Sir;... I live in the wasteleand, though I never saw the side you came from... And I can tell you that what is wrong with big three is wrong with America, and it is old age and low wages...That company has done everything to modernize, but the Government was no help, so that many jobs went to Canada because their extravagant health care was spread, as it should be, across the whole society... I have worked in many auto plants, and as long ago as thirty five years ago they were working with robotics that bit by bit whittled away at their work force... Robbots don't run to the doctor, and the don't strike, and they don't ask for contracts and they don't retire; but they don't buy cars either... And now you can't go into a plant where robbots don't do the vast majority of the work... It is not that those people ask so much... It is that the downward pressure on wages has been relentless at the time where every pressure was exerted to water the stock, and reduce the work force... Where is the market??? Do they get so much insurance??? Not enough, like everyone else...But a fraction of people with health insurance pay all the bills not paid by a population without insurance... It is not their problem...Public health is a public problem, but so long as the rich demand higher profits, the price will be born by those who pay, and finally the government... Now, workers across the board have been robbed by the rich, and so has the government been robbed to support a growing public health emergancy... And this is nothing new... All kinds of wealth has been taken out of Appalachia, and when the wealth is gone, the representatives asks who will help the poor people of appalachia... Let those who stole their wealth help them... The wealth of this whole land has been stolen by the rich, and sure, the big three have made some poor choices... But to say this is all their fault is nonsense... This is part of a systemic problem, of a blown market, an aging workforce, low wages, and all our national wealth taken by the rich... The rich of general motors are no different than any others rich... They have all brought this problem to their door... What every one of them wants is to lower their own workers wages, and lay them off, and work the remaining ones all the harder... But when this happens across the board, no one benefits except the first one to do so...Now, the big three could use some better product... But they could also have less competion, between themselves, and from abroad... Competition is not the great blessing we are led to believe... It is usually used to reduce quality and labor, and the price of wages... It is workers who alway pay for it... We do not need new auto producers who have their choice of workers, who can shop for the right deal on taxes, who are not burdened with fair wages and working conditions...We need all companies to have the same impediments, and the same obligation to the society... If you really want to help, stop importing cars and exporting profit, and give the companies to the workers...You can afford them...You can't afford the rich who ride them... Thanks...Sweeney

Ah, yes, the vision thing. You flip alternately from outright hallucination (there goes "Sarah Delano Palin", practically ready to become the next messiah) to wild ravings (I was really yust yoking when I accused the liberal media of wanting to kill Palin's Down syndrome baby) to chump-of-the-year willingness to sell off the family jewels. ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Why don't just go and find some right-to-life approved doctor to chop out one of your kidneys and sell that off too while your at it, Barone? What do you think the United States of America is going to do without the capability of manufacturing its own automobile fleet? And what do you think all of the businesses that support auto manufacturing are supposed to do, take up flipping burgers? ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Do you really have so little faith in the U.S. that you think we can't make a decent car? True, we can't do it when a bunch of pot-bellied, martini-slinging, weekend yacht captains have commandeered the industry and are bent on sucking the juice out of it as they steadfastly refuse to consider selling a product that doesn't come with the admonition "buy second rate American--it's the patriotic thing to do." ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

But we can kick the bums out, give their right wing apologists (that would be you) a one way ticket to outtahere, and start doing what nobody can do as well as us: bring in creative, hard working managers who believe in making honest money, and give them the mandate to design and build machines that we can be proud of again. That would be the conservative and patriotic thing to do, but of course those two lost concepts are bound to get a blank stare from you and that gas-guzzling, guaranteed-to-break-down-in-the-first-year-of-purchase, hunk-of-junk political party you shill for. You all lost touch with the American way many trillions of national debt dollars ago.

Barone is an idiotic globalist hack.

Michael, for the most of you life goes on but my daughter has already lost her GM job and Ifear for my pension as a surviving spouse of a retired salary employee. I have already lost my health care benefits. You are underestimating the contribution GM makes to the US economy.
Give more thought to this issue.