Another Auto Bailout Proposed

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- General Motors and Chrysler LLC asked the government Tuesday for $21.6 billion in additional loans, but the final cost of a bailout of the auto industry could be significantly higher.

The two struggling auto giants have already received a total of $17.4 billion in loans. If they get the new loans they want, the price tag of the bailout would climb to $39 billion.

What's more, $7.5 billion in loans have already been approved for the financing arms of GM and Chrysler. Congress also approved funding last year for $25 billion in loans to help automakers convert their plants to produce more fuel efficient cars.

Just what we need! Actually, we need to stage a peaceful coup d'etat.

Big 3 In ICU

The domestic automakers are in ‘Intensive Care’. The bailout medicine being injected as an IV drop by the outgoing Bush Administration is a $17 billion dollar placebo. As prescribed, it will neither cure the patients nor help the workers whose union is not cooperating.

While the excessively high labor, benefit and pension costs contracted over the years by the three automakers can be described as a virulent out of control virus, a more apt description is several bad cells that, over the years, mutated, multiplied, grew into bulbous tumors, and metastasized onto the bone of the businesses.

Neither President Bush nor President-elect Obama are willing to face all the facts. - Townhall.com

Read the rest here

582,000 Canadian Jobs At Stake

A whopping 582,000 direct and indirect jobs would be lost in Canada over the next five years if the ailing Big Three US auto makers shut down their Ontario operations, said a study Tuesday.

If output is reduced by 50 percent, 296,000 jobs would be lost nationally, said the 11-page report prepared for the Ontario Manufacturing Council.

"The economic consequences of either a partial or total shutdown of the Detroit Three are stark," said the report.

"Either scenario is sufficient to push Ontario into a deep recession while the nation may barely escape one in the 50-percent reduction scenario." - Breitbart.com

In Canada, there is a $2.8 billion dollar bailout plan on the table for the Big Three.

Funny Pic of the Day (12/11)