I think revamping the auto industry needs to begin with getting rid of the fat cats at the head of the major companies and REALLY trimming the perks and enormous salaries and bonuses. Before Congress approves a single dime, there needs to be a comprehensive agreement with the auto industry of how the money is to be used. One of the CEOs said they’d closed factories to try and save money ~ ok, and who did THAT actually hurt? ~ the middle class workers who lost their jobs and their insurance. Those CEOs have done nothing to cut back and tighten their own belts. They just want more money that I’m sure they’ll miss manage and then they’ll be back for more. Those guys need to be fired by the American people before we allow our money to be squandered. One CNN commentator said it well when he said,”They’re holding their tin cups, saying, ‘Buddy, can you spare a billion?’ ” We need to put the best interests of the auto WORKERS in the forefront for a change.

Well…I don’t agree with the money loaned to banks. The banks used that money for other things such as buying other banks. The banks are still shrinking credit and not approving loans. The credit and loans are still shrinking.

Anybody who really believes that Pelosi and any other national politicians are going to hold the feet of the high-upper management of the auto industry to the fire prior to giving them absolutely disgusting amounts of your and my tax dollars, please contact me directly as I have a Golden Gate Bridge and a Verrazano-Narrows Bridge for you to buy… This is just the continuing saga of Pelosi flexing her “mandate” muscles. It’s total crap! Let the auto makers fail, buy them out, and put new management in that can make a workable model.

Pelosi wasn’t as strong in the conviction that these CEOs shouldn’t be allowed to continue to prosper on their failures as I wanted to hear. Still, I wish the AIG execs were held to the same kind of media scrutiny as the auto execs are. Why are all the CEOs of financial related industries getting a pass on their extravagances?

If it’s too big to fail, then it’s too big to exist. It can’t be capitalism if it isn’t supple enough for entrepreneurship and innovation. Let the auto industry go into Chapter 11 and reorganize. Taxpayers’ money shouldn’t be used for bail-outs; it should be invested in creating and perfecting new products and technologies! If they want the taxpayers’ money, then break them up into the smallest self-sustaining and competitive units possible. Set some short- and long-term goals. Short-term, figure out how to re-fit all currently operating and currently manufactured vehicles to turn them into hybrids—and get that done tout de suite. Long-term, make vehicles that use clean, sustainable, alternative energy from non-food sources. Other units can be retooled (and workers re-educated) for a new industries: the manufacture of hardware for alternative energy solutions, like wind turbines for every backyard and solar panels for every housetop. People are eager for change. Now is the time to go for it.

Pelosi is a two faced phony: She says, “…why should the taxpayer dollar be put up to bail out poor performance which is rewarded in the tens of millions?” Well then, why did she push the financial bailout? WHEN are these crooked “public servants” EVER going to be held accountable?

I am not a fan of these bailouts although I understand the first one was supposed to help invigorate borrowing which has yet to happen. Also I thought the CEO’s would be held accountable with much oversite. If you haven’t seen this one yet, The Onion expresses my feelings exactly…. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnX-D4kkPOQ

If I ruled the world……that song keeps going thru my head these days….I would have done a LOT of things differently…..I did not agree with the decision to bail out the banks, in the first place. I felt that Paulson approached the bail-out as a child approaches his mommy and daddy, telling then he wants something….”because”. In the grown-up world, a business plan, a PLAN, is step 1. There was no plan. The Automotive CEO’s had no plan either. TELL ME: How many of you entrepreneurs who got a loan from the bank to start your business, went to the bank and got a loan without FIRST submitting a Summary, and a Business Plan? Why should the Investment Banks et al, who REQUIRE your blood before lending money, have it any easier?