Jennifer Openshaw is co-founder and president of WeSeed, a new approach to demystifying the stock market for real everyday people. She’s also the author of The Millionaire Zone You can reach her at jopenshaw@weseed.com.

So it’s come to this: Either give carmakers some pocket money to buy them some time or they might just collapse.

To help out, the White House is looking at a $15 billion plan that would provide loans — don’t worry, it’s not freemoney — to get them into next year. But aside from this longer-term help, the real issue is that they need cash now.

Last week I wrote about the five ways this would affect everyday Americans. Let me say that, like most of you, I don’t support a pure "bailout." I don’t think anyone does today, including President-elect Obama. That would be like giving your kids your credit cards for a no-strings-attached visit to the mall.

We can’t afford it — and it certainly wouldn’t be making America better.

Like any plan you would make with anyone — and especially your kids — there have to be some strings attached. The Big Three can’t just do what they want. So that means they have to create great cars that will save energy, help you save money, compete with the other guys and make the world a cleaner place to live.

That’s one of the main reasons the carmakers are in this mess in the first place: Americans voted with their feet. The need for the huge, cushy ride went the way of the Oldsmobile. People wanted smaller, fuel-efficient cars, and Detroit just didn’t respond.

Take a look around the parking lot the next time you drop the kids off at school, or next time you go to the mall. Detroit’s bread and butter, the big gas guzzler, just isn’t what people want anymore.

So if the Big Three go under, maybe foreign manufacturers like Toyota or Honda would step in and pick up some of those unused car facilities. Still, haven’t we all seen the bloodbath that mergers and bankruptcies have left before? And those who would be hardest hit live in the ten states where most of our cars come from, states that don’t need any more bad news like Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.

And when jobs are lost, families and communities suffer. There’s a big financial and psychological impact. Think about the family breadwinner losing a job — how would he or she feel about themselves? No wonder my psychologist-brother notices a spike in business during tough times.

Folks in Michigan and other auto-intensive states already can’t sell their homes. More homes under water, more foreclosures, you get the idea. And the reported cost to our cities and states over three years? About $150 billion in lost tax dollars, unemployment compensation and health benefits.

Here’s what scares me the most: If we can’t manufacture cars in America, what can we manufacture? Where does it stop? Because we’re not as competitive as we should be, even things like soap and toothpaste are being manufactured overseas now.

Before we let the plug get pulled, let’s stop and think carefully about how each of us, our communities, and our nation will be affected if we don’t keep our carmakers in business.