility is seriously in question.

In response to Frank Doyle's comments...well your ignorance shows through what you have written and how you have written it, not limited to your spelling. You obviously have no real clue of economics or American manufacturing. I am not associated with the auto industry but still realize the impact of such a large failure of GM to the US population. Let's hope the moral decay and intelligence decay of America, as examplified through your inacurate and ignorant thoughts, do not ever have an opportunity to rule the nation. God help us! Please sir, get your head out of the sand.

I find all these comments very interesting. I for one have worked for an automotive supplier that manufactures air bags. I put in 15 years before I was caught in a reduction of force, specifically because of the automotive downturn. My job was eliminated.

I'm sorry Mr. Doyle I'm not sure where you are coming from. I have been unemployed for 15 months. I never had any kind of opportunity going to work for another automotive company because they are all laying people off. The reason? Automobiles are not selling in America and abroad. We as Americans have put ourselves in this situation.

I don't believe government should be involved in the business of bailing organizations but it is what it is.

Why do all of the media (newspapers, television, radio, and magazines) support the bailout of the small three? Why? Because, if one or all three of the little three go down then all media stands to lose billions of advertising revenue. In our small town of 700,000 people, car advertising makes up a whopping 70% of our local paper. Will the others make up slack? I doubt it. So there is great pressure to ensure that they don't fail - and if it on the backs of ordinary Americans then so be it.

What happens if because of the current crisis I am plunged into bankruptcy? Is the government going to bail me out because I misspent most of the money on frivolous electronics, lavish vacations and two massive SUV's in my garage? NO! THEY WON'T!

It is a right and a privilege for us to manage our affairs, and if we do it poorly enough, then we lose the shirts off our back. This is a dangerous slide to socialism, this tangled mess. If we bail out the small three, then why not bail out every company that is hurt by the current crisis including all those small businesses on Main Street as well.

Interesting comments -- but Mr. Doyle is right. If GM is propped up, it will use tax money collected from you and me to prop up a company that has been dying for years, sucking away capital that could be used to create jobs in healthy companies. GM's overpaid management has been incompetent for decades; many of us stopped buying GM cars 20 years ago because they were of such poor quality; even GMAC is a poorly run company. Yes, it will be a sad day for those who are still working at GM, but the rest of us do not owe them a career at GM any more than they owe us a career at whatever we are doing. If the government gets involved with keeping GM afloat, watch out for the political payoffs -- just like agriculture, where the big guys are the principal beneficiaries and the little guys get the crumbs, if anything at all.

Please stop the bailouts. Allowing GM to die may hurt for a while but giving them yet another bailout will only serve to prolong the pain and cost more in the long run. Notice how I said the words "long run", the GM lobby does not want you to think that far ahead so they will never spin a story with that slant.

I feel the same way for the financial industry also. We're just going to have a tremendous spike of inflation when the market finishes it's natural course and the industry/economy recovers.

I know it's not a popular point of view, but I'm tired of giving my children's money to CEO's and special interests!

Wow, doesn't anyone understand that thousands of small businesses are owed buckets of money in delayed payments from the "Big Three"? If they stick us with the bill very, very few will be able to survive the hit of not being paid under bankructcy filings. We have done our work, spent our money (And I do Mean Our) and are waiting for the magical PPAP or some other mechanism to get OUR money reimbursed. If they don't pay the suppliers (who they have forced to take rediculas terms) we are toast. Our emplyees are toast and the people we owe monies to are toast. We in turn will file and then our employees will be in trouble and have to file and on and on.
I am sure someone will say, "you new what you were getting into" and yes we did. But if we didn't take the terms we would have been out of business. There has been few if any options to not do the work. Sad thing is the "BIG 3" will pay the foriegn suppliers UP FRONT for most of the project and only treat AMERICAN shops with the long pay terms, take it or we move it offshore!! End of discussion. Wow, talk about fair trade, LOL.
How can they do this? Well they hold all the cards, it's their rules to the game, if you don't like it pick up your chips and go to the next CRAPS table.
Sorry, just a little upset and maybe a little vindictive on the subject. All most of us small suppliers are trying to do is keep a group of employees (families) employed, paying taxes, making a living. It is becoming impossibe to do that, it is killing the small business spirit in the US. And when that is dead, well good luck to you all.
All I want is for them to pay what they owe, if it takes a bailout well maybe that's best. But at least put some strings on the money to pay what you owe and KEEP THE MONEY IN THE USA. None of it should be allowed to purchase anything from OFF SHORE countries. Why do you think we have no money as it is?? We send it all to other countries. WAKE UP PEOPLE !!!!!!

Sorry about any spelling items or grammer issues. I build molds not sentences.

Steve

GM didn't put itself in this predicament overnight. It is the result of decades of mismanagement, not only from those responsible of running the company but from labor as well. A government bailout will only delay the inevitable, and the taxpayer's money will go into a bottomless pit never to be seen again. I'm sure that the extinction of the dinosaurs was not a pleasant sight to behold but their time had come. Let the dinosaur automakers disappear and bring forth a new species of automakers that will produce high quality, fuel efficient vehicles that consumers want to buy!

"but in my book, the politicians who would refuse to save GM are completely incompetent"

Well their brains would then match the brains at GM, Ford and Chrysler. I agree that this did not happen overnight. It has been the past 20 years of ignoring what Americans want and need and pushing what they want to sell down our throats - including the poor quality years ago. I believe that Americans can design and build the best products in the world, but not with the management teams running these companies. Give them the $25 billion and they can go party with the AIG people. Before congress hands over ANY money, these companies need a business plan (yes a novel idea!). But first, CLEAN HOUSE! You don't hand over the chickens to the fox.

The two primary reasons why the Big 3 are in this mess in the first place are the excessively high salaries and bonuses paid to executives within the Big 3 for underpreforming as they have for the last several decades. In addition, to say the very least, Unions have controlled the entire Big 3 for a number of years. Unions, had their place in our country and economy a long time ago, however, those days are in the past. Today's Unionized workforce are very highly compensated and basically in total control over all three major corporations.
If a Bail-out were to take place, it must be with certain provisions. The primary provision should be a sit down meeting with the Unions and force them to make consessions on salaries, etc. In addition, freezing salaries and elimination of bonuss at all executive levels and reduction in executive level positions that are considered reduntant, allowing more key executives to become cross functional. The Big Three also have to produce a better quality product line that holds value longer including more energy efficient vehicles which is the wave of the future for the American Public's spending habits.
They, just like our Banking system have created a real mess and they can't expect the tax payers of our country for generations to come to continuously bail them out every time a recession looms on the horizon. Like all of the rest of us, they too have to learn to change their habits.

If the car industry is struggling because of the decrease of private interest, why not use that same industry to produce buses?

We have to invest in better public transport! The need for mobility is still the same, but we need a sustainable mobility, and this is the time to make the change.